ELEVENTH HOUR FOLKS

New Zealand Tablet, 3 September 1908, Page 37

ELEVENTH HOUR FOLKS

' Edith Brayton wants Jo help in getting up the sale. She said' she belonged to a 'club that had a sale in the town she used to live in, and she says she'd like to help.' Polly pursed her mouth into a round something that looked more like a no than a yes, and her friend Louie regarded her curiously. ' You don't want her?' she exclaimed, ' I thought you'd be - pleased.' # ' There are six of us now, and that's enough,' said Polly. She had been the leader in the plan of" getting up a sale to help endow a bed in the children's hospital. ' Six is enough. She did not add that if the ciedit of the undertaking were divided up among seven girls there would be less for each one, but that thought was in her mind. Polly remembered very well the clay she changed her opinion. It was the afternoon when Rose -brought word that her cousin was not going to make the hand-painted ornaments for the fancy work table, and the other girls had similar discouraging reports to bring. Lucy Atwood, whose sister was to sing, announced that she had a Fore throat, and did not believe shl would be able, and Josephine Briggs declared that she nevw would dare to deliver the recitation she had learned especially for the occasion. It was only by accident that Edith Brayton dropped in a!" the home where the. six girls were meeting, and found Polly ~ in tears, and the others discussing giving up the undertaking. • 'Give it up,' cried, Edith. 'Oh, that would be a pity i Things always seem so much worse than they really turn out ~ you know.' "J ken she .stopped herself and blushed. 'I didn'* mean to interfere,' she said,"' only I remembered it was just thi, way .with the sale we got up in the town where I used to live ' Louie looked at Polly defiantly. ' I wish you'd come in a.nd help us, she said. • For you know something about it anl we don't.' 'Oh, won't you help us?' cried the other girls, all but Polly - x . And she said, falteringly,..' It's a shame to ask you now, when we ye made a fizzle of it ourselves. ' But Edith smiled at her brightly as she answered, • Of course " 111 help! But I don't believe it's going to be a fizzle ' And it wasn't. The way the seventh girl worked was an inspiration to the other six. Nothing discouraged her, for she would not be discouraged. . Her head was full of plans, which she knew would work because she had tried them. And when the sale came off. two weeks- later it netted quite a sum for the hospital. Edith was very modest about hec share in making it suecessfu. I don't .deserve; any credit,' she said, ' for I dida't come in till the eleventh hour.' 1 B , U \ P ° lly { ™ ss * Cred " With a squeeze ' of her ha "d: "Some*''" el venth-hour folks do more than those that have been at work" all the time, and as for the credit, i g uess there » s en hof that to go around. ' 8 " Polly as well as the- hospital babies had profited by the sale.