Wading! Barbara glanced around at the little boys, and at the rest of the troop which had filtered from the carriage-house. Were these the children that had come to her house several hours before—these unrecognizable _gamins_? The boys were the most torn; but even the girls seemed lost in dirt and disorder. Mrs. Enderby made her leisurely way up to Barbara, and began to fan her placidly. “They’re all here,” she said; “I’ve just counted the thirty-nine of ’em. And here comes the mothers again, so our labors are over.” Again the strange influx of parents and guardians, which had so puzzled Barbara before. Again the receding wave, carrying the pebbles back this time. Barbara was vaguely conscious of choruses of remarks singularly alike in character. “James Greenleaf, _where_ is your hat?”—“Robbie, you dirty boy, come here”—“Martha, how did you tear your apron so?” She realized that she was not being thanked as much as was her proper due. But all she wished to do on earth was to get to her own room to rest—not to think. It was not until next morning, however, that the final blow fell. A very relaxed Barbara sat at the head of the breakfast-table, and around its corner Jack was looking at her quizzically. “What beats me,” he said, “is why you should have been willing to do all that work in order that the mothers of the enlightened A. L. L. A. should be enabled to go almost in a body to see the opening of the new moving-picture theatre. Do you believe so heartily in the ‘culchah’ of those things?” “Jack!” cried Barbara, starting from her seat. “Jack, they _didn’t_ do that, did they?” “They sure did,” responded her cruel brother. “Nineteen maternal parents of the thirty-nine were visible to me from my seat in the back row. They had the time of their lives.” Barbara’s eyes filled with tears at this disappointment of her hopes. As she struggled hard to keep them back, she caught the glance of her father,—so apprehensive, so tender, and yet so amused, that, although the tears came from her eyes, laughter also sounded from her lips. “‘Here endeth the first lesson,’” she said. CHAPTER IX “WITHOUT” THE alarm-clock under Barbara’s pillow sent forth a muffled rattle, like a querulous old woman with tooth-ache, complaining from beneath her bandages. The girl turned over in bed and sighed. A moment later the town-clock struck six, with insistent note, and after a sympathetic delay of a minute more, the living-room clock below sounded its admonition. Sleepily and reluctantly Barbara drew forth the alarm-clock to make sure of the worst.