Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/283

Rh "Perhaps she put it in just for fun," said Netty, as she pushed the little roll of paper tight down again into the stocking from which she had taken it. "I think that 's quite as likely. "

"Why, I don't see any fun in it," said Sarah.

"Nor I either," replied Netty; "but then things may seem funny in Provincetown which would n't anywhere else. It 's a real New England name, Matilda Bennet. I wonder how she looks. An old maid, I guess. I don't know why I think so."

"Well, if she did it for fun, as you say, it 's more likely to be a young girl," said Sarah. "A girl too young to think whether it were proper or not."

Early every Saturday morning clean clothes were given out in the hospital. All the convalescent men who were able came for their own; and the ward nurses came for what they needed for the men who were in bed. It was always an interesting day to Netty and Sarah. They liked to survey the faces of the men, and to watch their behavior as they received the clothes. It was pathetic to see the importance which the little incident assumed in the lives of some of them, the child-like pleasure they would show in an especially nice garment, the difficulty they would find in selecting a pocket-handkerchief. The stockings were Netty's especial department; and she had endless amusement on the subject of sizes.

"Never yet did I hand a man a pair of stockings," she said, "that he did n't look at them, turn them