Polly carried the bill to the girl. "My father and all of us are very much obliged to you," she said, "and we want you to take this."
Daniella retreated, shaking her head and putting her hands behind her. "I don't want it," she said. "I ain't done nothin' to earn it. 'Twa'n't no work nor nothin'."
"Oh, but," Polly argued, "when people lose things, they expect to give a reward to whoever finds them."
Daniella still shook her head. "I ain't done nothin'," she repeated. "Maw wouldn't like me to take money."
"But isn't there anything you would like? Your mother could buy it for you, you know."
Daniella looked at the red knitted jacket which Mary Lee wore. "I like that," she said, nodding her head toward it.
"Then you shall have one just like it," said Polly, heartily. "I will go right to work and knit it myself. Wouldn't you like a pair of shoes for winter? and can you read?"
"Maw kin. I kain't. I'd like the shoes when it snows, but I hates to put 'em on befo' that."
"Then you shall have a pair all ready for the first snow," Polly told her.
"I wish you would come to my home some day. Will you, if we come for you?" asked Mary Lee, with a missionary spirit of enlarging the girl's ideas.
"Oh, no, you wouldn't. I have three sisters and we don't live right in the town; it's like country. We have chickens and things."
"I've got some chickens," returned Daniella, "an' I've got a pig, too. Maw wouldn't let me go to town, I reckon, 'cause I ain't got clothes like you-uns. She ain't no time to make 'em. She too busy nussin' grandad. He right foolish-lak now, jest lak a baby."
"Well, we'll come some day to see if your mother will let you come to town," said Mary Lee.
"And I will bring you a red jacket like this." Polly put her hand on Mary Lee's arm. "Good-bye, Daniella. We shall not forget you."
Daniella smiled, but made no reply. She wondered if she would really ever have such a beautiful thing as that red jacket. About going to town she was not so keen, for she had never been there in all her short life, and, though she half longed to see its wonders, she feared to step beyond the confines of her own forest.
She watched the party ride off, but turned to run as Phil, who declared he must thank her personally, went toward her. Like a deer the girl fled, not stopping till she was safe in her own cabin-home. Her courage had stood all that one afternoon would allow.