I craned my head. Somehow I could hardly wait to see what kind of knitting she would take out--whether it was a man's stocking or a baby's mitten or a pair of wee socks, or a stripe to sew in an afghan to put over somebody's bed. What stories could be written about the things dear old ladies knit--what stories they are, really! In every ball of yarn there is a thread that leads from one heart to another: to some big son or fragile daughter, or to the owner of a pair of pink toes that won't stay covered no matter how close the crib--or to a chubby-faced boy with frost-tipped ears or cheeks. First came the ball of yarn--just plain gray yarn--and then two steel needles, and then---- Then the Dear Old Lady stopped, and an expression of blank amazement overspread her sweet face as her fingers searched the interior of the bag. "Why," she said to herself, "why! Well! You don't tell me that--well! I never knew that to happen before. Oh, isn't that dreadful! Well, I _never_!" Here she drew out an unfinished gray yarn stocking. "Just look at it! Isn't it awful!" The Woman in Brown sprang to her feet and switched her dress close to her knees. "What is it?" she cried. "Jam!" answered the old lady. "Jam! You don't mean to say----" "That's just what it is. Blackberry jam, that my Lizzie put up for John just before I left home and--oh, isn't it too bad! It's streaming all over the seat and running down on the floor! Oh my! my!" The Woman in Brown gave a bound and was out in the aisle. "Well, I should think," she cried indignantly, "that you'd had sense enough to know better than to carry jam in a thing like that. I ain't got none on me, hev I?" The Dear Old Lady didn't reply. She was too much absorbed in her own misfortunes to notice her companions. "I told Lizzie," she continued, "just 'fore I left, that she oughter put it in a basket, but she 'lowed that it had a tin cap and was screwed tight, and that she'd stuff it down in my clothes and it would carry all right. I ain't never left it out of my hand but once, and then I give it to the man who helped me up the steps. He must have set it down sudden like." As she spoke she drew out from the inside of the bag certain articles of apparel which she laid on the seat. One--evidently a neck handkerchief--looked like a towel that had just wiped off the face of a boy who had swallowed the contents of the jar. The Woman in Brown was in the aisle now examining her skirts, twisting them round and round in search of stray bits of jam. The Dear Old Lady was still at work in her bag, her back shielding its smeared contents. Trickling down upon the floor and puddling in the aisle and under the seats on the opposite side of the car ran a sticky fluid that the woman avoided stepping upon with as much care as if it had been a snake.