Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. Leerie Ruth Sawyer [Illustration: Leerie] LEERIE BY RUTH SAWYER AUTHOR OF SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN, ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY CLINTON BALMER "_And O! before you hurry by With ladder and with light, O Leerie, see a little child And nod to him to-night!_" GROSSET & DUNLAP NEW YORK PUBLISHERS Made in the United States of America LEERIE Copyright 1920, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America _To Lamplighters--the world over_ CONTENTS Chap. Page Foreword ix I. The Man Who Feared Sleep 3 II. Old King Cole 40 III. The Changeling 77 IV. For the Honor of the San 116 V. The Last of the Surgical 155 VI. Monsieur Satan 191 VII. The Lad Who Outsang the Stars 232 VIII. Into Her Own 269 Afterword 306 ILLUSTRATIONS Leerie _Frontispiece_ Holding him high for Peter to admire _Facing p._ 100 "The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad" " 216 "He will require more care, better dressing" " 302 Foreword I like to write stories. Best of all I like to write stories about people who help the world to go round with a little more cheer and good will than is usual. You know--and I know--there are a few who put into life something more than the bare ingredients. They add a plum here--extra spice there. They bake it well--and then they trim it up like an all-the-year-round birthday cake with white frosting, angelica, and red cherries. Last of all they add the candles and light them so that it glows warmly and invitingly for all; fine to see, sweet to taste. Of course, there are not so many people with the art or the will to do this, and, having done it, they have not always the bigness of heart to pass it round for the others to share. But I like to make it my business to find as many as I can; and when I am lucky enough to find one I pop him--or her--into a book, to have and to hold always as long as books last and memory keeps green. Not long ago I was ill--ridiculously ill--and my doctor popped me into a sanitarium. "Here's the place," I said, "where people are needed to make the world go round cheerfully, if they are needed anywhere." And so I set about to get well and find one.