"Blue dresses and pink dresses and shiny dresses cost a lot of money, Teddy, and I shouldn't have any money left for Thrift Stamps." Thrift stamps were a language understood by Teddy, as he would not have understood the larger transactions of Liberty Bonds. He and the General held long conversations as to the best means of obtaining a large supply of stamps, and the General having listened to Margaret who wanted the boy to work for his offering, suggested an entrancing plan. Teddy was to feed the fishes in the dining-room aquarium, he was to feed Muffin, and he was to feed Polly Ann. It sounded simple, but there were difficulties. In the first place he had to face Cook, and Cook hated to have children in the kitchen. "But you'd have to face more than that if you were grown up and in the trenches. And Hodgson is really very kind." "Well, she doesn't look kind, Mother." "Why not?" "Well, she doesn't smile, and her face is wed." "Red, dear." "Ur-ed--. And when I ask her for milk for Polly, she says 'Milk for cats,' and when she gets it out, she slams the 'frigerator door." "Refrigerator, dear." "Rif-iggerator." But in the main Teddy went to his task valiantly. He conserved bones for Muffin and left-over corn-meal cakes. Polly Ann dined rather monotonously on fish boiled with war-bread crusts, on the back of Cook's big range. Hodgson was conscientious and salted it and cooled it, and kept it in a little covered granite pail, and it was from this pail that Teddy ladled stew into Polly Ann's blue saucer. "Mother says it is very good of you, Hodgson, to take so much trouble." Hodgson, whose face was redder than ever, as she broiled mushrooms for lunch, grunted, "I'd rather do it than have other people messin' around." Teddy surveyed her anxiously. "You don't mind having me here, do you, Hodgson?" His cheeks were rosy, his bronze hair bright, his sturdy legs planted a trifle apart, Polly's dish in one hand, the big spoon in the other. "No, I don't mind," she admitted, but it was some time before she acknowledged even to herself how glad she was when that bright figure appeared. Feeding the fishes presented few problems, and gradually thrift stamps filled the little book, and there was a war stamp, and more thrift stamps and more war stamps, and Muffin and Polly Ann waxed fat and friendly, and were a very lion and lamb for lying down together. Then there came a day when Teddy, feeding the fishes in the aquarium, heard somebody say that Hodgson's son was in the war. He went at once to the kitchen. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked the cook, standing in front of her where she sat cutting chives and peppers and celery on a little board for salad. "Tell you what?" "That your boy was in Fwance." Hodgson's red face grew redder, and to Teddy's consternation, a tear ran down her cheek. He stood staring at her, then flew upstairs to his mother. "Cook's cryin'." "Teddy--" "She is. Because her son is in Fwance."