Amos rushed Lydia down a side street and upon a street car. "Well! Well! Well!" he kept chuckling. "John ate 'em alive! Well! Well!" Then in the light of the car he looked at Lydia. "For heaven's sake! What are you crying for, child?" "I don't know," faltered Lydia. "I'm--glad for Mr. Levine--but poor Charlie Jackson! You don't suppose they'll hurt him?" "Oh, pshaw," replied Amos. "Nothing but an election night fight! The young Indian went into the parade just to start one." "How soon will the Indians have to get off the reservation?" asked Lydia. "Oh, in a year or so! John's got to get a bill through Congress, you know." "Oh." Lydia gave a great sigh of relief; a year or so was a very long time. She decided to forget the Indians' trouble and rejoice in Levine's triumph. It was a triumph that John himself took very quietly. He realized that he had ahead of him in Congress a long and heavy campaign. The forces against him were not going to lie down, defeated by his election. But after the fashion of American elections, there were no protests or quarrels afterward. The town settled immediately to its old routine and Levine was dropped from the front pages of the newspapers. Charlie Jackson was taciturn for a week or so, then he played brilliantly in the Thanksgiving football game and at the banquet which followed he was his old genial self. After Christmas Lydia began seriously to consider how she could earn the twenty-five dollars that her share in the camping trip would cost. Lizzie was aghast at the size of the sum and didn't approve of the idea of camping anyhow. Amos gave his consent to her going, feeling that it was quite safe; that Lydia never could earn the money. Lydia was dampened but not daunted. One (in January) Saturday afternoon, she went to call on Ma Norton. Ma was sitting in her bright kitchen sewing carpet rags. Ma's hair was beginning to turn gray but her plump cheeks were red and her gray eyes behind her spectacles were as clear as a girl's. "Who's going to chaperone you children?" she asked Lydia. "Miss Towne. The rest kicked, but I like her." "You use a good deal of unnecessary slang, my dear," said Ma. "Who of the boys and girls are going?" "Charlie and Kent and Olga and I. Margery's crazy to go, only her mother hasn't given in yet. If she does go, we'll ask Gustus Bach too." Ma Norton looked at Lydia searchingly. "I didn't know you had anything to do with Olga or with Margery either, now." "Goodness!" exclaimed Lydia, "this is Charlie's, party! None of 'em would go on my invitation. I--I don't quite see why, but I don't have chums like the rest." "I wouldn't let it worry me," said Ma. "You've never had time to lally-gag. That's the secret of it." Lydia turned this over in her mind thoughtfully for a moment and the older woman, looking up from her sewing caught on the young face the look of sadness that should not have been there.