Mr. Robinson, recovered from his first surprise, proved to be an excellent listener. Sarah told him of Bony and that animal's accomplishments and he admitted that his circus did not have a trained pig. He was interested, too, to hear how she had taught the pig these tricks and Sarah, quite carried away by this flattering evidence of understanding, told him a great deal more. In fact, unconsciously, she presented him a picture of the family at Rainbow Hill and, before she had finished, of the Gay family, too. This last, to do her justice, was quite unintentional.
"I didn't mean to tell you about the Gays," she cried in quick remorse. "Rosemary said we must never tell a stranger about them; when a grown-up person knows how poor they are, the town will take them to the poor farm."
"Now don't you be sorry," Mr. Robinson comforted her. "Don't you be sorry for one thing you've told me. I won't let it go any further—least ways not among the town folk. I'm glad you told me about this family, downright glad. I've known what it is to live on a farm with a mortgage hanging over your head."
"Have you?" asked Sarah humbly, much relieved. "Then maybe Louisa won't care if you do know about their mortgage."
"I've been thinking," said Mr. Robinson slowly, "that it would be a good thing if I went with you this morning and saw the pig you've told me about; mind you, I can't promise to buy it, till I've seen it. But I'd like to look at it. And I'd like to see this Gay farm—maybe that will turn out to be something I can use."
Sarah did not see how he could use a farm in a circus, but she wisely refrained from asking. Richard returning for her at this juncture, she introduced him to the circus agent and explained that he wanted to go back to Rainbow Hill with them.
Richard was surprised, but cordial, and as Solomon, brave in a new shoe and three tightened old ones, trotted them homeward, Sarah and Mr. Robinson together explained their plans.
Sarah's was comparatively simple. She wanted to sell Bony to the circus and give the money to Louisa. The pig was the most valuable possession she owned and would surely bring more money than anything else she might part with—even her five-dollar gold piece. Yes, she admitted, in response to Richard's questioning, she was fond of Bony—but she thought he would like living with a circus.
Mr. Robinson's plan was more complicated. "For some time past," he said to Richard, a little breathlessly, for he was stout and the wagon jolted him considerably, "for some time past, I've been on the lookout for new winter quarters for the circus. My idea has been to get a farm in a good section of the country, but of course we can't afford to pay a price a place in a good state of cultivation would bring; what we want is acreage and buildings in fair shape. This Gay farm the little girl tells me about, may fill the bill, providing they are willing to sell."
"They would sell, all right," Richard declared thoughtfully, "but I don't see where they can go. The place won't bring enough to keep a family of six very long."
"We can talk that over, after I see the place," said Mr. Robinson. "You can trust me to be fair to a parcel of kids—I lived on a farm and I was bound out on a farm."
Eager as Sarah was to exhibit her pig, she had to wait. It was "dinner time" at the farmhouse and lunch time for the Willis family when Richard stopped before the barn. Mrs. Willis and Shirley had returned—Doctor Hugh had dropped them at the crossroads and gone on to the hospital in Bennington—and while at the table Sarah made no mention of her plans. She had a habit of taking no part in the general conversation, unless personally interested, and her silence created no wonderment.
After the hospitable manner of the countryside, the circus agent was asked to dinner by Mr. Hildreth who took it for granted that he had asked a lift of Richard on his way from one town to another. And, the meal over, Richard piloted him to the barn, where Rosemary and Shirley and Sarah and the pig awaited him.
"Come on and watch," said Sarah cordially, but Richard, declaring he was too busy, went on to his work.
Sarah was a little fearful lest Bony develop "temperament," of which he had his share, and refuse to act, but he happened to be in the best of humors, thanks to a peaceful morning free from interruptions, which had allowed him to enjoy a full-length nap.
Sarah put him through his paces and change of costumes with pride. He danced, he marched, he went through his acrobatics; he wheeled the doll carriage and poured afternoon tea; he played the piano and read, wearing a pair of glassless spectacles and turning the printed page with a graceful air of interest. He grunted "Yes" and he squeaked "No" to half a dozen questions. And finally, seated in a doll's rocking chair, he fanned himself as though the exactions of his art were wearing in the extreme.
"I ought to signyouup with the circus," said Mr. Robinson admiringly, when Sarah announced that Bony had displayed the extent of his accomplishments. "You must have a gift, to be able to train an animal like that. Of course he is a clever pig, but you have developed him and made it easy for us to teach him fancier tricks. Do you want to sell him?"
Sarah looked at Rosemary, who, with Shirley, had come out to witness the performance.
"Yes," said Sarah, after a minute. "Yes, I want to sell him."
"You can't change your mind, you know," announced the circus agent warningly. He wanted the pig but he wished to be fair.
Sarah's chin went up in the air.
"I won't change my mind," she declared. "I won't sell Bony and then ask for him back. You may have him—now."
"Can't take him till to-morrow morning," said Mr. Robinson. "Don't you have to ask any older person—your mother, for instance?"
Rosemary shook her head.
"Mr. Hildreth gave the pig to Sarah," she explained. "It is all hers. And you mustn't tell anyone about buying it—that is, that the money is for Louisa."
Mr. Robinson looked perplexed, as well he might.
"But little grasshoppers!" he ejaculated, scratching his head. "You can go just so far with a secret, you know; if I buy this Gay farm a heap of people will have to know about it."
"Oh, who?" said Rosemary in quick distress.
"Well, the guardian, or whoever holds the estate for them," said Mr. Robinson. "Then the lawyer who draws the deed and all the folks at the Court House who have anything to do with the searches and like that."
"I don't understand," declared Rosemary, while Sarah and Shirley began to fold up the dresses Bony had worn. "But I am sure there is no guardian. Louisa would have said something about it."
"Never mind," said the circus agent kindly. "Plenty of time to find out all that later. Now if the little girl really wants to sell the pig—"
He named a figure that surprised them all. Whether, as Doctor Hugh suspected when he heard the story, Mr. Robinson wanted to help the Gays too, and added more as a practical way to assist them; or whether, as Sarah was firmly convinced, Bony was the smartest pig he had ever seen and he recognized his value, does not really matter. There, before three pairs of wondering eyes, he counted out a little heap of soiled bills and gave them to Sarah.
"I'll take the pig in the morning," he said, folding up the remainder of his money and fastening the roll with an elastic. "I expect to put up with the Hildreths to-night and one of the boys will take me back to town after breakfast. You look after the pig for me till then, won't you?"
Sarah promised and then, as she did not seem to know what to do with the money, he suggested that she run into the house and give it to her mother to put away.
The three girls were anxious to go over to the Gay farm with Mr. Robinson, but he explained that he thought he could talk better to Alec and Louisa alone.
"I'm just going to wander over there and tell 'em that Richard Gilbert sent me," he said. "I'll say he heard I wanted to buy a small place and that I thought they might be in the market. I'll tell you all about it, soon as I get back."
They watched him start "across lots" to the Gay farm and then Sarah went into the house to ask her mother to put away the money.
"You've sold Bony, dear?" echoed Mrs. Willis when she heard the news. "And for all this money? Who bought him, Sarah? When did you sell your pig?"
Sarah told her about Mr. Robinson, and Rosemary and Shirley listened eagerly for they had not heard the details, nor learned how Sarah had met the circus agent.
"I always said Bony was a smart pig!" wound up Sarah, watching her mother counting the money into a little black tin box, fitted with a lock and key.
"But Sarah dear, I thought you were very fond of Bony," said Mrs. Willis. "Why did you want to sell him—and what are you planning to do with all this money?"
"It's a secret," declared Sarah, setting her lips tightly.
"Oh, lamb! Don't you want to tell Mother?"
Sarah shook her head so violently her black hair whipped across her eyes.
"Nobody must ever tell—never, never, never!" she asserted and, catching Shirley by the hand, she ran out of the room, dragging her small sister with her.
Rosemary's beautiful blue eyes turned to her mother's troubled ones.
"It's all right, Mother," she urged. "Really it is; the man wanted to buy the pig—he told Rich it was very cleverly trained. And what Sarah wants to do with the money won't be a secret after the first of September. She'll tell you then."
"I'll have to hold it for her until she does tell me," said Mrs. Willis quietly. "I don't see how Sarah could bring herself to part with Bony, Rosemary; she has been devoted to him."
Rosemary wanted to tell of the motive that had prompted Sarah's sacrifice, but thought she was in honor bound not to. So she went downstairs to her practising, wondering what Louisa and Alec were saying to Mr. Robinson and whether he would buy the farm from them.
Sarah and her pig disappeared till dinner time and if during the meal the former seemed more silent than usual it might easily have been because she was tired.
Mrs. Hildreth came for one of her rare chats with Mrs. Willis after dinner that night and then the girls felt free to slip down to the bungalow to hear what Mr. Robinson had to tell them.
Eager as they were to learn what had been done for the Gays, they were not to go directly to the bungalow for half way across the lawn Mrs. Hildreth called to them.
"Miss Clinton sent me word to-day, Rosemary," she said, "that she'd like very much to see you; the letter-man told me. I thought maybe you'd go down there this evening."
"Don't go," whispered Sarah. "We want to see Mr. Robinson."
Rosemary stopped uncertainly. It was still light and Mrs. Willis would not object if they were back before dark.
"We were going to see the boys," said Rosemary. "There was something I wanted to ask them—"
"Oh, you can see them when you come back," Mrs. Hildreth answered. "I'd go see Miss Clinton if I were you; she gets lonely and it isn't very nice to disappoint an old lady. She hasn't so many interests as you have."
Rosemary looked at the speaker a trifle resentfully. Mrs. Hildreth, like many busy people, was an adept at pointing out duties for other folk.
"Shall we go, Mother?" she asked doubtfully.
Now Mrs. Willis knew nothing of Mr. Robinson's all important visit to the Gay farm and she saw no special reason for a visit to the bungalow.
"Why I don't see why not, darling," she answered. "If you are not too tired. Don't stay long, because you want to be home before dark. As Mrs. Hildreth says, the old lady is probably lonely."
Rosemary went on and Sarah began to scold.
"I don't see why you said you'd go," she complained. "We never plan to go anywhere that someone doesn't spoil it. Why didn't you say you'd go when you got ready and not before?"
"Because that would have been disrespectful and rude and you know it," retorted Rosemary tartly. "You and Shirley go on and see Mr. Robinson and I'll see Miss Clinton. I don't mind going alone."
"I'll go, too," said Shirley.
"I'm not going to hear what he has to say and let you wait," announced Sarah gruffly. "What do you suppose Miss Clinton wants?"
"Company, probably," said Rosemary. "We'll tell her we can't stay long, because Mother doesn't like us out after dark; we can stop at the bungalow on the way back and the boys will walk back with us."
They found Miss Clinton, sitting in her chair, in the center of the doorway. Then they were glad they had come, for it was easy to picture her sitting like that a whole dreary evening, watching and waiting.
"I hoped you'd come this evening," the old lady greeted them. "Is that Sarah with you? My, my, I don't often have you for a visitor, my dear."
Sarah looked pleased. She appreciated cordial welcome as much as anyone.
"I told the letter-man to tell Mrs. Hildreth I wanted to see you, Rosemary," went on Miss Clinton, "because I have a letter I can't read and I don't want to trust it to anyone around here. They are such gossips!" she added a little harshly.
"But can I read it?" asked Rosemary, surprised. "I mean will I be able to?"
"Oh, it's written in English, all right," laughed the old lady, her bright bird-like eyes twinkling. "I'm not asking you to translate a French or Spanish letter. I don't believe it will take you very long, because you are bright."
"We mustn't stay till dark," murmured Rosemary, wondering what kind of a letter it could be that Miss Clinton was unable to decipher.
"You'll have it done long before dark," Miss Clinton assured her. "Let me see, where did I put it? Oh yes—look in that jar on the cabinet shelf."
Rosemary lifted the lid of the Canton ginger jar. It was apparently empty but feeling around in it, her fingers found some scraps of paper.
"That's the letter," said the old lady placidly. "I put it down on a pile of old papers this morning when it first came and then when I went to start a fire this noon, I carelessly tore the papers across and with them the letter. Fortunately I discovered what I had done in time to save the scraps, but I can't put them together again. I thought you could."
Rosemary emptied out the pieces of paper on the table and, instructed by Miss Clinton, found the paste and a large sheet of paper on which to paste the bits. Shirley and Sarah sat down on the floor and began playing with the toys in the cabinet.
"Adelaide has real good sense," remarked Miss Clinton as Rosemary studied the pieces attentively, "she never writes on more than one side of the paper. I'd be in a pretty fix, if she had."
Rosemary privately thought that she was in a fix as it was, for the scrawled writing made no sense whatever, as far as she could see. She arranged it tentatively, scattered the pieces again and laboriously pieced them together in another combination.
"Did it begin, 'Dear Aunt'?" she asked desperately.
"Mercy no." Miss Clinton looked up brightly from her crocheting. "Adelaide calls me 'Clintie' and always has. Usually she begins, 'Clintie dear.'"
Rosemary worked feverishly, anxious to please the old lady and even more anxious to be on her way. She wanted to know what the circus agent had done about the farm and she was curious to know if Louisa was displeased that their straits had become known to a stranger.
"There!" she said, after almost an hour's work. "I think I have it all right—it makes sense, anyway. But there's a corner missing."
"I don't mind a corner, as long as you have the gist of it," returned Miss Clinton gratefully. "I didn't want to write to Adelaide that I'd destroyed her letter before I'd even read it. I'm sure I don't know how to thank you, Rosemary!"
She wanted the girls to stay and have some of her sponge cake—baked that afternoon—but they were in a fever of impatience to be gone. When they finally found themselves out in the lane that took them to the Hildreth house, Sarah was the first to speak.
"If she'd had a telephone we could have asked her what she wanted and then we wouldn't have gone," she declared.
"Yes we would," smiled Rosemary. "That wasn't much to do—or it wouldn't have been, if we weren't going to hear about the Gays. Miss Clinton didn't know that."
"I see Mr. Robinson!" chirped Shirley as they came in sight of the house.
"Did you buy the farm?" asked Sarah bluntly.
Richard and Warren and Jack and the circus agent sat on the top step and below them were ranged Rosemary, Shirley and Sarah. Mr. Hildreth had considerately gone into the kitchen to read.
"No," answered Mr. Robinson, "I didn't buy the place."
Three faces fell.
"But I've rented it," he went on, "and paid a quarter's rent in advance."
"Is that just as good?" inquired Rosemary respectfully.
Mr. Robinson laughed and Warren nodded.
"Alec was over at milking time and he was feeling as gay as his name," said Warren. "I guess their troubles are over for a time."
Then Mr. Robinson explained what he had done and why and never did a speaker have a more attentive audience.
"I won't bother you with the legal end of it," he said good-naturedly, "but these children are under twenty-one and when their parents died a guardian should have been appointed for them. If I tried to buy the farm there would have to be a guardian appointed and even then I doubt if he could give me a clear title.
"So, for many reasons, it is much simpler to rent the farm from them and better, I am firmly convinced, for the children. They are to stay on in the house and this winter I and my wife will come out and make our headquarters there. Alec can lend me a hand with the animals and Mother will see that that plucky girl gets her schooling. I'll stable most of the circus horses out here and as nearly as I can tell it's just the kind of a place we need."
He told them a great deal more about Alec's surprise and Louisa's delight and something of the plans for the winter which should include the attendance at school of the five Gays old enough to go.
The boys walked back with Rosemary and Shirley and Sarah, and Warren told them further details.
"Mr. Robinson is a brick!" he declared heartily. "He's renting the farm because he discovered in what desperate straits the Gays are; if he tried to buy it, it would take months to get their affairs untangled—there would be miles of red tape and court hearings and dear knows what all. Instead he has paid them cash down for a quarter and I understand from Alec he is paying a generous rental, besides offering Alec employment this winter. He's put out because the town hasn't done anything—and now, he says, he and his wife will look after them and Bennington can save its legal snail tracks."
"But Alec and Louisa didn't want the town to know anything about them," protested Rosemary.
"Well, they're too young to manage their own affairs," said Warren curtly. "Somebody should have been responsible long before this."
It was odd, but Jack, Warren and Richard separately, each took Sarah aside and asked her if she had wanted to sell her pig. Each offered to return the money to the circus agent for her and get Bony back.
"I wanted to sell him," said Sarah stolidly, three times.
In the morning she kissed Bony good by and watched him drive away with Richard and Mr. Robinson. Then she went out to the barn, refusing Rosemary's invitation to go over to the Gays'. Shirley went in her stead and they were greeted by a radiant Louisa who declared that her troubles were at an end and that now she had hopes of being able to keep the family together and even educate them.
"Of course we have to be careful," she said, smiling as though that would be comparatively easy. "The quarter's rent Mr. Robinson paid won't quite meet the interest, but Alec thinks he can scrape the rest together somehow. And of course we will have to pay for the potato fertilizer and the store bill is overdue; but we'll manage."
It was on the tip of Rosemary's tongue to tell her about the money Sarah had, but she stopped in time and sent Shirley a warning glance. That pleasure belonged to Sarah and no one should take it from her.
"Will you come upstairs a moment, Rosemary?" asked Louisa, "I want to show you something. Let Shirley play with Kitty in the yard."
The two girls went up the steep, straight stairs and Louisa took her guest into one of the front rooms.
"Mr. Robinson said his wife would be out to get acquainted with us soon," Louisa explained, "and of course she'll have to stay all night. And where, I ask you, Rosemary, is she to sleep?"
"Why I don't know, dear," replied Rosemary, smiling. "What is the matter with this room?"
She looked about it as she spoke. It was a large, square room, very clean and, it must be confessed, very bare. There was a bureau, one leg missing and the lack supplied by a brick; one chair, the bed and a little table (not large enough to be useful and not small enough to be dainty) completed the furnishings.
"It looks so awful," said poor Louisa. "And of course I can't buy material for curtains; Mother used to say that curtains softened a room and helped to furnish it. But I certainly am thankful for one thing."
"What?" Rosemary asked.
"That I've always saved one pair of Mother's good sheets and her best light blankets and two pillow cases, real linen ones," said Louisa. "When the linen began to wear out, I patched it and darned it as well as I could, but our sheets last winter were made of flour sacks, stitched together. They're white as snow for I bleached them, but I wouldn't want to have Mr. Robinson's wife sleep on flour sack sheets."
"Oh, my, of course not," said the sympathetic Rosemary.
"She won't have to," declared Louisa with satisfaction. "Much as I have wanted to use these sheets and the blankets, I've kept them put away. They are linen Mother had when she was married and I never could afford to buy any like it now."
"That's fine," said Rosemary, a trifle absently.
She was studying the windows, three placed close together on one side of the room.
"Do you know, Louisa," she said slowly, "I believe we could make curtains for those windows—just straight side-drapes, you understand, with a plain valance across the top."
"I've seen pictures," Louisa admitted, "but I haven't any material."
"I could get it," Rosemary began, but Louisa shook her head.
"It's a silly idea, anyway," she declared resolutely. "I haven't any business to be thinking about curtains when the whole house is as shabby as my old winter coat. If Mrs. Robinson does come and see new curtains she'd know right away that I'd spent money I couldn't afford on them. She might even get the idea that I was trying to make an impression."
"You have a perfect right to try and make a pleasant impression!" flared Rosemary hotly. "Of course you have. And I'll tell you how to make new curtains and they won't cost a cent—except money you have already paid. Use the blue and white gingham!"
Louisa stared. She had bought, almost as soon as Alec had told her the good news of the farm's rental, a dozen yards of neat blue and white checked gingham to make Kitty and June some much-needed frocks and herself an apron or two.
"But I never heard of gingham curtains!" Louisa protested.
"They're very fashionable for bedrooms," Rosemary assured her. "We have some at Rainbow Hill—I can show you those. And Mother has a magazine with heaps of pictures in that show checked casement curtains. You'll love them when you see them made and hung, Louisa."
"Well—the children can wait for the dresses, I suppose," said Louisa.
And, with Rosemary's help, the curtains were made and hung before the circus agent's wife paid her promised visit. They were a great success and Louisa was inordinately proud of them.
Now they went back to the kitchen to look again at the gingham.
"I wish there was some way I could earn a little money," said Louisa wistfully.
The knitted face cloth on the back of the kitchen chair was responsible for Rosemary's idea.
"You could knit a bedspread, Louisa!" she said with enthusiasm. "I'll show you how; Miss Clinton told me they sell for lots of money and Warren has a cousin who is a domestic science teacher in a large city; he said she was out here last summer and offered to get orders for Miss Clinton, but she wouldn't agree to sell her spreads. She doesn't need the money, but you do."
Louisa was as excited as Rosemary and before an hour had passed the two girls had, in imagination, knit four elaborate spreads and disposed of them for eighty dollars apiece.
Then Louisa came down to earth and spoke more practically.
"It will take a long time to do a full-sized spread," she said, "but I will have plenty of time to knit this winter. You show me how and Miss Clinton will help me, if I get stuck in the middle of a pattern. You are too lovely, Rosemary, to think of something I can do!"
"I wish I could earn some money for the Gays," sighed Shirley, trotting home beside Rosemary when they had left the cheerful Louisa.
"Well, you're a pretty little girl to earn money, darling," Rosemary told her, "but I'll try to think of something you can do. We'll ask the boys; they know more about money than we do, Warren and Rich especially."
Her intuition proved to be right, for Warren, consulted, suggested that Shirley might pick herbs, wild ones, and get the Gay children to help her.
"Old Fiddlestrings buys wild herbs and sells them, along with those he raises in his garden, to city druggists," explained Warren. "I'll see him to-night and find out what he wants right now. Then I'll help you till you learn to know the different leaves and after that it will be easy."
Warren was as good as his word and in a few days Shirley and Jim, Kenneth and Kitty Gay were earnestly hunting herbs. They made a few mistakes at first, but soon learned and as it was wholesome work and did not take them off the farm, they were encouraged to go herb picking every day. Warren acted as selling agent and the little heap of pennies and dimes and nickels in the pink china bank grew steadily.
That, however, was after Sarah had presented her offering to Louisa. For one anxious half day it seemed that there might be no presentation, for Sarah disappeared completely after saying good by to Bony; and diligent search on the part of her sisters failed to produce her.
"Sarah didn't come to lunch, and Mother is worried," announced Rosemary, meeting the wagon as it returned from the cannery with Warren driving and Jack sitting on the empty crates in the back.
Warren reined in the horses and looked anxious.
"She hasn't taken Belle again, has she?" he asked.
"No, I looked and Belle is in the pasture," replied Rosemary. "I've looked everywhere and Winnie came and helped me and Shirley, too. And Hugh telephoned he would be out for dinner—where can she have gone?"
Jack spoke suddenly.
"I'll tell you what I think," he said. "I think she is crying somewhere about Bony. You know Sarah—she would run a mile before she would let anyone see her cry. And I'll bet seeing Bony go just about broke her heart. She was crazy about that pig."
"Yes, she was," agreed Rosemary. "Poor little Sarah! She was determined to sell him and give the money to Alec and Louisa—and all the time she must have cared so much!"
"You go help Rosemary find her, Jack," said Warren. "Rich and I will get up the next load. Think where she would be likely to run and hide and then look for her there."
Jack jumped down from the wagon and faced Rosemary anxiously.
"Where shall we look?" he asked.
"In the woods," answered Rosemary, after a moment's thought. "There's a place there we call the cave—four rocks around in a ring. You can climb over them and drop down on the moss and it feels as though you really were in a cave. Let's go look there."
The woods were some distance away and the sun was hot, but Rosemary and Jack ran nearly all the way. Rosemary was almost crying, for the more she thought about Sarah, the more plausible it seemed that she must be heart-broken over the loss of her beloved pet.
"You go look," whispered Jack, when they reached the four large rocks Rosemary had described. "Peek over and see if she is there."
Cautiously Rosemary crawled over the rocks—long afterwards she remembered how cool and damp they felt to her fevered hands and knees—and peered down into the green hollow they formed. A little figure in a crumpled tan frock was huddled against one of the stones.
"Sarah!" called Rosemary softly. "Sarah dearest! You must be starved!"
"Go away!" said Sarah crossly.
That was all she would say, though Rosemary told her how worried they had all been, urged that Doctor Hugh was coming to dinner and pleaded with her to come home at once and have something to eat.
"Come on, Sarah—that's a good girl," begged Rosemary. "Jack is here, too, and he wants to get back to work."
"Tell him to go, then," muttered Sarah. Jack climbed over one of the boulders and gazed down at the obdurate little person whose unhappy brown face lacked its usual life and color. Sarah did not look like herself.
"Look here, Sarah," said Jack with directness, but not unkindly. "Your mother is worried stiff about you and you're coming back with us and coming now. If you don't want me to climb down there and pull you out, you'd better scramble up this minute."
Suddenly Sarah climbed up the rock furthest from Jack and dropped to the ground. She refused to take Rosemary's hand and scuffed on before them silently, like a small Indian in a very bad temper.
"She does care," whispered Rosemary to Jack. "She always acts like this when she wants to cry and is too proud."
With Rosemary to the left of her and Jack on her right and no possible avenue of escape open, Sarah mounted the porch steps. Someone all in white, fragrant and dainty and sweet, gathered her, dirt-stained and disheveled as she was, into loving arms. Sarah began to cry.
"There, my precious," said Mrs. Willis softly, "tell Mother all about it—she wants to hear."
Rosemary and Jack slipped away.
Once more a flood of moonlight and a night or two when "Old Fiddlestrings" wandered up and down the road playing the "Serenade" and then the first of September was blazoned on the calendar and on the fields of Rainbow Hill. The summer was virtually over.
Jack went away hilariously for a brief fishing trip with his father before the Eastshore schools should open; and to the delight of his mother and sisters, Doctor Hugh came out to stay till they were ready to go back with him, a matter of ten days or so, for school would be in session by the middle of the month.
Finding Sarah in a sad state from violent crying on his arrival the day of Bony's departure, Doctor Hugh was soon in possession of the Gays' story; and he not only succeeded in persuading Louisa and Alec to accept the money Sarah's sacrifice had obtained, but he also managed to give them a more wholesome outlook on the world in general. Although Alec and Louisa were naturally reluctant to accept Sarah's money, when they were finally persuaded, their relief was plain. Now they had enough cash in hand to meet the dreaded interest payment. Alec insisted that the money from Sarah was to be regarded as a loan and Doctor Hugh agreed to this.
"All right," said Sarah when this arrangement was explained to her, "but I don't want to see Bony—not ever any more."
Alec had told her that the pig would probably be brought to the farm to spend the winter and had offered to drive to Eastshore some day and bring her back to see her pet. Sarah's refusal was unmistakable; the parting once made, she was not minded to harrow her feelings again.
Rosemary found Louisa a diligent pupil and the knitted spread was soon under way. Louisa's pet ambition was to buy a good flock of hens and raise chickens. The money earned from the spread, or spreads she might make, she confided to Rosemary, was to be saved toward this venture.
"We haven't had our picnic yet," said Doctor Hugh one morning at the breakfast table. "We must have one before we go back to town. Let's ask the Gays and the Hildreths and Warren and Richard—next week will be a good time."
And then for a few days a round of emergency calls kept him so busy he forgot that such things as picnics were ever held.
Bringing the car around a few mornings later, intending to take his mother and Winnie in to look at the remodeled house, he found Sarah and Shirley placidly seated behind the wheel when he came out from breakfast.
"You can't go this time—there isn't room," he informed them pleasantly. "Hop out—here come Mother and Winnie."
"You said we could go next time and this is next time," insisted Sarah.
There were tears of disappointment in Shirley's eyes, but she climbed out of the car in response to a second look from Doctor Hugh. Sarah, however, clung to the wheel and had to be lifted out bodily.
"You're too old to act like this," said her brother sternly. "It is important that Mother and Winnie go with me this morning—they were going yesterday and then I had to put them off to go in to the hospital; suppose Mother scowled the way you do, Sarah, when things didn't go to suit her."
Rosemary came out to see them off and Mrs. Willis and Winnie waved as though nothing had happened. Doctor Hugh suddenly swooped down upon Sarah, lifted her high in his arms and kissed her. With another swift kiss for Shirley, he was back in the car before the angry Sarah could recover from her astonishment. The car rolled down the road and left her standing glaring after it.
Sarah was exceedingly put out and she did not attempt to disguise her state of mind. Rosemary, finding it impossible to win her to a more reasonable point of view, went indoors to finish the odds and ends of work Winnie had had to leave undone. This left Shirley to Sarah, and Sarah was like the disgruntled sailor who deliberately incites mutiny.
"I want to bebad!" she told Shirley passionately. "Let's think of something awful and go do it!"
Shirley could not think of anything, unfortunately, that is unfortunately from Sarah's point of view.
"I know!" cried that small sinner, after a moment's thought. "We can go in the tool house."
Sarah had remembered what Warren had said when they first came to the farm—that the tool house was forbidden ground. He had also warned them against going into the windmill.
"Come on, Shirley," cried the naughty Sarah. "We'll look at the old tools—we won't hurt 'em."
She found she had reckoned without the canny Mr. Hildreth, when she reached the tool house. It was securely locked and no amount of tampering could make any impression on the stout padlock.
"Come on, we'll go up in the windmill," said Sarah, not to be balked.
She would have found it hard to explain what satisfaction disobeying Mr. Hildreth and Warren gave her, when her anger was really directed toward her brother. However, she may have reasoned that doing something she knew was wrong was one sure way to plague Doctor Hugh.
Shirley obediently trotted after her sister to the graceful red shingled tower that enclosed the iron framework of the windmill. Alas, for once in his busy life, Mr. Hildreth had inspected the pump and left the door unlocked. Sarah had merely to open it and fold it back and the interior of the mill was revealed to her.
"We'll play it's a robbers' cave, Shirley," suggested Sarah. "It's nice and dark."
She was minded to climb the enticing iron ladder, but fearful lest Shirley develop an obstinate streak and refuse, she had decided to begin with a milder amusement.
"I'll be the robber chief, Shirley," she went on—Sarah had a fondness for such plays and her brother often said that she would have had a wonderful time as a boy. "I'll be the robber chief," she repeated, "and you drag in the loot."
"What's loot?" asked Shirley hopefully, having a vague idea that it was something one ate.
"Loot is what we steal from the noble lords and ladies," Sarah asserted with a faint memory of old firelight stories.
"But where do we get it?" the literal-minded Shirley demanded.
"Oh, we go out and hunt for it," said Sarah. "Don't let anybody see you—remember we're robbers."
And she opened the windmill door cautiously and peered out.
There was no one in sight and the two little girls crept out and sped to the nearest tree with a delicious sense of excitement. If they had turned around and seen someone chasing them, they would not have been surprised.
"Take a stone," said Sarah. "Take a stone for loot. A little one, Shirley—that one by your foot."
Shirley picked it up and dropped it immediately with a little cry.
"Did you drop it on your foot?" asked Sarah.
"What's the matter?"
"Horrid, nasty little bugs under that," Shirley announced, pointing with a dainty pink forefinger at the stone she had sent crashing back to earth.
"Well, a few bugs never hurt anyone," proclaimed Sarah. "I only hope you haven't mashed any; when will you learn not to be afraid of bugs, Shirley?"
Shirley refused to look as Sarah carefully turned the stone over. There were numerous little crawling creatures beneath it and several white slugs.
"I suppose you've murdered a hundred, but I can't see them," Sarah reported. "If I had something to scrape them up with, I could save some."
"Don't play with bugs, Sarah," pleaded Shirley, who knew too well the fatal attraction of all creeping and crawling things for her sister. "I don't like bugs. Leave them alone."
"All right, I will," said Sarah with surprising amiability. "We'll go back to the cave; I'll take this stone and you needn't take any."
Back to the windmill they went and nothing would please Sarah but closing the door again. She liked the dark, she said.
"What's that?" cried Shirley, starting. "I heard a noise, Sarah."
Sarah had heard it, too.
"It's the clanking chains," she declared with relish.
"What clanking chains?" whispered Shirley fearfully.
"The chains we put on our prisoners," said Sarah whose imagination was stimulated by the dark pit in which she found herself.
"What prisoners?" asked Shirley, fascinated in spite of herself.
"Prisoners we robbed," said Sarah solemnly. "We put long chains on them and they have to walk up and down and they can't get out."
"Oh—Oh—I don't like them to have on long chains," Shirley wailed. "I want you to take them off, Sarah. Please, Sarah."
"Well," Sarah considered. "Perhaps I will. We might as well let the prisoners go, anyway. They make too much noise. Now the chains are off, Shirley."
Just as she said that, the noise sounded louder than before.
"Clank! Clank! Clank!"
"You said you took 'em off!" wept Shirley. "You said so, Sarah."
"I thought I did," admitted Sarah. "Wait till I get the door open and I'll see what made that last noise."
She had latched the door of the windmill and in the darkness it took her some time to find it. At last she got it open and the light streamed in, showing Shirley's face streaked with tears.
"I see what made the noise!" proclaimed Sarah triumphantly. "It's the jigger-thing pumping up and down."
The wings of the mill had turned lazily and the iron rods, jerked up and down, had made the clanking noise.
"I don't want to play that any more," said Shirley with more decision than she usually showed.
"We'll play we are firemen and climb the ladder," said Sarah, pointing to the narrow iron ladder that led to the top of the mill.
And she actually helped the confiding Shirley to start the long upward climb and followed close behind her.
Half way up, the inky darkness—for the narrow windows were few and far between, frightened Shirley and she begged to go back. Sarah cajoled and bullied her into continuing and the two children managed to make the steep climb and reach the platform at the top of the mill. As they stepped out on the boards a gust of wind caught the big fan-like sails and the pump began to sound with a loud clanking noise. This and the sensation of being high among the clouds terrified Shirley and she clung to Sarah, screaming.
Sarah would have liked to scream too. Her face was quite white under the tan and she grasped the framework tightly. As she looked far across the fields and felt the dizzy sensation of floating with the clouds that seemed near enough for her hand to touch, one awful thought came to her—"How are we to get back?" She was sure they could never go down that narrow ladder—it had been hard enough to climb up and going down would be impossible.
She sat down, close to the frame, and Shirley hid her face on her shoulder. And there Rosemary found them—having heard from Mrs. Hildreth that they had been seen going down to the brook. The quickest way to reach the brook was past the windmill.
Rosemary called as she came through the field and Sarah heard her. She stood up and shouted and, because the wind had died down and it was very quiet and still, Rosemary, too, heard. Kneeling down, Sarah could see her sister through a knot hole in the platform.
Rosemary's first impulse was to run and get help—someone to bring the girls down, but Sarah implored her "not to tell."
"Everyone will scold and tell Hugh," said Sarah, shouting her plea. "You come get us, Rosemary—please don't tell."
Both she and Shirley were confident that Rosemary could rescue them alone and unaided. As the older, Rosemary was accustomed to helping Sarah out of tight places and, it must be confessed, shielding her from the consequences of her own wrong-doing. She promised not to tell "this time."
Setting her teeth, Rosemary began the climb and accomplished it with fair ease. Her nerves were steady and she was strong and vigorous. But when it came to getting Shirley down, all her powers of endurance were taxed to the utmost.
Shirley was rigid with fright. She wanted to hang on to Rosemary and it was necessary to force her to face the ladder and come down step by step, Rosemary just below her steadying her with a light touch and constant words of encouragement. Shirley cried piteously, she stopped often and refused to take another step. Rosemary had to plead, to scold, to stimulate, everything but pity—that would have been fatal. Long before they reached the floor of the mill, Rosemary's face and hands were dripping with cold perspiration.
Shirley safe on the ground at last. Rosemary detached her clutching little fingers and went back for Sarah. Gone was Sarah's bravado, lost her courage completely. She hung back and cried and only started the descent when Rosemary threatened to leave her. Twice Sarah lost her footing and shrieked and Rosemary's heart raced madly. The climb seemed interminable and all the time, down in the darkness below, they could hear Shirley crying to herself.
A great wave of thankfulness surged over Rosemary as she felt her foot touch the ground and lifted Sarah from the ladder. They were safe!
"Come away, quick!" said Rosemary, her voice sounding hoarse and unnatural in her own ears. "Don't ever come here again!"
They stumbled over the doorsill, the strong sunlight blinding their eyes after the darkness of the windmill interior. So it happened that none of them saw Warren till he was close to them.
"Rosemary!" he cried in quick alarm. "Is anything the matter? You're as white as a sheet!"
Rosemary tried to smile, but she swayed as she stood. He put an arm around her and led her to an overturned tomato crate under a tree. "Sit down," he said commandingly. "Do you feel faint?"
"I'm not!" Indignation sent the color flying back to Rosemary's cheeks. "I'm never faint."
But to her disgust, she began to tremble uncontrollably. She shook from head to foot and her lips were blue.
"I was afraid!" she whispered. "So afraid—" and then she could have bitten her tongue.
Sarah and Shirley were dismayed—never had they seen Rosemary like this. They crept close to her and she leaned her head against Sarah, closing her eyes. All the horror of the dizzy climb and descent pressed in upon her, tenfold stronger.
Warren's quick eyes went from face to face. All three were white and strained. Plainly something had happened. Sarah and Shirley had torn their dresses and there were great dust and oil stains on Rosemary's white skirt.
Warren wheeled and looked back. The windmill door swung slowly in the breeze.
"Rosemary!" he spoke so sharply that she jumped. "Rosemary, have you been in the windmill? Have you been hurt?"