"The more I know, the better I can help them to understand," she said to Wahneenah, who agreed and approved. The years sped quietly and rapidly by, as busy years always do. Some changes came to the little settlement of Chicago, but they were only few; until, one sunny day in spring, there reached the ears of the Sun Maid a sudden cry that seemed to turn all the months backward, as a scroll is rolled. Bending above her table, strewn with the Doctor's notes which she was copying, in the pleasant room of a big frame house that was one of the few new things of the town, she heard the call; dimly at first, as an out-of-door incident which did not concern herself. When it was repeated, she started visibly, and cried out: "I know that voice! That's Mercy Smith! There was never another just like it!" She sprang up and ran to answer, shouting in return: "Halloo! What is it?" "Help!" A few rods' run beyond the clump of trees that bordered the garden revealed the difficulty. A heavy wagon, loaded with bags of grain, was mired in the mud of the prairie road. A woman stood upright in the vehicle, lashing and scolding the oxen, which tried, but failed, to extricate the wheels from the clay that held them fast. "I'm coming! I'm Kitty! And, Mercy--is it really you?" "Well, if I ain't beat! You're Kitty, sure enough! But what a size!" "Yes. I'm a woman now, almost. How glad I am to see you! How's Abel? Where is he?" "Must be glad, if you'd let so many years go by without once comin' to visit me." "I didn't know that you'd be pleased to have me. I didn't treat you well, to leave you as I did. But where's Abel?" "Home. Trying to sell out. My land! How pretty you've growed! Only that white dress and hair a-streamin'; be you dressed for a party, child?" "Oh, no, indeed! I'll run and get something to help you out with, if you'll be patient." "Have to be, I reckon, since I'm stuck tight. No hurry. The oxen'll rest. I've heard about you, out home--how 't you'd found a rich minister to take you in an' eddicate you, an' your keepin' half-Indian still. Might have taught you to brush your hair, I 'low; an' from appearances you'd have done better to have stayed with me. You hain't growed up very sensible, have you?" The Sun Maid laughed, just as merrily and infectiously as when she had first crept for shelter into Mercy Smith's cabin. "Maybe not. I'm not the judge. I'll test my wisdom, though, by trying to help you out of that mud. I'll be back in a moment." She turned to run toward the house, but Mercy remonstrated: "You can't help in them fine clothes. Ain't there no men around?" "A few. Most of them are out of the village on a big hunting frolic. We'll manage without." "Humph! They'd better be huntin' Indians." The girl looked up anxiously. "Is there any trouble?" "Always trouble where the red-skins are." Kitty departed, and the settler's wife watched her with feelings of mingled admiration, anger, and astonishment.