And when the marching procession of orphans had distributed itself before long, backless benches, drawn up to long, narrow pine tables covered with torn, much-scrubbed white oilcloth, Eloise, coached in that ritual as well as in many others sacred in the institution, piped up with all the others, her voice as monotonous as theirs:
"Our heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this food and for all the other blessings Thou giveth us."
Sally Ford, keeping a watchful, pitying eye on her new charge, who was only nibbling at the unappetizing food, found herself looking upon the familiar scene with the eyes of the frightened little new orphan. It was a game that Sally Ford often played--imagining herself someone else, seeing familiar things through eyes which had never beheld them before.
Because Eloise was a "new girl," Sally was permitted to keep her at her side after the noon dinner. It was Sally who showed her all the buildings of the big orphanage, pointed out the boys' dormitories, separated from the girls' quarters by the big kitchen garden; showed her the bare schoolrooms, in which Sally herself had just completed the third year of high school. It was Sally who pridefully showed her the meagerly equipped gymnasium, the gift of a miraculously philanthropic session of the state legislature; it was Sally who conducted her through the many rooms devoted to hand crafts suited to girls--showing off a bit as she expertly manipulated a hand loom.
Eloise's hot little hand clung tightly to Sally's on the long trip of inspection of her new "home." But her cry, hopeless and monotonous now, even taking on a little of the institutional whine, was still the same heartbroken protest she had uttered upon her arrival in the dormitory: "I don't want to be an orphan! I don't want to be an orphan, Sal-lee!"
"It ain't--I mean, isn't--so bad," Sally comforted her. "Sometimes we have lots of fun. And Christmas is awf'ly nice. Every girl gets an orange and a little sack of candy and a present. And we have turkey for dinner, and ice cream."
"My mama gave me candy every day," Eloise whimpered. "Her men friends brung it to her--boxes and boxes of it, and flowers, too. God was mean to let her die, and make an orphan outa me!"