In the midst of her cookie Philena paused to remark, “Thurley, do you think my being lame will make any difference—you’re so straight and strong—” Thurley finished her cookie, while she thought up her defense. Spying tears in Philena’s eyes she went over to fling her arms about the crooked back and declare, “Philena Pilrig, you’ll be armed with your crutch—like a soldier with a gun. You’ll really be better to go as a missionary than folks that haven’t crutches,” clapping her hands in delight at the rainbow smile. “But nobody ever thinks much of cripples—Oyster Jim fought in the Civil War, and, when he came back lame, nobody married him and he started in having a store—they say he wanted to be a lawyer.” “Then he should have been a lawyer just the same. Wait, Philena, I guess God wants to say something—ssh!” Her eyes were like stars, and she warded off Philena’s outstretched arm as if afraid mortal touch might dim the celestial message. “Oh, lots of times,” she added a moment later, “God does tell me things—queer things. Sometimes they rhyme like poems in books and sometimes they’re cross—’cause some one has to scold little girls and Pa and Ma never said anything to me—so God had to scold me, and now He’s telling me something to comfort you, Philena. What do you think it is?” “Oh, you scare me most—talking like a book—God never tells folks things, except what He wrote down in the Bible—whisper it, Thurley—” “He says, ‘Tell Philena that cripples can be conquerors,’” sang Thurley in a clear monotone, “cripples can be conquerors—there—I guess you’ll be as good a missionary as ever lived.” Philena repeated it in an awed tone. “That’s beautiful—now I don’t care about my crutch ... but how can you tell for sure it’s God talking?” Thurley’s eyes were like sapphires in the sun. “Something taps at my heart and I know I’m going to have a wonderful something told me—or a terrible scolding—and then whatever it is God wants to say is just _sung_ into my head and I know—I do know, Philena, I am right.” “I wouldn’t tell any one, if I was you,” Philena suggested enviously. “No, there’s as much about children that grownups don’t understand, as there is about grownups we don’t understand,” Thurley said sagely. “But you can always remember that God said that straight to me—‘cripples can be conquerors’—just like He told me at Midland City, Illinois, ‘You let me catch you cutting off your hair and trying to run away and I’ll stop your singing mighty quick!’ See, Philena?” “Isn’t it funny?” Thurley told her father that night, “I’m to belong to the gang and play robbers and Indians, and I’m to be a missionary with Philena, and there must be different halves of me, and Dan has seen one half and thinks it is a whole, and so has Philena. I wonder what I’d do if the gang met the same day I’d promised to play missionary?” A cough answered her. “Is there any more rum?” he fretted.