Page 77 - Among the camps, or, Young people's stories of the war

whether In his old rattling brown buggy, with Slouch jog­
ging sleepily along the dusty roads which Middleburgh
called her " streets/’ or sitting1 in the shadiest corner of his
porch, Nancy Pansy was in her waking hours generally be’
side him, her great pansy-colored eyes and her sunny hair

making a bright contrast to the white locks and tanned
cheeks of the old (nan. His home was just across the fence
from the big house in which Nancy Pansy 1/ved, and there
was a hole where two palings were pulled off, through which
Nancy Pansy used to slip when she went back and forth,

and through which her little black companion, whose name,
according to Nancy Pansy’s dictionary, was “ Marphy,” just
could squeeze. Sometime?;, indeed, Nancy Pansy used to
fall asleep over at the old doctor’s on the warm summer
afternoons, and wake up next morning, curiously enough, to

find herself in a strange room, in a great big bed, with a rail-
ing around the top of the high bedposts, and curtains hang­
ing from it, and with Marphy asleep on a pallet near by.
“ That child is your shadow, doctor,” said Nancy Pansy’s
mother one day to him-

" No, m adam ; she is my sunshine,” answered the old
man, gravely.
Nancy Pansy's mother smiled, for when the old doctor
said a thing he meant it. All Middleburgh knew that, from
old Slouch, who never would open his eyes for any one else,

and old Mrs* Hippin, who never would admit she was better
to any one else, up to Nancy Pancy herself. Perhaps this