Rosemary, seated on the lowest porch step, was outwardly "cool and calm and collected," to borrow one of Winnie's favorite phrases. She was dressed all in white and Doctor Hugh, coming from the shed where he had put his car, noted appreciatively what a lovely dash of color the blue wool she was knitting made in the picture. It just matched her eyes, he thought.
"Hello, sweetheart!" he greeted her, and then, as she raised her face to kiss him, "why, what's the matter?"
For the blue eyes were mutinous and stormy and it was easy to see that Rosemary was unhappy.
"Oh, Hugh! Don't go in right away—I never get a chance to talk to you," she said, moving over to give him room to sit on the step. "Everyone will have a thousand things to tell you—it was that way last Sunday. I suppose if we see you only once a week, or every other week, it's natural, but I wish I could ever talk to you without Shirley or Sarah asking you questions at the same time."
Doctor Hugh laughed as he took off his hat and dropped down beside his sister.
"Seems to me you have a good deal of energy for such a warm day," he commented, running his fingers through his thick dark hair. "Doesn't that breeze feel good, though! Eastshore has been becalmed this week and the dust from the plastering has settled on everything in the house—I'm glad Mother can't see it. And where is Mother, Rosemary?"
"Lying down," answered Rosemary, beginning to purl. "She didn't expect you for an hour. Sarah and Shirley went to town with Warren—he had to go over and get a bolt or something, so Mother let them go. How far has Mr. Greggs got with the building, Hugh?"
"Well, you know he isn't naturally swift," said the doctor cautiously, "and he and his helper have more labor troubles than any union I ever heard of—they differ continuously. But I will say that the lawn is piled high with lumber and bricks and I never come home at night that I don't have to chase a dozen boys away—kids who think I'm a grouch because I won't have them breaking their necks at my front door. Jack Welles says I ought to take patients wherever I find them and not be too particular."
"Tell me about Jack," Rosemary said, smiling.
"Jack is the same old Jack," declared the doctor. "He works in the garden, when his father makes him, and he goes fishing as often as the law allows. I believe he and half a dozen of the high school boys are going camping next week and Jack is counting on coming up here in August when I take my two weeks off. He's determined to work—asked me to speak to Mr. Hildreth about a job while I am here."
"Warren and Richard will be glad, if he does come," asserted Rosemary. "They think Mr. Hildreth ought to have another man all the time—Warren was grumbling because he had to go after the bolt this afternoon; he said it would put him back two hours."
The doctor watched the busy needles clicking placidly for several minutes. Then—
"And now, as we feel a little more serene," he said quietly, "suppose you tell me what was the trouble when I came."
"The trouble?" fenced Rosemary. "What trouble?"
"She thinks she can fool me," said Doctor Hugh, apparently addressing his remark to the solitary white hen that wandered around a bush on the lawn at that moment. "She thinks I don't know the signals—those famous storm signals. She thinks I didn't know the moment I looked at her that she wanted something she couldn't have."
"I had—an argument," admitted Rosemary with hot cheeks. "It was all Winnie's fault."
"Yes?" said her brother politely.
"It was, Hugh, honestly it was. Winnie is as good as gold, but I do wish she wouldn't try to look after me, as she calls it. I can look after myself. Mother would let me do lots of things, if it wasn't for Winnie."
"Here, here, you'll have to take out all that knitting, if you're not careful," warned the doctor, for the blue eyes were stormy again and Rosemary was knitting furiously. "What was this particular argument about?"
"I want to sleep outdoors," explained Rosemary. "I could take out a quilt and spread it on the grass and a blanket to cover me—I've never done it and it would be such fun. And Winnie says if I must be crazy can't I wait till I get back to Eastshore? As if anyone ever slept out on the grass in town where everyone can see you!"
"No, that wouldn't be exactly the thing to do," agreed Doctor Hugh, his lips twitching. "Well, Rosemary?"
"First Mother said I could, and then, after Winnie had talked to her, she said she thought it wouldn't be best," reported Rosemary. "Winnie told her a cow might step on me—and all the cows are in the barnyard or the pasture at six o'clock and never get out!—or, she said, someone might come and carry me off! And where would I be, while they were carrying me?" demanded Rosemary with intense scorn. "I'd like to see anyone carry me off!"
"I hope this 'argument' didn't degenerate into a clash," said the doctor seriously. "You know how it tires Mother to have to hear these quarrels, Rosemary, and to be constantly called upon to act as arbitrator."
"I banged the door," confessed Rosemary. "I can't help it, Hugh, I always lose my temper when I argue. And Winnie kept saying the same thing a hundred times—I don't see why I shouldn't sleep outdoors, do you?"
"If mother has said 'no,' there's one hard and fast reason," pronounced her brother. "But I believe in the value of experience as a teacher, especially for strong-willed little girls who are slow to learn that their own way isn't the best in the world. Good gracious, that isn't Sarah, is it?"
He broke off abruptly as an energetic figure advanced toward him, waving two small hands black with grease, in welcome. It was Sarah, a Sarah whose socks were down to her ankles and whose dress was torn and spotted with the same black grease that liberally anointed her face as well as her hands. Her dark, straight hair straggled into her eyes and there was a large bump on her forehead that evidently gave her little concern.
Behind her trotted Shirley, a little less disheveled, a little less dirty and quite as radiantly content.
"You look nice," said Rosemary severely. "I should have thought Warren would have been ashamed to ride home with you—where is he? I didn't see the wagon drive past."
"Mr. Hildreth made him turn into the field, without going to the barn," explained Sarah, standing at a safe distance from Doctor Hugh who would, she was sure, see the bump even under a layer of dirt. "We had lots of fun, Rosemary; the wheel came off and I helped Warren put it on again."
"And I had a chocolate ice cream cone," said Shirley, standing on tip-toe to kiss her brother and leaving small finger marks on his collar as visible marks of her affection.
"I'd better go and get washed up," announced Sarah blandly, though to her hearers' knowledge this was the first time on record she had made such a suggestion voluntarily.
"Come here, Sarah," said Doctor Hugh quietly, "I want to look at that bruise on your forehead."
"That isn't anything," Sarah assured him, backing off.
"Come here and let me see it," the doctor repeated and, as Sarah reluctantly approached him, "how did you get it?"
"I was under the wagon," said Sarah, wincing slightly as Doctor Hugh felt of the bruise with firm, practised fingers, "and I heard Warren coming and I jumped up and hit my head."
She did not think it necessary to add that Warren had requested her to stay in the road and not crawl under the broken wagon.
"All right, the skin isn't broken," announced the doctor. "But it aches a little doesn't it, dear?"
"A little," nodded Sarah, winking to keep back the tears.
He put an arm around her, heedless of the dirt and grease.
"That won't last long," he promised, "and if you and Shirley will go in and get washed and dressed without dawdling, I'll take you for a little drive before dinner."
"Rosemary, too?" asked Shirley, balancing like a butterfly on the top step.
"Rosemary, too."
Forgetting her aching bump, Sarah followed Shirley into the house with a shout, and the sound of their feet clattering up the open stairway proclaimed their intentions of not wasting a minute.
"Here comes Mrs. Hildreth," said Rosemary in a low voice. "I wish I could fix her just once—she doesn't know how to be pretty."
Rosemary, with uncanny penetration, had hit upon the truth. Mrs. Hildreth did not know how to be pretty. She would have said she had not the time to "fuss with her looks," but it would have taken little extra time to have done her really abundant hair in a becoming style instead of the tight knot into which she invariably twisted it. And surely, if she could don that clean, starched dark calico dress in five minutes, it would have taken no longer to put on a pretty light-colored frock.
"I thought your brother would be out to spend Sunday," said Mrs. Hildreth capably, in her high-pitched, nervous voice, "so I brought up two extra bunches of asparagus. Winnie told me the doctor liked it."
"Winnie has my likes and dislikes down pat," declared Doctor Hugh, rising and shaking hands. "Will you come in, Mrs. Hildreth? My mother will be down in a minute."
Rosemary took the asparagus and seconded the invitation.
"No, thanks, I can't stay," said Mrs. Hildreth, rather regretfully. "I have to tend to the chickens and get the milk pans and strainers ready and do a lot of little chores before I get supper. You use your porch a lot, don't you?"
"Yes," said Rosemary who, she had once told her mother, always felt as though Mrs. Hildreth's sharp eyes condemned her as lazy. "We all love to be out of doors."
"I'm outdoors most of the time," said Mrs. Hildreth, "but I don't have time to sit on the porch, unless it is Sunday afternoons."
She went back to her work and Rosemary, returning from delivering the asparagus to Winnie, found her mother and an immaculate Sarah and Shirley entertaining Doctor Hugh. He brought the car around presently and they went for the promised drive to Bennington, the pretty county seat, and back.
After dinner that evening Rosemary, quite restored to good humor, was surprised to have a question put to her.
"How would you like to try sleeping outdoors to-night, Rosemary?" asked Doctor Hugh placidly.
Rosemary answered her brother's question characteristically.
"Oh, Hugh! I'd love to."
"Well, don't tell Sarah or Shirley," he cautioned, "because I don't want a riot—wait till they have gone to bed and then at nine o'clock, if you really want to try the experiment, you may."
"Won't Mother care?" asked Rosemary doubtfully.
"I've talked it over with Mother, and she is willing to let you try the plan while I am here," said the doctor. "It is a clear warm night and too early in the season for heavy dews, so there could not be a better time. You'd find it harder to go to sleep if there were a moon, so that's in your favor, too."
"I wouldn't want to sleep outdoors on a moonlight night," declared Rosemary decidedly. "Old Fiddlestrings—Warren says everyone calls him that—would be walking up and down the road, playing the 'Serenade.' I'd rather sleep outdoors in the dark—as soon as you are used to it, it isn't dark at all and I love to see the stars."
It seemed to Rosemary that Sarah and Shirley must have turned back the hands of the clock to delay their bed hour. They monopolized their brother, seated on either side of him in the porch swing while the summer dusk slowly deepened and Mrs. Willis rested in the big chair which had an arm strong and broad enough to hold Rosemary who knitted with outward calm and inward fever. Were those children never going to bed?
Winnie had gone over to the bungalow with Mrs. Hildreth, who was delighted to have someone with whom to exchange household lore, and Warren and Richard had tactfully betaken themselves to Bennington, knowing instinctively that Doctor Hugh would like to have his family to himself for one brief evening, after a week's separation.
"Too dark to knit, Rosemary," he said at last. "And don't turn on the light, dear; can't you be content to do nothing for a little while?"
"Time for bed, Shirley," announced Mrs. Willis. "Run along and see how nearly undressed you can be before Mother comes up."
Shirley obediently clambered down and looked at them wistfully. Her bed hour was half-past seven and Sarah had the privilege of staying up till eight o'clock. She clung jealously to this prerogative and as a rule nothing would induce her to go to bed when Shirley did. She might fall asleep on sofa or rug, but she would protest vigorously, if sent upstairs before the eight strokes of the clock were heard. Thirty minutes at bed-time marked the difference to Sarah between six and nine years old.
"I'll come up with you to-night, honey," said Doctor Hugh. "I don't believe I've forgotten how to put you to bed. Sit still, Mother."
"Are you going to tell a story, Hugh?" asked Sarah anxiously. "Are you, Hugh?"
"Will you, Hugh?" begged Shirley. "Tell about the little boy in the hospital who wouldn't eat his supper? Will you, Hugh?"
"All right, I will," promised the doctor, "if you'll march upstairs this minute."
"I'm coming, too," announced Sarah. "I was up early this morning, wasn't I, Mother?"
"Yes indeed you were," agreed her mother, catching her as she scrambled past and holding her tightly—Sarah usually had to be caught or pursued if one wanted to kiss her. "Kiss Mother good night, dearest."
Mrs. Willis understood perfectly that Sarah was saving her pride when she spoke of being up early that morning—some excuse had to be made to explain her willingness to go to bed when Shirley did.
"If Sarah had known I'm going to sleep outdoors to-night, she would have been wild to come, too," said Rosemary, when she and her mother were left alone.
"Are you sure you want to try it, dear?" asked Mrs. Willis.
"Why Mother, I've always wanted to sleep outdoors!" cried Rosemary earnestly. "I'm so tired of ordinary beds and houses—and—and things. It will be perfectly lovely to lie under a tree and see the stars over my head and pretend I am out on the desert. I'd like to sleep outdoors every night."
When Doctor Hugh came down to report that both little girls were asleep, he found his mother and sister knitting under the shaded porch light.
"I don't approve of night work for women," he informed them gravely. "Especially for those who have had as active a day as you have had. You don't want to knit, do you, Mother?"
She put down her work at once and smiled.
"I'll play for you," she said quickly and went in to the piano.
Doctor Hugh sat down in the swing and patted the pillows invitingly. Rosemary, fastening her needles securely in place, put down her work a little reluctantly and crossed over to the swing. But when he put his arm about her and she leaned back against the cushions, her head on his comfortable shoulder, she gave a little tired sigh of relief. A big brother was nice!
And as the music drifted out to them—all the sweet old melodies the doctor loved best, played as only Mrs. Willis could play them—Rosemary felt her impatience and hurry slipping away. She who had been so eager to have nine o'clock come, so anxious to get the evening over so that she might be free to put her wish into practise, began to wish that she could stay up later than usual.
"Ten minutes after nine," said Doctor Hugh, all too soon. "I must help you get your sleeping outfit together."
"Oh, I'll just take a quilt and spread it out and then roll myself up in it," planned Rosemary.
But Doctor Hugh insisted on a rubber sheet, to go under the heavy quilt and insure positive protection from dampness; and blankets, he declared, would be indispensable. He arranged the quilt under a maple tree—the tree most distant from the house—which was Rosemary's choice, carried out a pair of light blankets and parried Winnie's volley of questions good-naturedly when she came in from visiting Mrs. Hildreth and discovered what he was doing.
"Well, Rosemary, I see you're going to have your own way and I only hope you don't regret it," was Winnie's greeting when Rosemary danced out, a dark kimono over her gown and moccasins on her feet.
"I won't," Rosemary replied confidently.
"Of course I won't," she said to herself stoutly, when she was curled up on a quilt, under the blankets. "This is heaps of fun!"
She could see the light from the porch lamp which made a golden shaft through the wire netting into the darkness of the night. Over her head the stars twinkled and the leafy branches of the maple spread out like a network.
Pouf!—Rosemary scrambled to her feet, brushing at her face frantically.
"Something fell on me!" she gasped. "A bug—I'm almost sure it was a bug!"
But after feeling around on the quilt and finding nothing that felt like a bug, she decided that after all it might have been a leaf. She didn't mind the thought of a leaf tumbling down on her nose, so she carefully smoothed out the tumbled quilt, shook the blanket and laid them straight and went to bed again.
Usually she fell asleep readily, but to-night she did not feel sleepy.
"I wonder what time it is?" she meditated, turning sideways so that if another leaf—or bug—should drop it would not fall on her face. "I wish I'd brought my little clock."
Presently she heard the sound of horse's hoofs on the road, soon saw the winking white light turn into the drive that led to the barn. She watched it moving slowly forward, saw it stop and knew that Richard and Warren were harnessing outside the barn. In another moment the light flickered out as Warren backed the runabout into the shed and Richard led the horse to a stall. The hollow echo of the barn door as Richard slammed and bolted it, came next. She thought she could see the dim outline of two figures walking toward the bungalow but that might have been imagination.
Rosemary sighed and twisted about uneasily to face the other way. The porch light was out! That meant her mother and Hugh had gone to bed and she was utterly alone on the lawn. She felt inexplicably abandoned—Hugh might have whistled to her, to see if she were asleep, before he turned off the light. That, thought Rosemary, would not have been much to do.
She decided to lie flat on her back for a while. In that position she might begin to feel sleepy. It was not a pitch-black night, indeed the darkness seemed half luminous—the kind of light in which, after the eyes have grown accustomed to it, it is possible to make out the outlines of objects quite plainly. Rosemary knew she could not be mistaken when she saw a shadowy form on the other side of the lawn.
She sat up with a jerk, staring. Yes, something was certainly moving. Frantically she recalled her arguments that all animals slept at night. How foolish she had been to advance a statement of that sort. Vividly now she remembered stories heard and read of night marauders—foxes, weasels—skunks! These prowled about at night and she wouldn't care to come in contact with any of them.
"Snakes!" whispered Rosemary with a sudden prickling of her scalp. "Do they go around at night, I wonder? Sarah would know."
But Sarah, the naturalist, was safely asleep in her own bed. Rosemary suddenly envied both her sisters. She remembered that Mrs. Hildreth had spoken of the warfare she waged against rats which tried to carry off the young poultry at night—Rosemary, in imagination, could picture a procession of rats running over her as she slept, on their way to the hen houses.
She got gingerly to her feet, straining her eyes to see the moving object. What could it be? Something brushed past her, close to her face. Instantly Winnie's horror of bats came to the girl's nervous mind.
"If the screen door is unlocked, I'm going in," whispered Rosemary, gathering her kimono tightly about her. "Sarah may like animals but I don't."
She started as the mournful cry of a hoot owl sounded in the distance—and then something cold and wet touched her hand! With one bound Rosemary cleared the quilt and ran like a deer across the grass. The shadowy object she had seen came toward her, moving slowly. Rosemary dodged, tripped on her kimono and fell.
She was up again in a moment and running again, her breath coming in little sobbing gasps. Jack Welles had once said that she did not "happen to be the screaming kind of girl" and though terrified now she made no outcry. She gained the porch step, tugged frantically at the screen door and felt it open in her grasp. She pitched forward, striking her knee against a chair and felt herself caught in a strong, firm clasp. For a moment she struggled furiously and silently and then realization came to her.
"Oh, Hugh!" she cried. "Hugh! There's something out there!"
Doctor Hugh snapped on the porch lamp, carefully turning the shade to shield Rosemary's eyes from the sudden light. He was fully dressed and had evidently been dozing in the swing.
"Hush—don't wake Mother!" he said warningly. "What frightened you, dear?"
Rosemary's face was quite white and her wide, startled eyes gave eloquent testimony that she had been alarmed.
"Something wet touched me—wet and cold," she whispered. "And there was something else moving around, too. I ran as fast as I could."
"Some of the farm animals out for a stroll," said Doctor Hugh with a quiet assurance that his sister found most comforting. "What do you say to going to bed now, dear, and investigating in the morning?"
"Oh, yes," agreed Rosemary. "Is it nearly morning, Hugh?"
The doctor consulted his watch.
"It is just eleven o'clock," he said quietly. "Try not to make a noise as you go upstairs for I hope Mother is asleep. I'll turn the lamp so that it will light you as far as the landing."
So she had been out there only two hours, thought Rosemary as she tumbled into her own bed. Two hours!
"It seemed like two years!" she murmured, drifting off into a peaceful sleep almost instantly.
She woke in the morning to find the others downstairs, breakfast over and all traces of her couch under the maple tree removed.
"I know Hugh did that," she said to herself gratefully as she dressed. Her first act had been to run to the window to see if the quilt was spread out on the grass. "He'll never give me away, either. And I know, too, he would have stayed out on the porch all night, if I hadn't come in, just so he would be on hand to help me when I needed him. Hugh is so dear to me!"
She said something of this to him late that afternoon, following him out to the barn when he went to get the car, preparatory to making the trip back to Eastshore. Sarah and Shirley had remained in ignorance of the brief experiment and Winnie had proved extremely tactful, asking no questions at all. Rosemary had learned, from the conversation of Warren and Richard, that a cow had strayed from the pasture and a blind old sheep had cropped the grass all night. It had been the wet nose of the cow that touched her hand and she had clumsily dodged the sheep.
"You're so good, Hugh," said Rosemary, pretending to polish the foredoor handle. "But I won't want to sleep outdoors ever again—did you know I wouldn't?"
Doctor Hugh smiled a little.
"We'll all go camping some day and you'll 'love' sleeping outdoors, as you say," he declared. "My dear little sister, I would be the last person to try to discourage you in that effort. But Mother knew and Winnie knew and I knew that, for a number of reasons, it isn't practical for you to try to sleep outdoors here; neither practical nor necessary. It wasn't a matter of sleeping outdoors, Rosemary—it was just the same old question, 'Why can't I have my own way?' Now wasn't it?"
Rosemary blushed, but her eyes met his honestly.
"Yes, I guess it was," she admitted. "But I'm sorry I was so obstinate—truly I am, Hugh."
Doctor Hugh leaned forward from behind the wheel and kissed her.
"You'll make the Willis will an aid and not a hindrance yet," he declared. "All I want to do, dear, is to save you from learning these lessons the most painful way. Hop in and I'll drive you around to the house," he added cheerfully.
The next morning was naturally a most busy one at Rainbow Hill. Monday morning is apt to be a busy time anywhere, but Mrs. Hildreth, who would sooner have dreamed of starting the day without breakfast than starting the week without washing, saw to it that not one idle moment was unaccounted for as far as her jurisdiction extended. She rose at four, instead of the customary five, and Warren and Richard, alternating, helped her with filling and emptying the tubs and lifting the heavy boiler. Mrs. Hildreth scorned the modern washing machine and did her clothes in the old-fashioned laborious way.
Winnie had a woman to help her wash—a Mrs. Pritchard who cheerfully walked two miles each way—but the temptation to bleach the household linens on the lawn in the hot sunshine appealed powerfully to the housewifely instincts of Winnie, and Mrs. Willis declared that she washed everything she came to, regardless of its state of cleanliness. Certainly one would have thought that her normal wash of light summer dresses for three girls and two women would have contented Winnie, but the combination of soft water, soap, floods of sunshine and the washing machine left by Mrs. Hammond proved well nigh irresistible to Winnie. She may have been said to fairly revel in wash.
"Let's go wading, Rosemary," coaxed Shirley this Monday morning, soon after breakfast.
"I can't—not now," said Rosemary. "I want to help Mother first and then I must practise. Ask Sarah."
"Sarah's cross," complained Shirley. "She brought the cat in from the barn and put her to sleep in the clothes basket and Winnie tipped her out."
"Yes, that would make Sarah cross," agreed Rosemary. "Where is she now?"
"I don't know," said Shirley and her tone indicated that she didn't particularly care. "Come on and let's go wading, Rosemary."
"Rosemary is going to make the beds for Mother," interposed Mrs. Willis. "Winnie is so busy this morning she hasn't time. Don't you want to pick up the papers on the porch, Shirley and put the cushions straight in the swing and bring in some fresh flowers for the glass jar? Then, when you have it all in order, I'll come out there and sit and make a new dress for your doll."
"Oh, yes, that will be nice!" beamed Shirley, trotting off busily.
In all that hive of industry, represented by the farm, Sarah was the one idle figure. She sat on the fence commanding a view of the pig pen—not the pleasantest prospect Rainbow Hill afforded, it must be confessed—and dangled her feet moodily. She was still resentful at the summary ejection of the barn cat from the clothes basket and, in addition, had been worsted in an argument with Warren whose turn it was to cultivate the corn. Sarah had wished to ride on the cultivator, preferably in the driver's seat or, failing that, on the horse's back. Warren had endeavored to dissuade her as tactfully as possible but finding that tact made small impression on Sarah, had been obliged to come out with a flat refusal.
"What a funny chicken!" said Sarah aloud, turning her attention from the grunting pigs before her to a solitary chicken behind her, a feat which nearly cost her her balance.
"I do b'lieve it's sick!" she declared, jumping down and walking over to the limp-looking fowl which stared at her coldly from a glassy eye.
Sarah, in the few weeks she had spent on the farm, had really learned a good deal about the care of the stock. To her natural love for animals and aptitude for handling them, she had added a store of knowledge gleaned by asking questions of the boys and Mr. Hildreth and observing them as they went about the barns. She had faithfully tagged Mrs. Hildreth, who took care of the poultry too, and had often seen her pick up a chicken and examine it.
So now she picked up the apathetic bird and felt of his crop with exploring little brown fingers.
"You're hungry, I'll bet," she informed him. "You probably didn't feel well this morning and the other hens knocked you away from the corn. Don't you care, I'll get you some breakfast, all for yourself."
Sarah knew where the grain bins were in the barn and she went in and opened them all. Using her dress as an apron she selected a handful of wheat, another of cracked corn, some buckwheat, a generous scoop of "middlings" and a double handful of the meat scraps bought especially for the ducks. Then out she dashed and spread the feast before the hen who really did brighten up and eat a good deal of the grain. No one hen could have eaten it all—and survived—and of course the other chickens spied the feast in time, but not before the invalid had been revived somewhat.
"Now I'll put you in a coop till you feel better," said Sarah, "so nothing can pick on you."
She stuffed her patient into one of the feeding coops in the poultry yard, gave her a pan of water and then, feeling more cheerful herself, decided to go wading.
She glanced toward the house, reflected that if she went back to get Shirley her mother might object to the wading plan or, worse yet, Winnie set her at some useful task, and made up her mind to amuse herself alone.
"Going wading?" called Warren cheerfully, as she skirted the cornfield where he sat on the swaying cultivator pulled by the plodding Solomon, both horse and boy protected from the blazing sun by straw hats.
Sarah refused to reply. She had no intention of resuming friendly intercourse so soon after the painful episode of the morning.
"He needn't think he can boss me," she scolded, sitting down by the brook to take off her shoes and stockings. "Ow, the water's cold!"
Like a great many older people, Sarah preferred to think a long time before she committed herself to an icy flood. She tucked her feet under her comfortably and gave herself up to thought.
In the grass beside her a hundred busy little ants ran to and fro and Sarah's speculations led her to wonder whether they had ever made a trip by water.
"I'll build them a little boat," she planned, "and give them a little ride."
Actuated by the kindest of motives, she fashioned a rude sort of ferry boat from a leaf and then spent twenty minutes catching passengers for it. In her energy and haste she squashed several of the little creatures and alas, when she finally sent a dizzy half dozen on their voyage the leaf capsized and the passengers were drowned. This effectually discouraged Sarah and she turned again to the prospect of wading.
The water was so cold that the soft green grass seemed more inviting and Sarah began to walk along the brook's edge, wincing a little now and then as her foot struck a sharp stone. Then, without warning, she stepped into a hole and sharp, darting tongues of fire attacked her ankles.
"Yellow jackets! Wasps! Bees!" shrieked the unfortunate child, flinging her shoes into the brook and her stockings clear on the other side as she started to run. "Get away—leave me alone!"
She had stepped into a nest of yellow jackets and stirred up great wrath. Her feet and ankles suffered the most stings, though one furious insect lighted on her elbow and another on her wrist while a third punctured her cheek. Running madly and crying with pain, Sarah finally succeeded in distancing the yellow jackets, but her shoes and stockings, as far as she was concerned, were a total loss. Nothing, she was positive, would induce her to go back and get them.
She limped sadly to the orchard and climbed her favorite wide-branching apple tree, to take count of her injuries. Angry, white puffy swellings showed where each sting had exacted toll.
"There must be a million," said the suffering Sarah.
But it was cold comfort, counting the wounds, and she longed for sympathy. Glancing through her leafy screen she saw Richard skirting the orchard fence on his way to the barn. She turned to scramble down and in the descent struck her elbow on the bark, the poor elbow already tender from a vicious sting. Sarah cried out in pain, let go hastily and tumbled to the ground.
Richard had heard her cry and he came running to pick her up.
"Good grief, you are a wreck!" he ejaculated when he saw her. "There, there, Sarah! You haven't broken any bones—I'll brush you off and you'll be as good as new. Don't cry like that—please don't!"
"I think," said Richard, judiciously, "I'll carry you up to the barn and wash you off; your mother might think you were permanently disfigured if she saw you now."
Sarah was truly a forlorn-looking object, but he tucked her under his arm and set off for the barn, trying in vain to soothe her as they went. Sarah wept continuously and only stopped when she was put down on the barn floor. She stopped then because someone was making more noise than she could possibly make.
"I don't want to hear another word," Mr. Hildreth was saying in a cold, loud voice. "Not another word. You left those grain bins open and the least you can do is to admit it like a man."
"I did not leave them open!" Warren's voice was as passionate and shaken as the other's was cold. "I tell you I did not! I haven't been in the barn this morning, except once to get the oil can. I wasn't near the bins."
Richard was pumping water into a basin and Sarah was glad he was not looking at her; She had forgotten to put the lids of the grain bins down! The door of the small washroom was jerked violently open and Warren strode in. Mr. Hildreth had evidently terminated the argument by leaving the barn.
"Hello, you look about as amiable as a thunder storm," Richard greeted his chum. "Got a clean handkerchief handy?"
Warren grimly extended a clean square.
"What's the matter with Sarah?" he asked curiously.
"Oh, she's had a hard morning—thought I'd wash off some of the worst of it before she scared everyone at the house into fits," explained Richard, beginning gently on Sarah's face, with the clean handkerchief dipped in water. "What was the row?"
Warren's face darkened. He bit his lip.
"Mr. Hildreth found the whole flock of hens having a Thanksgiving dinner out of the grain bins this morning," he said in a tone which he strived to make light and even. "He insists I left the lids up and I am just as sure I didn't. In a moment of madness I might leave one up, but I never had all the bins open at the same time since I've worked here."
"If Mr. Hildreth had a grain of sense," pronounced Richard, looking dubiously at Sarah who still presented a sad appearance notwithstanding his ministrations, "he'd know better than to accuse you. Of course some of these children have been fooling around the bins."
Sarah jumped at this uncanny penetration. She wanted nothing in the world so much as to get out of that washroom, away from Richard's straightforward gaze.
She edged carefully toward the door—but there was to be no escape.
"Sarah, were you in the barn this morning?" asked Richard.
Her answer was a look that Doctor Hugh would have been able to instantly interpret—it meant that Sarah had retreated into one of her obstinate, sulky silences and had made up her mind not to be forced into speech.
Richard turned and shot the bolt across the door.
"Were you in the barn this morning?" he repeated. "Answer me—but I know you were; and you must have left the grain bins open."
Sarah remained silent. Richard took a step toward the obdurate little figure, but Warren's voice halted him.
"Quit it, Rich," he said quietly. "Open that door. Run along, Sarah, and next time you climb an apple tree, have a pillow on the ground ready to catch you."
Sarah stepped over the sill, turned around, seemed about to speak and then went silently out of the barn. She heard Richard say something and Warren's reply:
"Oh, what difference does it make, if she did?"
Mrs. Willis knew what to do for the yellow jacket stings and she knew how to cure scratched hands and arms and soothe aching little heads. She knew, too, the signs of a hurt heart—when it was Sarah's. Shirley thought her sister was merely "cranky" when she pushed her out of the swing and Rosemary decided to let Sarah severely alone when that small girl hurled her music from the piano rack and began a violent performance of "chop sticks." But Mrs. Willis waited patiently.
It can not be denied that Sarah made the remainder of the day a veritable "blue Monday" for her family. Secure in the privileges accorded her as an invalid, she quarreled with Shirley and Rosemary, drove Winnie to distraction with repeated requests for cookies and lemonade and answered Mrs. Hildreth snappishly when that good woman stopped in for a moment's chat and generally behaved, as Winnie put it "like all possessed."
And yet, when Rosemary announced at supper that Richard and Warren were going to walk to the "Center" to see a man at the creamery and that they would be back before dark and had said the girls might go with them, Sarah's refusal to go immediately convinced her sisters that she must be really ill.
They set off as soon as the meal was over, Rosemary and Shirley and the two boys, and Sarah curled herself, a disconsolate little heap, in the porch swing. And there her mother found her and in less than two minutes had the whole story, from the pathetic beginning. "The hen was awfully sick, Mother," down to the "queer feelings" Sarah had experienced when Richard, always so good-natured and kind, had turned into an entirely different person.
"And I'm afraid of Mr. Hildreth," wailed Sarah, the tears flowing again as she ended her recital. "He'll yell at me, if I tell him, the way he did at Warren."
"Why no," said Mrs. Willis, in the most matter-of-fact tone. "Why no, he won't, Sarah. Certainly not. And you're not one bit afraid of him. He'll he sitting out on the porch now, smoking his pipe and quite ready to listen to whatever you have to tell him. You don't want Mother to go with you, do you?"
"Of course not," said Sarah, almost as matter-of-factly. "I'll go now, before the boys get back, Mother."
And away she marched to the bungalow, confidently, if not cheerfully. She had meant to ask her mother whether it would be necessary to confess that she had been the one who left the bins open, but Mrs. Willis had so evidently taken for granted that Sarah meant to do this at once, that the question had never been asked. Well, if Mr. Hildreth wasn't going to yell at her and if she wasn't afraid of him—and her mother had said he wouldn't and she wasn't—there was no earthly reason why she should not admit that she had been careless.
It all happened exactly as Mrs. Willis had said. Mr. Hildreth was sitting on his porch, smoking comfortably and resting after a hard day. He was surprised to see Sarah, but he did not yell at her. Instead he listened silently while she stammered out that she had been to blame for the hens feasting in the bins. She told him about the sick hen and she outlined her eventful day, culminating in the tumble from the apple tree and Richard's attempt to render first aid in the washroom.
"Well," Mr. Hildreth spoke for the first time, when she had finished. "Well, I'm glad you came to me and told me—though that's the natural thing to do. Own up when you're wrong—isn't it?"
"Is it?" asked Sarah doubtfully.
"Only square thing to do," the farmer assured her. "I'll tell Warren before I turn in to-night, then we'll be above board all around. You like animals, don't you?" he added suddenly.
"When I grow up," she announced, "I'm not going to do a thing but take care of animals. I'm going to have a farm, like yours, Mr. Hildreth, and I'm going to have seven automobiles with men to drive 'em. They'll go through all the cities and take the poor sick horses and dogs and cats and—and birds and things and bring 'em back to my farm. Then I'll doctor them up and cure them."
"So you think you'll be a doctor, hey?" said the farmer lazily.
"An animal doctor," Sarah affirmed. "I won't take care of sick folks, 'cause they're cross; Shirley is going to be that kind of a doctor maybe. Animals are never cross, no matter how sick they are. Did you know that, Mr. Hildreth?"
"Come to think of it, I do," Mr. Hildreth admitted, enjoying the conversation immensely. "But where'll you get money to run this farm, Sarah? Don't you think you ought to raise some crops?"
Sarah pondered.
"Rich and Warren can do that," she decided easily. "They'll be through agricultural college by then and perhaps they'll like to run my farm. But Warren will have to buy a tractor, because I won't let my horses plow. None of the animals are going to work, when I take care of them."
Mr. Hildreth glanced at her queerly.
"You're just like the rest," he said grimly. "You think of work as something to side-step, don't you? Let me tell you, Sarah, that unless you give these animal friends of yours something to do and train them to do it regularly, you will have to spend all your days dosing them."
"You mean they'll be sick?" asked Sarah, worried at once.
"Of course they'll be sick," declared Mr. Hildreth. "Animals and people need work to keep them well. Ask your brother."
"Then I'll let my animals work just enough," said Sarah thoughtfully. "Not too much, but just enough. And maybe I'll let Warren plow with the horses."
"I would, if I were you," agreed Mr. Hildreth. "You work pretty hard yourself, don't you, Sarah?"
Sarah stared at him suspiciously. Apparently he was serious.
"Of course," continued Mr. Hildreth, "you call it play. But when I see you flying over this farm and trying to be in two places at once and cram half a hundred experiences into one short day, I think you work as hard as I do. Maybe harder. Don't you ever get tired, Sarah?"
"When I go to bed," responded that active person. "But I'm not tired when I first go," she added hastily. "Mother or Hugh or Winnie are always making me go to bed before I'm sleepy. I want to study the insects on the lawn, but how can I when I have to go to bed?"
"You're not the first person who has wanted to turn night into day," said Mr. Hildreth calmly. "It's lucky for some of us that you're not successful. If we had to keep an eye on you all night, Sarah, as well as during the waking hours, think how little else we'd get done."
Sarah had a shrewd suspicion that he was laughing at her. She turned to go.
"Wait a minute—wouldn't you like a pet?" said the farmer quickly.
"Oh, yes!" replied Sarah.
"I was thinking you might like a baby pig," Mr. Hildreth informed her. "There's one in the last litter that isn't getting a fair chance. He's a runt and crowded out. If you want to take him and bring him up on a bottle, you can have him for your own."
"I'll take him," said Sarah quickly. "I can learn how to feed him, can't I? And he can sleep with me—or at least in my room—I knew a girl who had a little puppy and he slept in her doll's bed. Thank you ever so much, Mr. Hildreth."
So it was arranged that Sarah was to have her pig in the morning and she and Mr. Hildreth parted excellent friends.
She did not go back to the house but, instead, started off down the road over which, she knew, Warren and Richard, Rosemary and Shirley, must come. She had walked perhaps half a mile, when she saw them.
Sarah became unaccountably shy. She walked more and more slowly and, reaching Rosemary, who was ahead, she found she had nothing to say.
"Hello, dear," Rosemary greeted her, wondering why Sarah had changed her mind and come to meet them. "Do you feel better?"
"Come back and walk with me, Sarah," said Warren pleasantly, for he had determined to put Sarah at her ease about the grain bins.
"A fuss like that is nothing to worry about," he had told Richard, "and I don't like to see a kid unhappy over such trifles."
Sarah waited till the other three were a little ahead and then she slipped a confiding hand into Warren's.
"I told Mr. Hildreth," she whispered, "and he wasn't cross one bit; and I'm going to have a baby pig for my own and bring it up on a bottle."
Warren's face was as bright as the one she lifted to his.
"Why Sarah Willis!" he said joyfully. "Why Sarah! You went to Mr. Hildreth about those silly grain bins? You needn't have done that—I meant to tell you not to worry. But, of course, I'm glad you did tell him."
"What are you talking about?" demanded Shirley, looking back. "Did Sarah tell Mr. Hildreth something?"
Richard's glance rested sharply on Sarah. He smiled, grasping what had happened with his usual quickness.
"You're a brick, Sarah!" he complimented her. "A brick—that's what you are."
But Sarah was eager to tell about her pig and Warren wished to change the topic so no more was said then. Instead Richard addressed himself to the three Willis girls collectively.
"I think you've about explored Rainbow Hill," he announced, "at least Sarah has. She's exhausted its possibilities, if I'm a fair judge. I think you need some new interests."
"Yes," agreed Shirley with perfect gravity and not the slightest idea of his meaning, "yes we do, Richard."
They all laughed, but Richard was not to side-tracked.
"There's the Gay family," he said. "You don't know them, but some of the children must be about your own age."
Rosemary thought "Gay" a pretty name and said so while Sarah reproved her. "Gay isn't a name, silly; it means they always have a good time. Doesn't it, Richard?"
"Well no, not in this case," replied Richard, "but I'm going over there to-morrow morning and, if you like, you may come along and get acquainted."