"It must have been Witless Sue," said Aunt Jessica, late that afternoon, when Elliott told her the story. "She is a half-witted old soul who wanders about digging herbs in summer and lives on the town farm in winter. There's no harm in her." "Half-witted!" said Elliott. "She knew more than I did." "You have not had the opportunity to learn." "That didn't make it any better for Johnny. Laura knows all those things, doesn't she? And Trudy, too?" "I think they know what to do in the simpler emergencies of life." "I wish I did. I took a first-aid course, but it didn't have stings in it, not as far as we'd gone when I came away. We were taught bandaging and using splints and things like that." "Very useful knowledge." "But Johnny got stung," said Elliott, as though nothing mattered beyond that fact. "Do you think you could teach me things, now and then, Aunt Jessica? the things Laura and Trudy know?" "Surely," said Aunt Jessica, "and very gladly. There are things that you could teach Laura and Trudy, too. Don't forget that entirely." "Could I? Useful things?" She asked the question with humility. "Very useful things in certain kinds of emergency. What did Mrs. Gordon do for Johnny when she got home?" "Oh, she washed his hand and soaked it in strong soda and water, baking-soda, and then she bound some soda right on, for good measure, she said." "There!" said Aunt Jessica. "Now you know two things to do for a bee sting." Elliott opened her eyes wide. "Why, so I do, don't I? I truly do." "That's the way people learn," said Mother Jess, "by emergencies. It is the only way they are sure to remember. Laura is helping Henry milk. Suppose you make us some biscuit for supper, Elliott." Elliott started to say, "I've never made biscuit," but shut her lips tight before the words slipped out. "I will tell you the rule. You'd better double it for our family. Everything is plainly marked in the pantry. Perhaps the fire needs another stick before you begin." Carefully the girl selected a stick from the wood-box. "Just let me get my apron, Aunt Jessica," she said. CHAPTER IX ELLIOTT ACTS ON AN IDEA Six weeks later a girl was busy in the sunny white kitchen of the Cameron farm. The girl wore a big blue apron that covered her gown completely from neck to hem, and she hummed a little song as she moved from sink to range and range to table. There was about her a delicate air of importance, almost of elation. You know as well as I where Elliott Cameron ought to have been by this time. Six weeks plus how many other weeks was it since she left home? The quarantine must have been lifted from her Uncle James's house for at least a month. But the girl in the kitchen looked surprisingly like Elliott Cameron. If it wasn't she, it must have been her twin, and I have never heard that Elliott had a twin.