Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/281

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JOE HALE'S RED STOCKINGS.
271

beautiful socks, barring the color, which was a fiery yellow scarlet, but one remove from orange.

"Goodness!" exclaimed Sarah. "What lunatic ever knit those stockings? I don't believe a man in this ospital would put them on; do you?"

"No," said Netty. "It would n't be any use to offer them to them. I 'll put them at the bottom of the pile." As she slipped them under, she felt something in the toe of one. "Why, there is something in the toe," she said, and turned the stocking wrong side out. A small bit of pink paper, folded many times, fell to the floor. Netty picked it up and unfolded it. It was a half sheet of pink note paper, with a little stamped Cupid at top. In the middle of the sheet was written in a cramped but neat hand—

"Miss Matilda Bennet,
"Provincetown,
"Mass."

Netty exclaimed as she read this: "Why, how queer! Some girl 's put her name in here. What do you suppose she did that for?" and she read it aloud—

"Miss Matilda Bennet,
"Provincetown,
"Mass."

"What could she have done it for?" I wonder if she knit the stockings?"

"Perhaps she has a brother or lover in the war and does n't know where he may be, and thought