Who's Sorry Now? by Jill Churchill

think we're supposed to do that," Mr. Prinney said. "The letter from your great-uncle doesn't specifically mention such a thing."
    “I thought you'd say that," Robert said with a hint of self-pity.
    “Let's divvy up the money and Mr. Prinney can put it in the safe," Lily said. "I want to see what else Dr. Toller has found under the other bush."
    “You're letting yourself in for a lot more work helping him," Robert warned.
    “I know. But I find this skeleton business interesting. I might spend some of my money taking some classes about anthropology."
    “God forgive. You can't mean that you're going to be dragging bones in here for your homework, can you?"
    “I just might," Lily said, handing her share of the tens to Mr. Prinney.
    To prove it, Lily went outside to see what Dr. Toller was doing today. The second bush had been turned over and apparently inspected for anything interesting.
    Anything in the roots of the bush, sir?" she asked.
    “Not a thing," Dr. Toller said. "I'm up to the pelvis of the body but can't go on until I've dug down to the legs and feet. Would you like to help?"
    “I'm a little afraid of digging into something I shouldn't. But I'll sift and dispose of dirt you take out if you'd like."
    “That would indeed be a help. I was hoping those two nice young Harbinger boys would be back today to help out again."
    “Harry probably will be here eventually but Jim isn't especially interested, I'm sorry to say. Harry found this as fascinating as I do," Lily said, not at all sure this was the complete truth. Harry was the smarter of the two and if decisions about a roof were required, he was the one who needed to be there to decide how it was to be done properly.
    Dr. Toller had accumulated a lot of buckets to wash off the bones and others to put the dirt in. Then the dirt would be returned to the holes in the ground after the sifting. Each time he excavated a bucket full of soil, he'd pass it up to her to put on the pile that was rapidly building up.
    Pretty soon she could see the skeleton's upper legs start to appear, then the knees. "Does this tell you anything?"
    “Just that she did a lot of things squatting. Probably grinding corn on a stone, or making the balls of clay that the beads were made of. Young as she is, there seem to be slight signs of rickets as well."
    “What are rickets?" Lily asked.
    “It's a little complicated. You need calcium to grow good bones, but it's impossible to do so without vitamin D."
    “How do you get vitamin D?"
    “From sunshine mostly," Dr. Toller said. "She may have grown up in a cave."
    “Wouldn't there have been a fire in the cave?" Lily asked.
    “Probably. But a wood fire doesn't provide enough natural light, or none at all, I suppose.”
    As he was still uncovering the legs of the skeleton Lily made up an excuse to go help Mrs. Prinney with something she was preparing for dinner.
    An hour later, Dr. Toller came in and asked Mimi where Miss Brewster was. "I have something important to show her.”
    Mimi delivered the message to Lily, who was in her bedroom, reading a book with Agatha lying at the bottom of her bed.
    She ran downstairs, Agatha so excited that something interesting might be happening that she was right on Lily's heels.
    Dr. Toller was deep in the hole. "Look at her feet.”
    Lily squatted down to look. The skeleton was wearing pretty moccasins, entirely intact. Dr. Toller had carefully removed them and washed them off. They had tiny, pretty beads all over the front.
    “How on earth did those survive?" she asked. "Beeswax, most likely. I can't think of anything else that would have so thoroughly impregnated the leather well enough to preserve them so perfectly. I also have unearthed the pelvis."
    “What are you going to do with the skeleton now that you have the whole thing?"
    “I owe it to the pathologist to send it to him. We've agreed that once he's gone over it, it will go into a museum. Someday, someone will figure out how to date old