“I won't be quiet, not for nobody,” Polly objected, with a bold disregard of double negatives. “I got to get a move. If you ain't goin' to help me, you needn't butt in.” “I am afraid I can't help you to go just yet,” Douglas replied. He was beginning to perceive that there were tasks before him other than the shaping of Polly's character. “What are you trying to do to me, anyhow?” she asked, as she shot a glance of suspicion from the pastor to Mandy. “What am I up against?” “Don't yuh be scared, honey,” Mandy reassured her. “You's jes' as safe here as you done been in de circus.” “Safer, we hope,” Douglas added, with a smile. “Are you two bug?” Polly questioned, as she turned her head from one side to the other and studied them with a new idea. “Well, you can't get none the best of me. I can get away all right, and I will, too.” She made a desperate effort to put one foot to the floor, but fell back with a cry of pain. “Dar, dar,” Mandy murmured, putting the pillow under the poor, cramped neck, and smoothing the tangled hair from Polly's forehead. “Yuh done hurt yo'sef for suah dis time.” The pastor had taken a step toward the bed. His look of amusement had changed to one of pity. “You see, Miss Polly, you have had a very bad fall, and you can't get away just yet, nor see your friends until you are better.” “It's only a scratch,” Polly whimpered. “I can do my work; I got to.” One more feeble effort and she succumbed, with a faint “Jimminy Crickets!” “Uncle Toby told me that you were a very good little girl,” Douglas said, as he drew up a chair and sat down by her side, confident by the expression on her face that at last he was master of the situation. “Do you think he would like you to behave like this?” “I sure am on the blink,” she sighed, as she settled back wearily upon the pillow. “You'll be all right soon,” Douglas answered, cheerily. “Mandy and I will help the time to go.” “I recollect now,” Polly faltered, without hearing him. “It was the last hoop. Jim seemed to have a hunch I was goin' to be in for trouble when I went into the ring. Bingo must a felt it, too. He kept a-pullin' and a-jerkin' from the start. I got myself together to make the last jump an'--I can't remember no more.” Her head drooped and her eyes closed. “I wouldn't try just now if I were you,” Douglas answered tenderly. “It's my WHEEL, ain't it?” Polly questioned, after a pause. “Yoah what, chile?” Mandy exclaimed, as she turned from the table, where she had been rolling up the unused bandages left from the doctor's call the night before. “I say it's my creeper, my paddle,” Polly explained, trying to locate a few of her many pains. “Gee, but that hurts!” She tried to bend her ankle. “Is it punctured?” “Only sprained,” Douglas answered, striving to control his amusement at the expression on Mandy's puzzled face. “Better not talk any more about it.”