"Here are your shoes. Im greatful but this is the rong seesun for them. By summer they will be to small as they aint very big now. Ive got over wanting tenis shoes anyhow. The muny you owe us would have come in handier. Peace Greenfield."
"Here are your shoes. Im greatful but this is the rong seesun for them. By summer they will be to small as they aint very big now. Ive got over wanting tenis shoes anyhow. The muny you owe us would have come in handier. Peace Greenfield."
He tucked the note in his pocket, dropped the shoes on the kitchen mantle, and went chuckling about his morning work. Hardly had he finished his numerous tasks, when he was surprised to see Peace coming slowly up the path, with eyes down-cast and face an uncomfortable red. She knocked lightly, as if hoping no one would hear, and looked disappointed when he opened the door.
"Merry Christmas, Peace. Come in, come right in," he said cordially, his eyes gleaming with, amusement. "What can I do for you this morning?"
"Give me back the shoes I left on your porch," she answered, in tones so low he could hardly hear. "Gail said I must come over and get them and ipologize for being so rude. She says it is very rude to return Christmas presents like that. If you meant them for a present, why, that's different; but I thought likely it was our pay for picking strawberries last summer. Now, which was it, a present or our pay?" The old, independent, confident spirit asserted itself once more in the little breast, and Peace raised her eyes to his with disconcerting frankness.
"Well, well," stammered the man, hardly knowing what to say. "Suppose they are a Christmas present, will you accept and wear 'em?"
"When it comes summer time, if I haven't outgrown them. My feet are getting big fast."
"But if they are in pay for the strawberry picking, you won't take them? Is that it?"
"I s'pose I will have to take them after Gail's lecture," Peace sighed dismally, "but I'll never put 'em on—never!"
Delighted with her candor and rebel spirit, he said, after a brief pause, "Well, now, I mean them for a Christmas present, Peace, and I'd like mighty well for you to wear them. If they are too small, come next summer, I will get them changed for you. Will you take them?"
"Y—e—s."
"And be friends?"
Peace hesitated. "Friends are square with each other, ain't they?"
"I reckon they are."
"Then I don't see how we can be friends," she said firmly.
"Why not?" His face was blank with surprise; and his wife, who had been a silent spectator of the scene, laughed outright.
"'Cause you owe us a dollar and a half for picking strawberries last summer, and if you don't pay it, you ain't square with us, are you?"
"Well, I swan!" he mumbled. Then he, too, laughed, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, drew out a handful of silver. "Here are six silver quarters, a dollar and fifty cents. That settles our account, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"And I've treated you on the square?"
"Yes."
"And you will come sit on my lap?"
"I don't s'pose it will do any hurt," she answered grudgingly, for she had not yet adjusted herself to this new friendship with her one-time enemy, but she went to him slowly and permitted to lift her to his knee.
"There, now," he said, settling her comfortably. "That's more like it! Now that I have settled my account with you, tell me what you are going to do about the money you owe me?"
"Dave!" interposed little Mrs. Hartman, but he laughingly waved her aside.
"What money that I owe you?" gasped poor Peace, the rosy color dying from her face.
"Didn't you dump twenty boxes of my strawberries into the chicken yard last summer?"
"Y—e—s."
"Those berries sold for twenty cents a box. Twenty times twenty is four dollars. You spoiled four dollars' worth of berries, Peace Greenfield. Are you being square with me?"
The child sat dumb with despair, and seeing the tragedy in the great, brown eyes, Mrs. Hartman again said, remonstratingly, "Dave!"
"Hush, Myra Ann," he commanded. "This is between Peace and me. If we are to be friends, we must be square with each other, you know."
There was a desperate struggle, and then Peace laid the shining quarters back in his hand, saying bravely, "Here's my first payment. I haven't the rest now, but if you will wait until I earn it, I'll pay it all back. I will have Hope figure up just how much I owe you, so's I will know for sure. Can you wait? Maybe you will let me pick strawberries next summer until I get it paid up. Will you? 'Cause what money I get this winter I'd like to give to Gail for a coat. She has to wear Faith's jacket now whenever she goes anywhere, and, of course, two people can't wear one coat at the same time."
"No, they can't," he answered soberly, with a suspicion of a tremble in his voice. "Is that what you meant to do with this money?"
"Yes. Gail got a dollar for Christmas, and I thought this would 'most make enough to buy a good coat for her. She needs one dreadfully."
Mr. Hartman slipped the money into the grimy fist again, cleared his throat and then said, "Now, I've got a plan. You keep this dollar and fifty cents for your work last summer, and when the strawberries are ripe again, we'll see about your picking some more to pay for the spoiled ones. Is that all right?"
"Yes," cried Peace, giving a delighted little jump. "You aren't near bad, are you?"
"I hope not," he replied with a queer laugh. "Can you give me a kiss, do you suppose?"
"If you will skin me a rabbit," she answered promptly.
"If I'll what?" he yelled in amazement, almost dropping her from his lap.
"Skin me a rabbit. Winkum and Blinkum are starving to death—Faith says so—and they really don't seem as fat as when Bryan gave them to me; so if we can save them by eating them up, we better do it. Don't you think so?"
"Well, now, that might be a good idea," he answered slowly, for he regarded rabbits as a nuisance, and was not anxious to see any such pests in his neighborhood. "Stewed rabbit makes a pretty good dish, too."
"That's what I had heard. Will you skin them for me?"
"Yep, any time you say so."
"All right, I'll get them now and we will have them for dinner."
She was off like a flash before he could say another word, returning almost immediately with the squirming rabbits in her apron, and he dressed them carefully. By the time the long process was finished her face was very sober, and she offered no objections when he claimed two kisses instead of one as his reward, but gathering up the hapless bunnies, she departed for home.
"Here's our Christmas dinner, Gail," she announced, dumping her burden onto the cluttered kitchen table. "I wish it had been chicken, but Mr. Hartman says stewed rabbit is real good."
"Where did you get these?" demanded Gail, surmising the truth.
"They are Winkum and Blinkum. Mr. Hartman undressed them for me. I got my shoes back, and here's the strawberry money for your new coat, Gail." As clearly as possible she made her explanations, and went away to put up the tennis slippers, leaving dismayed Gail to face the unique situation.
"What can I do?" she cried, almost in tears.
"Get yourself a new coat, if you can find one for the price," answered Faith, listlessly scrubbing a panful of turnips for dinner.
"I don't mean the coat. I had scarcely thought of the money. I mean the rabbits."
"Cook them! People eat rabbits."
"But these were pets."
"They are dead now. You might as well use them as to throw them away. We have no turkey or chicken for dinner."
Gail shivered, but obediently cut up the rabbits and put them on the stove to cook, mentally resolving not to eat a bite of them herself.
The morning hours flew rapidly by, the dinner was done at last, and the hungry girls were scrambling into their chairs when Faith cried sharply, "Hope, you have set seven plates!"
Instinctively each heart thought of the absent member, gone from them since the last Christmas Day, and Gail reached over to remove the extra dishes, when Hope stopped her by saying, "Teacher read us a beautiful poem of how some people always set a place for the Christ Child on His birthday, hoping that He would come in person to celebrate the day with them, and I thought it was such a pretty idea that—I—I—"
"Yes, dear," said Gail gently. "We will leave the extra plate there."
"It does seem queer, doesn't it, that we have big dinners on Christmas Day 'cause it is Christ's birthday, and then we never give Him a dish," observed Peace, passing her plate for a helping.
"Did the Christ Child come?" asked Allee eagerly. "In the story, I mean."
"Not in the way they looked for Him," answered Hope. "But a little beggar child came. Some of the family were going to send it out into the kitchen to eat with the servants, but one little boy insisted that it should have the empty chair they had set for the Christ Child. So the ragged beggar was pushed up to the table and fed all he wanted. When the dinner was over, a great shining light filled the room and Christ appeared to tell them that in feeding the little beggar they had entertained Him. It was all written out in rhyme and wassopretty. What is the matter, Gail? You aren't eating anything."
The other sisters paused to look at the older girl's plate, and Gail's sensitive face flushed crimson, but before she could offer any explanation, Peace abruptly dropped her knife and fork, pushed her dishes from her, and burst into tears.
"Why, what ails you, child?" cried Faith, who herself had scarcely touched the dinner before her.
"I can't be acarnivaland eat my bunnies," sobbed Peace. "I'd as soon have a slab of kitten."
"That's just the way I feel," said Cherry, and no one laughed at Peace's rendering ofcannibal.
In the midst of this scene there was a knock at the kitchen door, but before anyone could answer, Mrs. Grinnell rustled in, bearing in her arms a huge platter of roast turkey, which she set down upon the table with the remark, "It was that lonesome at home I just couldn't eat my dinner all by myself, so I brought it over to see if you didn't want me for company."
"You aren't a ragged beggar," Peace spoke up through her tears, before the others had recovered from their surprise; "but I guess you'll do. You can have the chair we set for Jesus."
Gail explained, while the platter of stewed rabbit was being removed, and once more dinner was begun. The turkey was done to a turn, the dressing was flavored just right and filled with walnuts and oysters, the vegetables had never tasted better, the biscuits were as light as a feather, Mrs. Strong's cranberry sauce had jelled perfectly, and the Hartman mince-pie was a miracle of pastry. The seven diners did the meal full justice, and when at last the appetites were satisfied, the table looked as if a foraging party had descended upon it.
"That was quite a dinner," remarked Peace, as she pushed her chair back from the table. "If I had just known it was going to happen, Mr. Hartman needn't have skinned the rabbits. There is a whole platter full of Winkum and Blinkum left, and it's all wasted. Mercy me, what a shame!"
She went out into the kitchen and surveyed the rejected delicacy with mournful eyes. Then a new idea occurred to her, and, with no thought of irreverence, she murmured to herself, "I don't believe the Christ Child would have cared whether He had turkey or rabbit for dinner. I'm going over and get thatpassleof half-starved German kids to eat this up."
Throwing Gail's faded shawl over her head, she ran across the snowy fields to the old tumble-down house on the next road, where the new family lived. The children were at play in the yard—seven in all, and none of them larger than Hope—but at sight of her they came forward hand in hand, jabbering such queer gibberish that Peace could not understand a word.
"Come over to my house and have some dinner," she invited them, but not one of them moved a step. "We've got a whole platter of stewed rabbit," she urged, but they only stared uncomprehendingly. "Perhaps you have had your dinner. Are you hungry?"
"Hungry," suddenly said the oldest boy, putting one hand to his mouth and the other on his stomach. "Ja, sehr hungrig."
Peace was delighted with the pantomime method of making herself understood, and imitating his motions, she pointed to the little brown house and beckoned.
"Ja, ja," cried the chorus of seven, their faces beaming with pleasure, "wir kommen." And they quickly followed her across the snow to the kitchen door.
"Gail, I have brought the Christ Child," she announced, as she ushered the ragged, hungry brood into the house. "I thought it was a pity to waste all that salt and pepper you used in fixing up Winkum and Blinkum, so I invited these ragged beggars over to eat it up."
Mrs. Grinnell gasped her surprise and consternation. Faith exclaimed angrily, "Peace Greenfield!" But Gail, with never a chiding word, sprang to the table and began clearing away the soiled dishes, while Hope ran for clean plates; and in short order the seven little towheads were hovering around the platter of stewed rabbit and creamed potatoes, revelling in a feast such as they had never known before; nor did they stop eating until every scrap of food had vanished. Then they rose, bowing and smiling, and trying in their own tongue to thank their hostesses for the grand dinner.
Peace was captivated with their quaint manners and reverent attitude, and when they had backed out of the door, she went with them to the gate, kissing her hand to them as they disappeared down the road, still calling over their shoulders, "Du bist das Christkind!"
"I don't know what they are saying," she murmured, "but it makes me feel like flapping my wings and crowing." She leaped to her tall gatepost to give vent to her jubilant feelings, but tumbled quickly to the ground again without stopping to crow. "Abigail Greenfield!" she shouted, racing for the house. "See what was on the gatepost,—a nenvelope with money in it, and on the outside it says, 'Christmas greetings to the Six Sisters.' Now will you believe someone lost it? It ain't Mr. Strong's writing, though. Maybe the Christ Child brought it. Oh, Gail, do you s'pose He did?"
"Do you know where Faith is?" asked Gail one Saturday morning in early spring, finding Hope busy at making the beds, which was the older sister's work.
"She discovered a heap of old magazines somewhere about the place and is in the barn reading. Says her head aches too hard to work today," answered Hope, with an anxious pucker in her usually serene forehead.
"I don't know what to do with that girl," sighed Gail, as she adjusted her dustcap and picked up a broom. Her face looked so worried, and her voice sounded so discouraged that Hope paused in her task of plumping up the pillows to ask in alarm, "Do you think she is any worse than usual?"
"She gets worse every day," answered Gail, somewhat sharply, and two tears rolled slowly down her pale cheeks.
"Oh, dearie, don't cry," coaxed Hope, dropping her pillows and throwing her arms about the heaving shoulders. "It will be better pretty soon. I'll do all of Faith's work. I only wish I were older."
Peace waited to hear no more. She had gone upstairs for a clean apron before setting out for town with a basket of eggs and, unknown to the two sisters in the room across the hall, had heard all they said.
"I didn't s'pose Faith was sick," she whispered with white lips as she flew down the path to the gate, swinging the heavy basket dangerously near the ground in her heedlessness. "I thought she was just lazy. She never does anything but mope around the house and read or play the organ, but I thought it was 'cause she didn't want to. S'posing she should die! Then we'd have three angels. Oh, dear, I don't see why one family should have so many! I wonder if there isn't something that will cure her. Gail hasn't called the doctor yet. I am going to ask him myself!"
She slipped through the gate and sped up the road toward town, still musing over this new trouble, and so completely wrapped up in her thoughts that she did not even see her beloved Mr. Strong until he called to her, "Why, hello, Peace! Are you coming over to see our baby today! Elizabeth, will be glad to have you."
Her face lighted up at sight of her friend, but she shook her head at his invitation, and soberly replied, as she hurried on, "I'd like to, but I can't this time. I must take these eggs to the doctor's house. Some other day I'll come and play with Baby Glen."
Not to stop to discuss the welfare of the precious new baby at the parsonage was very strange for Peace, for she loved the beautiful boy as much as she did his parents, and was always eager to hear of his latest tricks, no matter how pressed for time she might be. But today she was too worried to think of even little Glen.
Breathlessly she climbed the steps to Dr. Bainbridge's big house, just as the busy physician appeared in the doorway ready for his round of calls, and in her eagerness to stop him before he should climb into the waiting carriage, she quickened her pace to a run, tripped on the door mat, and tumbled headlong, eggs and all, into a drift of half-melted snow in the corner of the porch, announcing in tragic tones, "Dr. Eggs, I have brought you some Bainbridge, and here they are all spilled in the snow. It's lucky you aren't a very neat man, for if you had cleared off your porches the way you ought to, these eggs would likely have been everyone smashed. As 'tis, there is only one broken, and one more cracked. I'll bring another—"
"Are you hurt?" the doctor managed to stutter in an almost inaudible voice, so overcome with surprise was he at the avalanche of eggs and explanation.
"No, and only two of the eggs are, either—Oh, don't go yet!" She scrambled hastily to her feet and laid a trembling, detaining hand on his coat sleeve, as she demanded in a shaky voice, "Is Faith real bad, do you think?"
"If people had more faith—" he began jestingly; then stopped, seeing the real anxiety in the serious brown eyes, and asked gently, "What is troubling you, child?"
"Faith, as usual. What is the matter with her? Gail cried about her this morning, and Hope said maybe she would get better pretty soon. They didn't know I heard. Is she real sick? I thought she didn't do any work 'cause she was lazy—I mean 'cause she didn't want to. I didn't know she was sick. What d'sease has she got?"
"Well, as near as I can make out," answered the doctor gravely, "she has a case of acute imagination. She thinks she is mourning, but she is too selfishly wrapped up in her own grief to see the sorrow of others. She has stepped out from under the burden of the home and let its full weight fall upon shoulders too slender to bear it. The sun doesn't shine for her any more, the birds don't sing, the flowers have lost their fragrance. What she needs is a good dose of common sense, but we don't seem to be able to administer it. If only we could put a cannon cracker under her chair, maybe it would rouse her. Oh, I was just speaking figuratively; I didn't mean the real article," he hastened to assure his small audience, as a gasp of horror escaped her.
The doctor had waxed eloquent in his diagnosis of the case, and though Peace failed to understand half that he said, the grave, almost harsh look about his mouth and eyes struck terror to her heart, and she faintly faltered, "Is—do you think Faith will be an angel soon?"
He looked at her in amazement. "No!" he thundered, and she shivered at his tone. "It will take ages to make an angel of Faith if she keeps on in the way she is going. Gail is the angel if ever there was one, and Hope's wings have sprouted, too—"
"Oh," moaned Peace, with wide, terrified eyes, "I don't want Gail and Hope to be angels! We need them here! We could spare Faith easier than them. Oh, Dr. Bainbridge, ain't two angels enough for one family?"
The kindly old doctor suddenly understood, and patting the little hood, covered with bits of eggshell and particles of ice, he said remorsefully, "There, there, honey, I didn't mean that kind of angels! I mean just dear, good, blessed girls, such as make the world better for having been in it. There is no danger of their flying away to the other land just yet, my child; though goodness only knows what will become of Gail if Faith isn't waked up soon. I must go call on my sick folks now, little girl. I'd drive you home if I were going that way, but I am due this very minute at the opposite end of town. Don't you fret, but be an awfully good girl yourself and help Gail all you can. When Faith comes to her senses and goes to work at something, she will be all right."
They parted, and Peace slowly wended her way home again, somewhat relieved, and yet considerably alarmed over the doctor's words. Down to the barn she wandered, and up the rickety ladder she climbed into the cobwebby loft. A figure moved impatiently at the far end of the loose boards, and as Peace's eyes became accustomed to the dim light, she saw it was Faith, curled up among a lot of ragged papers and coverless magazines, musty and yellow with age.
"What are you ba—crying about!" asked Peace in awed tones, as the other girl sniffed suspiciously and then wiped her eyes, already red with weeping. She expected to be told to mind her business, but contrary to her expectations, Faith answered:
"This is thesaddeststory,—all about a girl who loved one man and had to marry another."
Peace's nose curled scornfully, and she said, with great contempt, "I don't see any use in bawl—crying about that. Those story people never lived. Real folks have more sense."
But Faith had gone back to her magazine of sorrows, and never even heard this small sister's criticism. So Peace dropped down on a heap of sacking, propped her chin up with her elbows on her knees, and fell to studying the face opposite her, noting with alarm how thin it had grown, and how darkly circled were the brown eyes so like her own. Fear lest Dr. Bainbridge did not know how ill she really was gripped her heart, and she sighed heavily just as Faith finished her chapter and roused to search for the next number of the magazine.
"What is the matter?" she demanded, looking at the sober little face with surprise.
"Are you sick?" asked Peace in an awestruck whisper, ignoring her sister's question.
"No. Why? My head aches some, but that is all."
"I sh'd think itwouldache," cried the child in sudden indignation. "Why did you poke up here where there ain't any window to read by? You'll be blind some day if youamuseyour eyes like that. Teacher said so to all our class the day she found Tessie Hunt reading on the basement stairs. If you've got to read all the time, why don't you go out-doors or by a window? It's enough to make anyone's head ache the way you mope around reading all the time. Dr. Bainbridge says as soon as you get up and go to work you'll be all right."
Faith's face flushed angrily and she demanded, with some heat, "What do you know about what Dr. Bainbridge says?"
"I asked him a-purpose to see whether you were going to be an angel soon."
For a moment Faith was too startled for reply, and then she asked curiously, with a queer flutter in her heart, "What did he say!"
"He just howled, 'No—o!' as loud as he could shout, and after that he said, more quiet-like, that you'd never be an angel as long as you kept on the way you are going. He says you need a good, common dose of sense and a cannon under your chair. He said Gail and Hope are the angels, and when I cried and told him we could spare you easier'n we could them, he said that he didn't mean sure-enough angels which fly away and never come back, but good,sensitiveblessings that make the world better. He says you've got acute minagination, and when you wake up and help Gail bear the slender burden on your shoulders, everything will be all right."
Profound silence reigned in the barn for what seemed an eternity to Peace, and then Faith burst forth hotly, "I never saw such a meddlesome child in all my born days, Peace Greenfield! What did you tell the doctor? Why did you chase to him in the first place? Do you want to get the whole neighborhood to gossiping about our affairs? I suppose you gave him the whole family history, from the time of Adam."
"I never did!" Peace indignantly denied. "I don't know of any Adam 'mong our relations. I found Gail upstairs crying about you this morning, and Hope promised to do all your work. I couldn't see why Hope should do your work unless you were going to be an angel, so I went to the doctor about it, and that is why he told me. He said we must help Gail all we could—"
"Why don't you, then, instead of causing her trouble whenever you turn around? You are into something the whole time to fret and worry her. Don't talk about me until you are perfect yourself!"
"I ain't perfect, but Itryto help, and you know it. Don't I help Cherry with the dishes every single day, and dust the parlor and bring in wood, and hasn't Hope turned over setting the table to me?"
"And don't you break half the dishes?"
"I've broken only one plate and three cups, and I bought new ones out of my snow money, so there! When summer comes I'm going to pick strawberries for Mr. Hartman, and when I've paid up for those I spoiled last year, I'm going to give the rest of the money I earn to Gail to help her all I can. 'F I could make the lovely cakes you do, I'd go 'round the streets peddling them."
"If you were I, you'd do wonders," Faith broke in bitterly.
"Well, Mrs. Abbott told me herself that if the village baker could cook like that she would get all her delicate things there instead of bothering the girl with them, 'cause, in a little subu'b like this, she can't get a cook and a second girl to stay at the same time, and a common hired girl doesn't know beans about cakes and nice cookery. Mrs. Lacy said she'd take a cake reg'lar every week if she could get such nice ones as yours; and the butcher—guess what the butcher asked me yesterday! I went in his shop on my way home from the minister's, and he asked me when we were going to break up housekeeping here."
"What did you say?" cried Faith, as the meaning of his question dawned upon her, though Peace evidently had not understood.
"I didn't know what he was driving at, so I asked him, and he said he had heard that we were going to leave this house and go to live with different people in town. He wanted to know if he could have Cherry, 'cause he thinks she is so pretty. I told him he needn't joke with me like that, but he just laughed andinsured me that Mr. Strong was going to take Allee, and Dr. Bainbridge wanted Hope, and that you and Gail were to work in Martindale, and I was the broom of condemnation."
"The what?" cried Faith in amazement.
"The broom of con-dem-nation," repeated Peace slowly, seeing that she had made a blunder, but not understanding just wherein it lay. "It means when a lot of people want the same thing."
"Perhaps you are trying to say 'bone of contention,'" suggested Faith, somewhat sarcastically.
"Maybe 'twas. Anyway, he says Mr. Hardman wants me—but I don't want him, I can tell you that!"
"I thought you had signed a treaty of peace and were friends now," murmured the older girl, considerably amused at the child's belligerent attitude, in spite of her troubled thoughts.
"Oh, we are friends all right, but not bad enough so's I want to go live with him. Though I don't know as it would be any worse there than with Judge Abbott, and he's the other fellow who wants me. My, the way he glared at me Thanksgiving morning, when we shoveled the snow off his porch, scared me stiff! I thought he was going to make us shovel it back on again, but he didn't. And the time my snowball knocked Hector's teeth loose, I was sure he was going to 'rest me, but I couldn't help if Hec opened his mouth just in time to get that ball; and anyway, he deserved it, 'cause he was pulling Mamie Brady's red hair and calling her Carrots till she cried. I told the Judge that Hec needed to have more than just his teeth knocked loose, and he laughed and marched him home by the ear."
"Peace, have you told Gail this?"
"About Hec's teeth?"
"No, about what Mr. Jones said to you?"
"Not yet. I didn't think it was a very nice joke, so I never told anyone but you and the preacher. Mr. Strong said he'd see that the butcher didn't tease me any more."
"Well, if I were you, I would forget all about it, but don't ever tell Gail. She might take it in earnest and feel badly about it."
Peace eyed the older girl, as if trying to fathom her meaning, but Faith's face was like a mask, and after a brief pause, the child answered, "I don't mean to; but ain't I glad she can't guess all my thinks! Just s'posing everyone knew what everyone else was thinking, wouldn't some folks be scrapping all the time? Brains are queer things. I used to wish I could see one when it was doing its thinking, but I guess God knew his business when he put them inside our heads, where no one else can watch them."
"Peace, Peace! Where are you?" called an excited voice from below, and the brown-eyed philosopher jumped up from her burlap couch with the shout, "Coming, Allee! I hope you find your senses pretty soon, Faith, for the doctor says when that happens you will be all right and not have any more headache."
The faded red coat disappeared down the ladder, and Faith was left alone again. But she read no more. The sad story had lost its interest, and she cast aside the magazines without another glance. Was what Mr. Jones had told Peace true? Was there a possibility that the home must be broken up? Was the doctor right in his verdict? Did all the sisters feel that she could be spared the easiest? That was a fierce battle Faith waged with herself in the barn, but when it was ended a determined-faced girl rose from the dusty floor, descended the old ladder, and hurried away toward the village. It was noon before she returned, and the five sisters, anxious over her unusual absence, were just sitting down to a frugal dinner of mush and milk when she entered the door, looking excited and queer, but with a happier light in her eyes than had been there for months.
The minute grace was said, Peace demanded suspiciously, "Where have you been all this time?"
"Drumming up trade," was the startling answer. "I've got six regular cake customers, and several who promised to buy of me when they needed anything in my line."
Faith was awake at last.
"Cherry, do you know it's 'most night, and those girls aren't at home yet? They said they'd sure be here by four o'clock, and here 'tis five and they haven't come." Peace was plainly worried, and with a half-impatient sigh, Cherry closed her fascinating story book and joined her sister watching at the window for the belated girls who had gone in town with Mrs. Grinnell that morning.
"P'r'aps the horse run away," suggested Allee.
"They were coming back on the car, 'cause Mrs. Grinnell was to stay all night with her relations."
"Then maybe the car run off the track."
"That's just what I've been thinking. S'posing they don't come home tonight! What will we do for supper?"
"Hope will get some when she comes home from Edwards'."
"This is the day she stays so late. She won't get home until Mr. Edwards brings her, at almost bedtime."
"Can't we help ourselves?"
"'Course, if we wanted to, but that won't be supper for Gail and Faith when they get home all tired out."
"Well, then, can't wecooka supper?"
"What?"
"Why—potatoes and—"
"Eggs, I s'pose you'll say. I'm tired of eggs. If we don't stop having them so often, we will all turn into Humpty-Dumpties. S'posing we were eggs and had to walk and actsocareful or else get smashed. 'Twouldn't take long to finish me, would it? I don't want eggs for supper. Let's have rice."
"Is there any?"
"A whole sackful."
"Do you know how to cook it?"
"Why, in water, of course, just like mush or oatmeal, only it takes longer to get soft."
"Then maybe we better put it on to boil now. How much shall we cook?"
"I don't know as I ever saw Gail measure it She just guesses at it; but I think we could each eat a big cupful, don't you?"
"I'm hungry enough to eat two cupsful," said Allee.
"P'r'aps 'twould be better to cook two for each of us. It's good cold, s'posing we shouldn't eat it all tonight."
"Maybe that would be best," conceded Cherry; and the three embryo cooks repaired to the kitchen to get supper ready.
"There is the rice and here is a cup. Hold the pan, Cherry, while I measure it out. One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—that makes a big hole in that bagful, doesn't it? Maybe nine will be enough. Do you think so?"
"Yes," hesitated Cherry; "and besides, Hope won't be here for supper."
"That's right! Then nine will be enough. Now we'll pour in the water,—lots, 'cause it boils away in cooking."
"If Gail doesn't get here soon, how will we get any milk for our rice?" asked Allee, watching them. "Bossy hasn't been milked yet."
Peace paused on her way to the stove with the heavy saucepan. "Why didn't we think of that before? Rice isn't good without plenty of milk and sugar. I don't like molasses on it."
"Nor I," shivered Cherry.
"Let's milk the cow ourselves," suggested the daring spirit.
"We don't know how," protested the cautious one.
"Oh, that's easy! I've watched Gail lots of times, and all she does is pull hard like the janitor pulls the rope that rings the church bell. We've both of us rung that bell, Cherry. I'll do it if you are afraid."
"I'm not afraid," Cherry declared, "but I don't think I know how. I'll watch you and see how you do it first."
"Come on, then!"
Away to the barn they hurried, and the process of milking began, with Peace astride the stool. But somehow Bossy resented being pulled like a bell-rope and the milk didn't come.
"I don't see what is the matter," cried Peace impatiently, after a few moments' struggle. "Bossy never acts so with Gail. She has kicked me twice already, and here we are clear out of her stall. Allee, you hold her tail, she has slapped me in the face with it till I'm tired. Whoa, Boss, stand still! Maybe I don't jerk hard enough."
Peace settled herself once more on the stool, righted the pail and gave a tremendous pull at two of the teats. There was a surprised moo from Bossy, her heels flew into the air, Peace was thrown backward from her seat, the pail whirled across the floor, and Bossy rushed out of the barn door, dragging little, tenacious Allee after her. Cherry screamed, Peace scrambled to her feet and raced madly after the terrified beast, shouting at the top of her lungs, "Let go, Allee! Whoa, Bossy!"
Allee let go, but Bossy did not whoa until, with a wild plunge, she lurched against the stone watering trough, groaned and lay down with one leg doubled under her.
"Oh, she's broken her leg!" yelled Cherry, dancing up and down in fright. "What shall we do, what shall we do?"
"Go into the house and see that the rice doesn't burn while I'm gone," commanded Peace, after a hasty look at poor Bossy's leg, to make sure it was really broken; and away she flew up the street toward the village, muttering to herself, "Maybe he has closed his shop, though it isn't quite time, but I hope not. No, he hasn't, for there comes the doctor out of the door. Oh, Mr. Jones, what will you give for a cow, a broken-legged cow? I didn't stick her, 'cause I wasn't sure just how to do it, but her leg is just freshly broken, so she is good for meat. You bought Mr. Hartman's heifer when she broke her neck. Bossy's an awful nice cow, and we hate to lose her, but of course we'll have to kill her now. Bring your butcher knife and run! I don't want her to feel bad any longer'n she has to."
"Hold your horses, Whirlwind, hold your horses a bit," cried the amazed butcher. "Now tell me what has happened."
"You grab that knife and come along!" she shouted, almost frantic with grief and fear. "That cow can't be left with a broken leg." And seizing him by the hand she dragged him toward the door. The sight of the child's great distress touched the big man, and pausing only long enough to close his shop, he followed her flying feet down the road to the little brown house where poor Bossy lay.
"There she is! Ain't her leg broken?"
"Yes, and a bad break, too. She will have to go, kidlet. It's a shame, for she's a mighty fine looking critter. I'll give you fifteen dollars for her. Where is your oldest sister?"
"In Martindale. Oh, don't wait for her to come back! I can't bear to have Bossy look at me like that! I broke her leg trying to milk her. She's worth a lot more'n fifteen dollars alive, but as meat I s'pose we'll have to let her go cheap. You can have her. Gail would say so too, if she was here. Give me the money and then stick her as soon as I get inside the house."
The butcher hesitated, then counted out fifteen dollars in bills and handed them to the trembling, grief-stricken Peace, saying, "You couldn't get any more for her in the city, under the circumstances, I know. Butchers don't ordinarily buy milch cows for beef, and I shouldn't take her if she wasn't in first-class condition. If Gail ain't satisfied, send her up to the shop."
Peace snatched the bills with shaking hands and disappeared up the path, calling back over her shoulder, "Stick her easy, Mr. Jones, and quick! I'm going upstairs and cry."
But she didn't carry out her intention, for as she flung open the kitchen door, the pungent odor of something burning greeted her nostrils, and there stood Cherry beside the red-hot stove, dipping rice from one big saucepan into other kettles which Allee was bringing out of the pantry for her.
"Oh, Peace," she cried in relief, "I don't know what we will ever do with all this rice! It's sticking faster than I can scratch it up, it's boiled over the stove three times, and I've filled up four pans already. Give me another, Allee!"
"It needs some more water," said Peace, catching up a dipper of cold water and pouring it into one sizzling pot. "Mercy, how it has grown since we put it on to cook! That kettleful won't burn now."
"But it has turned yellow and smells dreadfully smoky," answered Cherry, sniffing at the discolored, unappetizing mess in the pan.
Peace examined it critically, tasted it, made a wry face, and finally announced, "It's spoiled, I guess. Never mind, there is plenty of good rice left—"
"Oh, Peace!" yelled Allee excitedly, dancing in the chair, where she stood trying to stir the heavy contents of another pan. "Something else is burning, sure! See the black smoke!"
There was a knock at the door, but Peace was frantically tugging at the big kettle stuck fast to the stove cover, and without pausing in her task, she called crossly, "You will have to wait till we can get this rice 'tended to before we can see what you want, whoever you are. We are all busy in here."
There was an audible chuckle from without, the knob turned, Cherry screamed, and a gray-haired, shabby, old man stood smiling at them from the steps. Peace scarcely looked at him as she succeeded in freeing the panful of smoking, blackened rice from the cover, but that quick glance had told her the visitor was a tramp, and she snapped sharply, "I s'pose you want a bite to eat. Well, I don't see how you are going to get it here! I've just killed the cow, and the rice has burned up. Cherry, stop stirring that mess and take it off! Can't you see it's smoking like achimbly?"
The tramp strode across the room, grabbed the teakettle and poured the boiling water into the pan, over which Allee had mounted guard, and which fortunately was on the back of the stove so it had not yet arrived at the burning point. He caught up one other, dumped about half its contents into a clean saucepan on the hearth, saturated it with water, threw in some salt, and set it back on the stove, at the same time removing a third kettle of burning rice and carrying it out of doors.
"There!" he said, entering the kitchen again. "All the rice isn't spoiled. Now we will open the windows and let out this smoke, and we are all right. How did you come to cook so much?"
"We were hungry, and thought we could eat a lot—"
"But rice swells—"
"We have found that out for ourselves," said Peace, blushing furiously at his quizzical grin. "It's the first time we ever cooked it alone."
"Where are the sisters?"
"Gail and Faith are in the city, and Hope hasn't come home from Edwards' house yet."
"And you are hungry? Well, now, that is too bad. I'll tell you what I will do. You show me where you keep things and I will get supper, if you will permit me to share it with you. Tramps have to work here, you know—"
"Oh, Mr. Tramp! You are my tramp that broke the raw egg all over your potato, aren't you?" cried Peace with undisguised joy. "And you never stole that cake, did you?"
"What cake, child?"
"The one Faith was baking the morning you ate breakfast here 'bout a year ago."
"I never stole a cake in my life,—or anything else."
"There, I knew it! I told them so at the time. Was it—have you lost any money around here?"
"Money?" he echoed, his face the picture of innocence, as he deftly set the table and beat up an omelette. "I should say not! Why?"
"'Cause we found some on the gatepost the night you were here, and I thought maybe you had lost it. No, I didn't think so, either. Gail thought you might have lost it." Into his ears she poured the whole story of the long, hard year.
"And so you thought,—or Gail thought I had lost the money you found on the gatepost! Well, don't you think it would be a funny tramp who would have all that money with him!"
Peace's face fell, and she slowly admitted, "Yes, I s'pose it would, but I thought maybe you might be a story-book prince. Those thingsalwayshappen in books. But Gail won't use the money, 'cause she says someone might come along and claim it some day. When mamma was a little girl there was a queer old man lived in her town that people called crazy. He used to give pretty things to the children and then months later he'd go around and c'llect them and give them to someone else. Maybe that's the kind of a man who leaves the money on the gatepost. It has happened twice there, and once in the barn. Gail says we can't tell, and 'twould be terrible embracing"—she meant embarrassing—"if he should try to c'llect after we had spent the money."
"That's a fact," agreed the tramp, "but I think she could spend the money without any such fears, because I think the fairies brought it."
"Do you b'lieve in fairies?" cried Peace in shocked surprise.
"Oh, yes, and I always shall. I don't think the fairies fly around like butterflies, the way they are pictured in books. I believe they live in the hearts of men."
"Then how could they bring money and pin it to the gatepost and grain sacks? They use sure-enough, every-day pins."
"Oh, maybe they whisper to some good friend that a little extra money would make things easier at the brown house, or the green one, or the gray one, and this friend, who has lots of money to spare—"
"That's just the way I thought it all out," interrupted Peace eagerly. "But Mr. Strong hasn't lots of spare money. He is a minister, and they never have enough for themselves. Besides, he crossed his heart that he didn't know who put it there. The Dunbars aren't rich. Miss Truesdale can't afford it. Even Mrs. Grinnell couldn't do it. Judge Abbott has lots of money, but folks have to work for what they get out of him, and old Skinflint is so stingy that heborrowsthe city papers so's he won't have to buy them himself. Hec Abbott told me so. I can't think of a single soul who would give us the money."
"Maybe this is a friend whom you don't know."
"That's it, I guess. But I'dlikeawfully well to know them, and 'specially whether we can really use the money for ourselves. Now that Bossy is gone, I don't know what we are going to do for milk. Mr. Jones paid fifteen dollars for her, but that won't buy a whole new one."
"I think I know where you can get a fine cow for fifteen dollars. If you will give me the money I will call around by the place and have the man bring it to you the first thing in the morning. It is quite a piece from here, and maybe he wouldn't sell it toyoufor that price, but I know he would tome."
Peace sat lost in thought, a bit of bread poised half way to her mouth.
"Is it a good cow?" asked Allee, timidly.
"The very best."
"Gentle, like Bossy?" Cherry questioned.
"Gentle as a lamb."
"Does she give four gallons of milk a day?" Peace interrupted.
"More, sometimes."
"Is she pretty?"
"Handsome as a picture."
"Does she give good milk, with lots of cream? We make our own butter, you know."
"She's a splendid butter cow."
"Has she got brown eyes, like mine, and a curly tail, and two good horns—not too sharp? Will she eat sugar out of your hand and not drive folks out of the stall when they try to pet her?"
"She is the finest cow I ever saw—"
"Then it's funny the man will sell her for; fifteen dollars," declared Peace, with sudden suspicion, studying the old man opposite her, but seeing only a sandy, untrimmed beard, a strong, honest face, with square jaws, and a pair of the kindest eyes she had ever looked into.
"Not at all," said the man, chuckling to himself at the trap she had laid for him. "He wants to get rid of his herd, but doesn't need the money; though, of course, he wouldn't care to give the cows away."
"Well," hesitated the brown-eyed girl, "I guess—I will have you order the cow for us. Gail won't feel so bad about losing Bossy if we can get another just as good. Here is the money. Do you have to go so soon? I would like to have you stay until the girls get here. Now, don't you forget about the cow!"
"She will be here early tomorrow morning. Good-night, and many thanks for the supper." Out into the spring night walked the tramp, with the precious fifteen dollars in his pocket, and again the three children took up their vigil at the window, watching for the sisters from town.
When at last Gail and Faith reached home, expecting to be met by tears and reproaches from three hungry maids, they were surprised to find supper spread on the table awaiting their coming, and to hear a strange tale of mishap and adventure that would have done credit to the age of Mother Goose or Robinson Crusoe.
"Doesn't that sound like a fairy prince?" asked Peace, when the recital was ended. "But he says he isn't one."
"I should say it sounded like a plain robber story," said Faith bitterly, while Gail sat white-faced and silent with despair. "What did you give him that money for! It's the last we will ever see of it. You are worse thanJack and the Bean-Stalk. You haven't even a handful of bean blossoms to show."
"I've got a curl from Bossy's tail," said Peace indignantly, and then burst into tears, unable to bear the sight of Gail's drawn face any longer.
"Yes, and a robber on our trail. Supposing he comes tonight for the rest of the money you told him about. No, Cherry, I don't want any supper. Come and help me bolt the windows and fix things for the night. I wish Hope was here now."
The supper remained untouched, the dishes were cleared away in silence, and as soon as Hope arrived the unhappy little household climbed wearily, fearfully upstairs to bed, where Peace sobbed herself to sleep, with faithful Allee's arms about her neck. But no robber came to disturb the brown house and at length even Gail and Faith drifted away to slumberland, in spite of this added trouble.
In the dusk of early morning, while the world was still asleep, a heavy wagon drew up at the gate of the Greenfield cottage, unloaded its precious burden and drove rapidly away again; while Peace, in her restless tossing, dreamed that a gentle, brown-eyed cow stood in Bossy's stall, lowing for some breakfast. She awoke with a start, to hear a familiar, persistent mooing, and the tinkle of a bell in the barnyard, and, leaping out of bed, she rushed to the window with wildly beating heart. There in the yard, tied to the old watering-trough, stood a plump, pretty Jersey cow! Peace rubbed her eyes, pinched her arm to make sure she was not still dreaming, and then startled the whole house awake with a whoop of joy: "She has come, she has come! The cow has come! My tramp isn't a robber or a beanstalk at all!"
"Have you got any more corn or potatoes to drop, or onion sets to cover, or radishes and beans and turnips to plant, or wheat or barley to scatter, or—or anything else to do?" Peace panted breathlessly one warm Saturday afternoon late in May.
"No," smiled Gail, looking tenderly down into the flushed, perspiring face. "You girls have worked faithfully all day, and now you can rest awhile. Mike is coming next week to finish the planting."
"Can—may we fix our own gardens, then? Mr. Kennedy gave me a whole lot of seed the gove'nment sent him to plant, but he can't, 'cause he's going to Alaska."
"Government seed! What kinds?"
"Cucumbers and beets, and parsley and carrots and—"
"But, child, we have all of those in our big garden now. I thought you wanted your little plot of ground for flowers?"
"I do. One of these packages is sweet peas."
"Oh, dearie, I guess you have made a mistake. Mr. Kennedy wouldn't have any use for sweet pea seed."
"Hope said that was the name on the package."
"Well, then I suppose they are, though I never heard tell of the Kennedys raising flowers before. Sweet peas ought to be planted along a fence. We will have Mike dig a little trench just inside the front yard fence, and plant the peas there."
Peace's face fell, but she offered no objections to the plan, and Gail straightway forgot all about it. Not so with the enthusiastic, youthful planter, however; and, while the older sister was bustling about the hot kitchen, the curly, brown head was bobbing energetically back and forth in the front yard, where she and Cherry were digging a trench as fast as they could turn the sod with an old broken spade and a discarded fire-shovel; while Allee followed in their wake, dropping the seed into the freshly-turned earth and carefully covering them again.
"Mercy, but this yard is big!" sighed weary Peace, as she began digging along the third and last side. "Have you got enough left to stick in here, Allee?"
"This is all," answered the blue-eyed toiler, displaying a handful of flat, black seed in her apron.
"Those don't look like peas," cried Cherry, pausing to examine the queer-looking things. "All I ever saw were round."
"Garden peasareround," answered Peace, with a knowing air, "but these are sweet peas, and they are flat."
"Did you ever see any before?" demanded Cherry suspiciously, nettled by her sister's manner.
"No—o, but doesn't the sack they were in say 'sweet peas?'"
It certainly did, there was no disputing that fact, so Cherry discreetly remained silent, and began her vigorous shoveling once more.
When the supper hour was announced the shallow, uneven trench was completed, the seeds all covered, and three dirty gardeners perched in a row on the fence, planning out the list of customers who would buy the sweet blossoms when the vines had matured.
"There's the horn for supper," said Cherry.
"And I know Mrs. Lacy will be glad to get them sometimes, 'cause she hasn't any flowers at all," continued Peace, ignoring the interruption. "That makes ten people."
"Well, hurry up! I am hungry, and we'll have to wash before Gail will give us anything to eat," cried the tallest girl impatiently. "I'll race you to the pump."
"You are late," Hope greeted them, when, after a noisy splashing and hasty wiping of faces, they entered the room. "Doesn't Allee's face look funny with that black streak around it where she didn't hit the dirt? What have you been doing to get so warm?"
"Planting sweet peas," answered Allee.
"Oh, Peace! After I said we would have Mike dig a trench by the fence!"
"You didn't say wecouldn'tplant them, Gail. We dug it so's to save Mike the trouble. Anyway, the seeds ought to be in the ground by this time if they are ever going to blossom this year, and Mike is so slow. We thought it was best not to wait. When do you s'pose they will come up?"
"Oh, in about two or three weeks, maybe," Gail answered. "You better rub your arms well with liniment before you go to bed tonight, or you will be so lame tomorrow you can't move."
The incident was closed, and the sweet peas forgotten until one day about three weeks later Hope called excitedly from the front yard, "Gail, Gail, come here! What ever are these plants coming up all along the fence? They are not sweet peas."
Gail came, examined the fat sprouts and looked at Hope in comical dismay. "They are pumpkins or cucumbers or melons, and the whole front fence is lined with them!"
"Poor Peace!" said Hope, when their laugh had ended. "She will be heartbroken. She made her fortune a dozen times over on the blossoms those vines are to bear."
"Yes," sighed Gail. "She has the happy faculty of trying to do one thing and getting some unexpected, unheard-of result. Poor little blunderbus! But what shall we do with these plants? There are enough to stock a ranch. We can't leave them here, and I don't think they will bear transplanting."
"And so they ain't sweet peas at all!" exclaimed a disappointed voice behind them, and there stood Peace herself, contemplating her treasures with solemn eyes.
"No, dear, they are pumpkins, I guess. What kind of seed did you plant?"
"I planted sweet pea seed," came the mournful reply. "Leastways the sack said so. Hope read it herself."
"Yes, the sack was labelled plainly, but I never thought to examine the seed. What did they look like?"
"They were black and flat."
"Melons," said Gail. "Well, I would rather have melons than pumpkins, for we already have planted a lot of them. Still, it will spoil these to transplant them, so they might just as well have been pumpkins. It is a shame to have to throw them all away, though."
Peace said nothing, but in bitterness of heart helped pull up all the green sprouts and throw them over the fence. Then she sat down beside the heap to mourn over her fallen aircastles.
"Seems 's if I can't do anything like other folks," she sighed dismally. "I plant sweet peas and get melons. I wonder if melons wouldn't sell better than peas. Gail says these won't grow, but I am going to try them anyway."
She filled her apron with the hapless plants and carried them away to her small garden plot behind the shed, where she patiently set out every one, regardless of the flower seeds already hid beneath the soil. And, strange to say, they grew,—at least many of them did, choking out the poppies and marigolds and balsams which finally climbed through the three inches of ground the zealous gardener had hid them under, and formed a thick tangle of promising vines.
Then the gophers began their destructive work, tunnelling the little farm into a perfect labyrinth of underground passages, much to the dismay of the little household, so dependent upon the success of their crops. Traps were set, the holes were flooded, cats by the score were let loose in the fields, but still the little pests continued to dig, as if laughing at the futile attempts made to get rid of them. At length Gail sighed, "I am afraid we will have to resort to poisoned grain. I hate to, because I am so afraid the children will get into it, or something dreadful happen on account of it."
"I don't see how either the youngsters or even the hens could get at it if it was put down the holes," said Faith. "Say nothing about it but fix up a mess and Hope and I will drop it some day when the children are away and the hens in their yard."
So Gail mixed up a huge bucket full of poisoned grain, and while the younger trio were gathering flowers in the woods one afternoon, the other sisters sallied forth with their deadly bait, bent on exterminating their small foes.
All might have gone well had not the smaller girls suddenly decided to play hare and hound, and it fell to Peace's lot to be the hare. With an apron full of gay dandelion blossoms for the trail, the active little body set out on a wide detour of the woods, across the bridge, up through the Hartman pasture land, reaching the barbed wire fence on their own little farm just in time to see Hope dropping a last handful of grain into a gopher hole before returning to the house with her empty pail.
"Now what has she been doing?" thought Peace, peering out from a thicket of hazel bushes. "Oh, I know! I bet she is trying to poison the gophers, like Mr. Hartman did. I wonder if they will come up after the corn right away. I am going to watch. I'd like to see how it kills them."
She carefully wriggled her way under the lower wire, and sat down in front of the nearest gopher mound, forgetting all about her dandelions, sisters, and play, in the prospect of witnessing the death of one of the enemy. But either Mr. Gopher was not at home, or else he suspected the presence of an unwelcome caller, for he did not come up in sight for even a nibble of the tempting corn; and at last, weary of her fruitless vigil, Peace cried aloud, "He prob'ly can get all he wants without letting me see him. I'm going to dig it all out on top, so he willhaveto come out in sight."
She quickly scratched the poisoned bait out of the runway, scattered it liberally about, and settled back in her former position, with her eyes glued on the mouth of the tunnel; but still Mr. Gopher did not come.
"You tiresome old thing!" she exclaimed impatiently, after what seemed hours of waiting. "I shan't watch for you another minute. I'll find another hole and see if they will do any better there." So from mound to mound she scurried, digging the grain up into view, and then watching for the appearance of the tenant—with no result.
"Well, of all provoking people!" cried an indignant voice behind her, and there were Cherry and Allee crawling under the fence. "How long have you been sitting there like a bump on a log? You didn't drop enough dandelions, and we had an awful time following you. What on earth are you doing here? Let's go up to the pump for a drink. I am nearly burned up." Without giving the weary Peace a chance to answer her questions, she raced away through the pasture toward the house, dragging Allee with her; and the third girl, after one last, hopeless glance at the gopher hole, followed more slowly.
Some time later Hope came tearing across the field, with hair flying, and her eyes filled with alarm, calling shrilly, "Gail, Faith, the hens have broken out of the yard and are eating the poisoned grain! There are more than a dozen down there now!"
"Oh, dear," cried Peace, with guilty conscience, "I scratched the corn out of the holes so's I could watch the gophers die. And I let the hens out, too, 'cause they looked so hot shut up in that mite of a yard after they have been running loose for so long."
With despairing eyes, Gail looked down at the dying fowls, and not daring to trust herself to speak, she hurried away to the house to sob out her grief alone.
Faith paused long enough to count the hapless hens, clutched the wretched culprit and shook her vigorously, then silently followed her older sister, leaving the heartbroken child alone with the victims of her curiosity.
"Did you ever see my equal?" she said aloud, addressing herself. "You are the worst child that ever lived! You wash the labels off the spice boxes so Faith gets ginger instead of mustard in her salad dressing; you try to milk cows and break their legs instead; you spoil cakes and steal eggs and bother Gail and Faith till they are nearly crazy; and now you've taken to killing hens just to see how gophers die. Peace Greenfield, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Yes, I am, but there's no use in wasting those perfectly good hens—twenty of them—we had only forty in all. It's a wonder the rest of them didn't get a dose, too. Hope has got them locked up at last. There comes Cherry; I'll make her help. Oh, Cherry, here's a job for you!"
"What is it? And why are the girls crying? They wouldn't tell me."
"I've killed a lot of hens for them, playing hare and hound. That's the very last time I will ever be hare, Charity Greenfield! Help me undress these chickens. We'll have some for supper, and the rest we'll peddle to the town folks."
"Oh, Peace, I can't pull feathers! It makes me shiver every time a bunch comes out in my hands."
"You will have to. You don't expect me to pick them all, do you? I guess the girls never thought of selling the hens, and I can't ask them to help now. We will get the ax and chop off their heads and then hang them in the crab-apple tree while we strip them. You really must help, Cherry. Gail says they pick better while they are warm."
She hunted up the ax, and one by one hacked off poor biddies' heads; but when it came to the picking process, they found it was slow work for small, inexperienced fingers, and gave up in despair when the third nude body lay in the grass at their feet.
"It is almost night, Peace, and we've picked three. What shall we do? 'Twill take us hours to finish that whole bunch."
"We'll sell them for as much as we can get, and see if the butcher won't take the rest with the feathers on. We can keep two or three for ourselves. Where is Allee's cart?"
All that remained of the poison victims were loaded into the small wagon, and their strange pilgrimage through the village streets began. The picked fowls were readily disposed of, and one neighbor bought the largest of the feathered birds, but no one else wanted to bother with them, and it was only after much persuasion that the butcher consented to take six, at the fancy price of twenty-five cents each.
"Well, that is better than nothing, though he wouldn't sell me one for that little last Christmas," sighed Peace, much disappointed at the result of their peddling. "Three dollars and fifty cents will buy quite a few chickens, and chickens make hens if you give them time. What do you s'pose Gail will say when we give her the money?"
They were not long in finding out. The two red-eyed girls were busy in the kitchen when the children returned with the unsold hens in the wagon; and with fear and trembling, Peace laid the coins on the table, saying humbly, "Mrs. Munson took one, and Mrs. Bainbridge, and Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Lacy, and the butcher bought six. That's all the hens we could sell. We left three here for supper and—"
"Peace Greenfield!" shrieked the horrified sisters in unison. "Did you sell those poisoned hens? You march straight upstairs to bed—and Cherry, too!" Then Gail flew one way and Faith the other, to collect the birds before the buyers had a chance to dish up the delicacy to adored families.
When they had seen the last fowl safely disposed of, and were home once more, Gail said despairingly, "I don't know what in the world to do with that child!"
"She needs a good, sound thrashing," answered Faith sharply. "She gets into more mischief in a day than a monkey would in a month."
"She doesn't mean to," pleaded Gail. "Mother never believed in whipping. If it were mischief for mischief's sake, I could punish her, but her intentions are good—"
"Good intentions don't amount to much in her case. A good trouncing might make her think a little more."
"Ican'twhip her, Faith, but I'll go up and lecture her good. I believe that will be more effective than harshness."
So the perplexed mother-sister mounted the stairs to the chamber above, from which sounded a low murmur of voices, and she paused in the hallway to assemble her thoughts, when Peace's words, evidently in supplication, floated out through the open door: "And, O Lord, don't blame Gail for getting mad. It's the first time I can remember. She is usu'ly very good. S'posing she was a stepmother, like lame Jennie Munn's, wouldn't we have a time living with her, though? And I am truly sorry about the hens. Hope says we can't get many eggs now, 'cause half of the flock is gone, and if we keep all our customers we will have to do without eggs here at home. I don't mind that at all myself, 'cause I've eaten eggs and eggs till it makes me sick to hunt them now; but what will Faith do for her cakes? That's what is worrying me. It was so we could buy more live hens that Cherry and me sold the dead ones. We didn't know they would make people sick, and p'r'aps kill them, too. I am sorry the money had to go back and that the hens are just wasted now, but I 'xpect they'll make an elegant funeral tomorrow. So forgive Gail and keep her from getting mad any more, and forgive me and keep me from being bad any more, and make us 'happy children in a happy home.' Amen."
Softly, silently, Gail stole down the stairs again, with her lecture unsaid.