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 things, and mean things, and maybe things you didn’t deserve at all happened to you. Now, why ain’t that just the same as if something that was wonderful and lovely happened to you? Why couldn’t a beautiful thing happen to you just as well as a bad thing? Why couldn’t gettin’ an acre of land with beehives and flowers, happen to you just as well as gettin’ a rip-snorter that nearly tore your heart out? Laugh that off, will you?”

“Well,” said Jamie, “come to think of it, I have heard of the law of compensation. The law of compensation means that when things have gone about as far as they can go in one direction, sometimes they turn around and go equally far in the other direction.”

“Sure!” said the small person. “That’s the dope! That’s the way to look at it! Don’t sit there and talk about not understanding things and not being worth things. Course you’re worth ’em, or you wouldn’t have got ’em! All your life there’s been something in you, and I expect it was born in you just like it was born in our baby. Ever since they brought him home from the hospital you can see there’s things about him that’s like Dad, and you can see things about him that’s like Mother, and I hope to goodness there’ll be one thing about him that’ll be like me! When I went on a boat past the cave in the rock where, if you look through, you can see the light, Molly said, when I saw the light, if I’d wish for the thing I wanted most in the world, it would come true. So I made a wish and Molly wanted to know what I wished, and I wasn’t goin’ to tell her. I like Molly, but everything