F
OR the first few days after Miss Wright's arrival it seemed that the proverb, "Many hands make light work" was to be the household motto. Winnie was fairly swamped with offers of help and "Miss Trudy" as she had asked Winnie to call her, and the three girls vied with each other as to which should be the most industrious.
"For I want to be useful, Winnie," said Aunt Trudy, a winning sincerity in her kind voice. "Only tell me what to do, because I don't want to interfere with your daily schedule."
"And Sarah and I will make the beds and dust," promised Rosemary, looking up from copying music.
"I'll run all your errands," chirped Shirley and was promptly rewarded with a hug.
Winnie was a shrewd and practical general, as her answers proved. A less experienced person would have made a vague reply, put off theoffers with a promise to "let you know when I need you" or politely told them "not to bother." Not so Winnie.
"Well, I'll tell you, Miss Trudy," she said capably, "I don't mind saying if you'll plan the meals, you'll be taking a load off my shoulders. I can cook and I can serve and I can keep things hot when the doctor is late as he'll be many a time; but unless I can have the three meals a day printed right out and hung on my kitchen door, I'm lost-like. It drives me wild to have to figure out what we should eat, when it's nothing at all, to my way of thinking, to cook it."
"I'll be glad to plan the menus," Aunt Trudy assured her. "Home I write out the meals for the whole week every Saturday morning; I'll do that for you without fail, Winnie."
"Thank you ma'am," Winnie replied. "Now Rosemary, if you want to help, you answer the telephone. I can't abide to be called away from my baking and sweeping to tell folks where the doctor is, or why he isn't here. I don't always get messages straight, so you take 'em and when you're not home, let Sarah do it."
"I like to answer the telephone," beamed Rosemary.
Winnie, orderly soul, proceeded to clinch the remaining two offers of assistance.
"Sarah, there's no one can beat you making beds, when you put your mind to it," she announced diplomatically. "You make the beds mornings, when Rosemary is doing her practising and I won't ask you to do another thing."
"But me?" urged Shirley. "What can I do, Winnie?"
"Bless your little heart, you run to the store for Winnie, and help her make cookies," cried Winnie, "that's enough for one little girl, dearie."
"I don't think any of us has much to do," observed Rosemary. "I can do lots more to help, Winnie. And so can Sarah."
"If you'll do just one thing and do it every day, I won't be complaining," Winnie returned. "You'll find it's easy to get tired and it's then you'll want to skip a day."
The girls were sure that nothing would induce them to "skip" a day, and Winnie went back to her kitchen well-pleased with her bestowal of commissions.
The house seemed strangely empty without the gentle little mother and at first time hung heavy on the three pairs of young hands. DoctorHugh was very busy adjusting his work to run smoothly and his hours were irregular so that he did not see much of his sisters. Then, as the mother's absence became an established fact, gradually old interests and friends absorbed their attention and normal life was resumed with the difference that a great gap was always present and unfilled. Aunt Trudy was kindness itself and overflowing with affection for her nieces, but her attitude toward them was that of a placid outsider, gently watching them from a little distance. Aunt Trudy did their mending exquisitely, because she liked to sew, but she would not leave the mending and come down stairs to meet Nina Edmonds, a new-comer to the neighborhood, though Rosemary was anxious to have every social courtesy shown the rather critical young person who seemed older than her thirteen years.
"I don't want to drop my work now, dearie," said Aunt Trudy in response to her niece's appeal. "I always lose my needle when I get up; I'll meet your little friend some other time. Ask her to dinner to-night if you wish—Winnie is going to have veal loaf and egg salad."
Rosemary acted on this suggestion, and Doctor Hugh, coming in late, was surprised to finda fourth girl at the table, a freckle-faced little girl with light bobbed hair and incredibly thin arms and hands. Nina Edmonds talked incessantly and, after a few ineffectual attempts to carry on a conversation with his aunt, the young doctor devoted himself to his dinner, keeping, however, an observant eye on the guest and on Rosemary who listened in evident fascination to the steady stream of words. He had a call to make, immediately after dinner and was surprised and distinctly annoyed when he returned at half-past ten to find Nina and Rosemary still talking animatedly, their arms around each other, in the window seat. Aunt Trudy was placidly reading, and the younger girls had gone to bed.
"Is it late?" Rosemary started up as her brother came in.
"Half-past ten," he answered briefly. "I'll take you home, Miss Edmonds, if you'll tell me where you live. I'm afraid your mother will be worried about you."
"Oh, my mother never worries—she knows I'll come home all right," said Nina. "I didn't wear a coat, it was so warm—will I be cold in the car?"
"The car is in the garage," said the doctor grimly, holding open the door for her. "We'llhave to walk. Go to bed, Rosemary please," he flung over his shoulder. "Don't wait up for me."
There was a soft rush and a quick sigh, and Rosemary's arms went about his neck.
"Kiss me good night, Hugh," she whispered, "I'm sorry."
He held her close for a moment, then the screen door shut with a click, and they were gone.
"I hope Hugh didn't hurt Nina's feelings," worried Rosemary as she and Aunt Trudy went upstairs. "She doesn't have to go to bed at nine o'clock and she thinks it is queer that I do. I'm afraid she will call Hugh cross."
"Oh, I don't believe she will," said Aunt Trudy comfortably. "She seemed to me a nice little girl and you need plenty of young friends, darling."
Her new friend had made a great impression on Rosemary and Sarah was forced to listen the next day to glowing accounts that rather bored her. Sarah's present interests were confined to one sick rabbit and one well rabbit who lived in a hutch in the roomy side yard.
"I'm sick of hearing about Nina Edmonds," declared Sarah as they sat down to dinner thefollowing evening. "I don't call her anything wonderful."
Doctor Hugh had not come in, and Rosemary had volunteered to serve in his place. Aunt Trudy frankly disliked either carving or serving.
"I think she is lovely," maintained Rosemary, "and I'm going to have my hair bobbed like hers."
It was a warm night and under the glow of the electrolier Rosemary's magnificent hair curled and shone like polished bronze. Even Aunt Trudy stared at her, surprised, and the practical Sarah was moved to protest.
"I think your hair is nice the way it is," she said. "I'd leave it alone if I were you."
Winnie paused, on her way to the kitchen.
"Don't let Doctor Hugh hear you say any such nonsense," she scolded. "The idea! Bobbing a head of hair like that—it's going directly against the generosity of the Lord!"
"What is?" demanded a pleasant voice, and Doctor Hugh came into the room.
He had changed to a fresh linen suit at the Jordan office, as the town had designated it to distinguish it from his home office, and he looked so wholesome and clean and strong and smiling that the four faces brightened at once.
"You have to bring 'em up when I'm not around, don't you, Winnie?" he said humorously, slipping into the chair vacated by Rosemary. "What mischief are they into now?"
Winnie vanished into the kitchen, murmuring something about a salad, and Rosemary answered for her. Rosemary's blue eyes were unclouded.
"Winnie is mad because I am going to have my hair bobbed like Nina Edmonds'," she informed her brother. "I think bobbed hair is as pretty as it can be, don't you, Hugh?"
"It seems a pity when she has such nice hair," murmured Aunt Trudy weakly.
"Bob your hair!" thundered Doctor Hugh. "Of all the foolish notions, that is the worst. This comes from talking foolish clatter with that empty-headed silly little chit last night. The babbling brook must have been named for her."
"Yes, isn't she silly?" said Sarah scornfully. "Shirley doesn't like her, either."
"Nina Edmonds is my friend," began Rosemary, scarlet-cheeked. "You—"
"I beg your pardon, Rosemary," said the doctor instantly. "I honestly do. I had no right to speak like that. But you mustn't think of bobbing your curly mop, dear."
"Sarah's hair is bobbed," Rosemary pointed out.
"It was cut to make it grow," answered the doctor. "Mother told me. You certainly don't need to treat your hair to make it grow, Rosemary."
"Write and ask Mother," suggested Sarah.
"No, Mother isn't to be asked a single question for a year," Doctor Hugh announced firmly. "We'll settle our problems without bothering her. Rosemary is not to meddle with her hair—that's flat."
"Oh, Hugh, I want to bob it!" insisted Rosemary. "Ever so many of the girls do—not just Nina Edmonds, but half the girls in school. I don't see why you are so cross about it. Can't I get it cut to-morrow? Please?"
Doctor Hugh's dark eyes behind their glasses rested on the pretty, willful face.
"I said NO!" he repeated. "Once and for all, Rosemary, I positively forbid you to have your hair cut. Do you understand me?"
S
ARAH, Oh, Sarah! Sally Waters, I'm calling you!"
Sarah glanced up at the merry face regarding her over the fence and frowned.
"Well, what do you want?" she asked ungraciously. "Don't you dare call me Sally, Jack Welles!"
"I'll call you Sadie, then," said the boy obligingly. "Where's Rosemary?"
He was a short, stocky lad, between fifteen and sixteen years old, with a freckled snub nose, engaging brown eyes and a chin that promised well for future force of character.
"Where's Rosemary?" he asked again.
"I don't know—I haven't seen her since lunch," answered Sarah. "Don't you think Elinor looks better to-day, Jack?"
Elinor was the sick rabbit and Sarah waited Jack's decision anxiously.
"Sure, leave her alone and she'll come out allright," he said heartlessly. "You're always fussing with animals, aren't you, Sarah? I believe you like 'em better when they're sick because it gives you an excuse to pet them more."
Sarah's brown, stolid little face kindled suddenly with passionate earnestness.
"Nobody cares!" she cried. "Nobody! Winnie wouldn't let me keep the sick kittens in the kitchen and they died and Elinor would have died, too, if it hadn't been for me. When I grow up, I'm going to have a big house and there isn't going to be a single person in it. Just animals—so there!"
"I suppose you'll have a trained cow to do the cooking, and a dog to wash dishes," teased Jack. "Never mind, Sarah, there'll always be plenty of animals needing a friend like you. Maybe Hugh will doctor them for you, and I'll come take your patients out for airings in my best and newest airplane!"
"Hello, what's all this confabbing?" called Doctor Hugh, coming across the grass toward the fence. "Rabbits improving, Sarah? Where's Rosemary?"
"Hello, Hugh," Jack greeted him with a cheerful grin. "All the patients cured this early in the day? Sarah is going to follow in yourfootsteps, but she won't give her services to people, only to mistreated animals."
"I've been late for dinner two nights running and I thought I'd surprise the family by a punctual appearance this time," explained the doctor. "My chief difficulty now is to find some one to surprise. Aunt Trudy has gone to the library, Winnie says, Shirley is playing with some neighbor's child on the porch and no one seems to know where Rosemary is. I saw you and Sarah from upstairs, or I should have added her to the list of the missing, too."
"I wanted to show Rosemary my new fishing rod," Jack explained. "It's a beauty and my uncle sent it to me from Canada."
Sarah stood up and shook a lapful of dirt from her frock.
"I think you are cruel to catch fish," she said indignantly.
"Why you eat fish, don't you?" retorted Jack. "Someone has to catch them, you know."
Poor Sarah had no answer for this argument and she turned and retreated to the house without another word.
"Queer little dick, isn't she?" smiled Jack to the doctor. "Crazy about animals and always fussing over 'em. Well, I have to go dig wormsfor bait—great day ahead to-morrow with nothing to do but fish and try out the new rod."
"Good luck to you," called Doctor Hugh, going back to his office to indulge in the rare luxury of a half hour's reading.
Vaguely he heard Aunt Trudy come in, speak to the two little girls on the porch, and go on upstairs. He knew when Sarah came down because she played "chop sticks" on the piano till Winnie came and called her to go after a loaf of bread. The doctor wondered lazily if the bread were a real need or a handy invention of Winnie's to break up the musical program; she was quite capable of the latter. After the piano was silenced, he lost himself again in his book to be recalled by an undecided knock on the door. He waited, not sure that itwasa knock. The timid tap came again and he called, "Come in." The door opened, closed, and Rosemary stood facing him, her back against it. In her hands she held a brown paper parcel.
Doctor Hugh stared at her in genuine amazement. She was breathing quickly, as though she had been running, and the lovely color flooded her face. Her eyes were almost black with excitement and a touch of fear. But it was her hair that held her brother's attention.Gone was the rippling glory, the gold-red mane that had reached to the girl's waist. In its place was a soft aureole of hair, standing out fluffily on the small head and curling under at the ends.
Anger flamed in Doctor Hugh's face, then receded, leaving him white. Before he could speak Rosemary's eyes filled with tears.
"Oh, Hugh!" she sobbed. "I want my hair! And it's gone!"
For answer her brother opened his arms and she fled into them. She clung to him frantically while she wept out her remorse and grief.
"I didn't know it was going to be like this," she wailed, sobs shaking the slender shoulders. "The barber didn't want to cut it, but I made him. And then, as soon as I saw it on the floor, I began to cry. Oh, Hugh, I'm so sorry—I don't want short hair at all! And what can I do?"
The doctor said nothing for a little while, only smoothed the cropped head with a gentle touch. Presently when Rosemary sat up and wiped her eyes, he motioned toward the parcel still in her hands.
"It's—it's my hair," stammered Rosemary. "The barber tied it up for me—he said I might want a switch some time."
"Well you won't!" declared Doctor Hugh with decision. "Leave it here with me, dear, and I'll see that a lock is saved for Mother. You mustn't feel so badly, Rosemary. The hair will grow again, you know. And it is very pretty, still."
"Hugh," said Rosemary solemnly, "why do I have to find things out for myself? I didn't know that I hated bobbed hair till I had mine cut—why am I like that?"
"Oh, my dear," the doctor smiled a little sadly, "why do we all want our own way at any cost? You wouldn't believe that I knew better in this instance, would you?"
Rosemary blushed and looked ashamed.
"I'm glad to have this opportunity to speak to you alone, dear," the doctor went on. "You've had your hair cut because I forbade it and now you are sorry, but what about the next time? It's silly to think you can go through life and always have your own way, child. No one can. Each one of us must acknowledge some authority. I'm a good many years older than you girls and I've had more experience and discipline and at present I am taking Mother's place; you'll have to accept my decisions for the time being. If I exact obedience, Rosemary, itisn't because I am a tyrant—I've put in a good many years obeying orders myself and I know that obedience is a valuable lesson."
"Have you a temper, Hugh?" asked Rosemary, shyly. "Have you the Willis will?"
Doctor Hugh's mouth twitched.
"Guilty on both counts," he admitted. "I'm a cross, cranky old brother with a gun-powder temper that sometimes gets the best of me. As for the Willis will—what do you think about that, Rosemary?"
"Winnie is always talking about it," said Rosemary. "She says I have it and so have Sarah and Shirley. I suppose it is very wrong."
"Don't you believe it!" announced the doctor. "Not a bit of it. A good, strong will is a virtue, child, and please remember that. But, of course, you want to train it—flying in the face of orders isn't a proof of will power; more often it is foolish obstinacy. A stiff will keeps us from being persuaded to do wrong, from tumbling into pitfalls. It is the weak-willed person who yields to temptation. You and I, and Shirley and Sarah, have constantly to remember that we have the Willis will and are proud of it; and then resolve not to yield easily to the little devils of temper and disobedience and false pride. Whichis the end of my sermon and long enough it's been!"
The big swivel chair accommodated them comfortably and Rosemary remained in her brother's lap quietly, her eyes downcast. He watched her silently. At last she raised her face bravely.
"Are you going to punish me?" she asked clearly.
He shook his head.
"I know you are sorry," he replied. "Punishments are only to help us remember, and you are not going to forget, are you? But I tell you what I am going to do—ask you to give up Nina Edmonds as a chum."
Rosemary was silent.
"You do not have to be unkind or discourteous," continued the doctor's even voice. "Just do not go over to her house so often and by and by she will not come to see you. Play more with Shirley and Sarah, dear—they look up to you and love you so."
"Don't you like Nina—but I know you don't," Rosemary answered her own question.
"Since we are talking confidentially," said Doctor Hugh and Rosemary felt a thrill of pleasure at his tone, "I'll tell you my real reasonsfor objecting to Nina as a friend for you. She is too old—that's all. What is she—thirteen?—well, she has all the ideas and manners of a girl of eighteen. And you're still a little girl, Rosemary, thank fortune. I don't want you to grow up too fast and it would break Mother's heart to come home and find a grown up daughter in the place of the little girl she left. Be twelve years old while you can, honey, for the minute you are thirteen you leave that happy year forever. I'm a serious old codger this afternoon, am I not? But we understand each other better, don't we?"
"Oh, yes!" Rosemary threw her arms around his neck. "I love you most to pieces!" she confided.
From that moment Rosemary began to worship her brother with all the depth and power of her warm and affectionate nature. She did not immediately become a model of obedience and she often disputed his edicts and decisions. There were misunderstandings and tears and many hard lessons to be learned still ahead. But Hugh would never again be a stranger with her respect and love yet to be won. She could admire his strength of will and purpose whole heartedly and as she contrasted them with AuntTrudy's characteristics, Rosemary insensibly found her aunt wanting.
She said something of this to Jack Welles the day after the memorable hair cutting. Rosemary had endured the comments and questions of the household at dinner that night with fair composure, but she had flared up in wrath at Jack's laughter when he first met her the following afternoon.
"My mother says it is extremely ill-bred to indulge in comments on a person's personal appearance," declared Rosemary heatedly. "My hair is a part of my personal appearance."
"What a dub you were to have it cut," said Jack, sobering. "But it might look worse, Rosemary, honestly it might. I think it is rather becoming with those ends curling under like that."
Rosemary permitted herself to be calmed.
"It's fun to brush it," she laughed. "And my head feels as light as a feather."
"What did Hugh say?" asked Jack curiously. "Or didn't you ask him? And Aunt Trudy makes such a fuss about your hair—wasn't she horrified?"
Rosemary's expressive face shadowed.
"Hugh was just dear to me!" she said enigmatically, "but Aunt Trudy was so silly. She cried and cried and said what would my mother say and wasn't I ever going to have any respect for her wishes—she is so tiresome, she really is, Jack."
"Then you must have been told not to have it bobbed and went ahead like your usual perverse small self," declared Jack shrewdly. "I'll bet Hugh didn't weep though—he looks to me as though he could talk to you like a Dutch uncle."
"Well I don't care if he did!" said Rosemary. "I'd rather be scolded or punished than cried over. And Aunt Trudy doesn't cry because she is sorry—she does it to get her own way. That's the way she makes us mind—she cries and says we don't love her and that makes us feel mean.
"But I don't think it is fair one bit and afterward I'm so mad I could throw a sofa cushion at her. You needn't look at me like that, Jack Welles! Your aunt doesn't cry overyou."
J
UNE slipped quietly into July and with the long, hot sunny days came the inclination to slight regular tasks as Winnie had predicted. Sarah tried to beg off from making the beds morning after morning and Shirley began to grumble when called from her play to go to the store. Aunt Trudy declared that the heat always affected her and demanded an electric fan in her room and drove Winnie frantic with repeated requests for ice-water. Rosemary alone remained faithful to her duties, feeling the responsibility of an oldest daughter. She answered the many calls on the telephone, kept the messages straight and even wrote out the cards for the office file. Doctor Hugh declared he did not know what he should do without her. When Sarah left her work undone, it was Rosemary who finished it for her, Rosemary who listened sympathetically to Aunt Trudy's complaints about the weather, Rosemary who coaxed Shirley into clean frocks and amiability each afternoon and tried to soothe Winnie when Sarah's side-yard menagerie insisted on invading the house.
"Rosemary, this is the second time Shirley has stayed away from lunch," declared Aunt Trudy one noon. "Don't you think I should speak to your brother about it?"
"Oh, no, Aunt Trudy, not right away," protested Rosemary, her troubled eyes wandering to the little sister's vacant place. "I don't believe she really means to run away. I'll get her to promise not to go out of the yard and she will be all right. Shirley never broke her promise yet."
"Sarah ought to play with her more, instead of fussing with those silly rabbits," said Aunt Trudy severely.
"I do play with her," retorted Sarah irritably. "I play with her lots. But she likes Rosemary. I can't help it if she gets mad at me and goes to play with those Bailey children, can I? Rosemary is always practising."
This was not quite fair on Sarah's part, for Rosemary though devoted to her music and already an advanced pupil, seldom practised more than an hour in the morning and another in theafternoon. The fact was that six year old Shirley was developing the running-away habit at an alarming rate.
She came home late that afternoon, tired and cross, and to Rosemary's questions returned the briefest answers. Yes, she had been playing with the Bailey children. No, not in their yard. No, they had not gone with her when she went further on. She had gone by herself. Yes, she had had some lunch, a pound of sweet crackers.
"Where did you get them?" asked Rosemary, who was brushing the sunny hair.
"At the grocery," admitted Shirley.
"But you didn't have any money, dear, did you?" said Rosemary in surprise.
"I charged 'em—Mr. Holmes said it would be all right," announced Shirley complacently.
"Shirley Willis! And you know Mother positively never allows us to charge a thing unless she orders it," cried Rosemary. "What do you suppose Hugh would say? Did you eat a whole pound?"
No, Shirley confessed, she had had crackers to give away. She had given some to a strange dog and some to a little boy and girl she met.
"What little boy and girl?" demanded Rosemary, beginning to feel that this youngest sister was too much for her. "Where did you meet them?"
"At the dump lot," said Shirley sweetly.
Rosemary stared at her. The "dump lot" was on the other side of the town and furnished an annual topic of discussion for the Eastshore Woman's Club. To it the town refuse and garbage was carted and it was regularly hauled over and searched by bands of men, women and children intent on salvage.
"What shall I do with you?" groaned poor Rosemary. "After this, you'll have to stay in the yard, Shirley. You know Hugh would scold if he heard you were playing in the dump lot. Promise Sister you won't go away from the house to-morrow morning."
Shirley, looking more than ever like an adorable cherub in freshly ironed pink chambray, shook her head naughtily.
"I might want to go," she argued.
"But you mustn't!" Rosemary's voice was earnest. "You can't run all over town like this, darling. You'll be run over by an automobile, or something dreadful will happen to you. Promise to stay in your own yard like a good girl."
Shirley would not promise. The worried Rosemary went to Winnie.
"I don't want to tell Hugh," she explained, "he's busy and when he's home Shirley is so cunning and funny I don't believe he thinks she can be naughty. Besides Mother told me to look after the children—what can I do, Winnie?" and Rosemary, a child herself waited Winnie's reply anxiously.
"Running away is something most children go through," pronounced Winnie. "You never had the trick, Rosemary, but Hugh did and so did Sarah. Your father spanked Hugh and cured him and your mother and I together cured Sarah. We tied her to a tree with a rope and she was so ashamed to have the other children see her that she promised not to leave the yard without permission."
"But Shirley won't promise," said Rosemary. "She keeps saying she might want to go. Aunt Trudy thinks we should tell Hugh about her."
"Well I think myself he might be able to break her of the trick," admitted Winnie. "Shirley thinks a heap of him and yet she's a little afraid of him too. But I'm like you, Rosemary—I hate to bother him just now. He'sworried about that hospital case and last night he was called out twice."
"Could we tie Shirley to a tree?" asked Rosemary hopefully.
"She's too big for that," Winnie advised her. "Sarah was only three years old when that was tried. Shirley would untie the knots or cut the rope or get someone to unloose her. No, we'll have to keep a good watch on her and trust to making her see she's doing wrong. You can reason with Shirley, if she is only six years old."
"Oh dear," sighed Rosemary, quite worn out with her experiences, "I never knew it was so hard to bring up children!"
"Biggest job in the world," Winnie said shortly. "Mothers never rest and their work is never done."
The next morning Rosemary coaxed Sarah to play paper dolls with Shirley on the porch while she practised and she went to her music with a clear conscience. For an hour the scales and trills sounded and wound up with a grand march for good measure. Stepping out on the porch Rosemary found it deserted, the paper dolls scattered on the rug, the box overturned where the children had left it.
"Shirley!" cried Rosemary. "Sarah!"
"I'm cleaning the rabbit house," shouted Sarah, and Rosemary hurried around to the side yard.
"Where's Shirley?" she demanded anxiously.
"Shirley? Isn't she on the porch?" Sarah's dirt-streaked face peered through the wire netting which surrounded her pets.
"No, she isn't, and I'm afraid she has run away again," said Rosemary, troubled. "How long ago did you leave her, Sarah?"
"Oh, about half an hour," replied Sarah carelessly. "She wanted to cut out more dolls and I got her the scissors and asked her if she minded if I came and cleaned the pens. Elinor gets sick so easily I don't like to let the house go without cleaning it every other day."
"Bother Elinor!" said Rosemary impatiently. "Come help me look for Shirley. Hugh is coming home for lunch—he telephoned and Winnie answered it."
They hunted through the house, but no Shirley could be found. Rosemary even went to two or three of the nearest neighbors, but the small girl was not there.
"Shirley? I saw her going down the street with her express wagon," volunteered Ray Anderson, a four year old boy who lived a few doorsaway. "She was on the other side of the street."
"If I knew where to go look for her, I would," said the worried Rosemary, "but there are twenty streets she could be on. I'll run over to the dump lot, Sarah; perhaps she has gone there again."
"You'll have to run all the way, if you get back by half-past twelve," observed Sarah dispassionately. "Aunt Trudy said she was going to tell Hugh the next time any of us were late to meals."
And though Rosemary ran most of the way to the dump lot on the other side of town—where a single hasty glance satisfied her that Shirley was not among the groups engaged in pulling over the unsavory messes—and all the way back, the others were seated at the luncheon table when she reached the house. She heard a distinct rumble of thunder as she entered the door.
"Mercy, child, how hot you look!" was Aunt Trudy's greeting. "I don't see why you girls don't try to come to your meals on time; I take so much pains to have the things you like and Winnie is such a good cook. And yet the three of you haven't been punctual for a week."
"I'm afraid I set them a bad example," smiled Doctor Hugh. "Let's form a compact—whenAunt Trudy tells me that not one of you has been late for a week to any meal, I'll have the clock fixed."
The dining-room clock was an old joke in the Willis family. It was a cuckoo clock and had been broken for more than a year, but remained one of those things that are never attended to. Several times a week the little mother had mentioned that the dining-room clock really must be mended, but it was always forgotten. Since Hugh had been home he had often declared that the clock must be fixed but it still remained mute and useless.
"Shirley loves to hear the cuckoo call," said Rosemary, and instantly regretted her remark.
"Where is Shirley?" was the doctor's natural question.
"I dare say she's run away again," announced Aunt Trudy, her tone resigned.
"Run away?" repeated Doctor Hugh sharply. "Why, what do you mean?"
"Well, Hugh I'm sorry to tell you, but Shirley has run away several times lately," said Aunt Trudy. "She has been absent from lunch twice this week. I've talked to her and I know Rosemary has, but nothing seems to do any good."
A vivid flash of lightning, followed by a roarof thunder and a sudden torrent of rain heralded the arrival of the thunder shower.
"Do you mean to tell me that that baby has been allowed to run around this town alone?" demanded the doctor sternly. "What have you been thinking of? What have you all been doing?"
"Well she is very self-willed," offered Aunt Trudy, "and I have no strength left this hot weather. I said yesterday that you ought to know about it."
"Why didn't you tell him, then?" suggested Sarah impertinently.
"That will do," said her brother. "Rosemary, how long has Shirley been gone?"
"About an hour now," admitted Rosemary reluctantly. "I've been over to the dump lot, Hugh, and she isn't there."
"The dump lot!" ejaculated the doctor. "Is that where Shirley is in the habit of going? Suppose you tell me about this and how long it has been going on."
The shrill ring of the telephone bell interrupted Rosemary's recital. Doctor Hugh answered it. He came back to the dining-room frowning, yet oddly enough looking relieved.
"Shirley is in the Moreland police station," heannounced. "She was picked up during the height of the storm with her express wagon. I'll go over in the car and bring her home. Want to come, Rosemary?"
Rosemary did, and the sun was shining out again as they took their places in the roadster.
"Don't look so sober, dear," said Doctor Hugh, glancing at the grave face close to his shoulder. "I'm not blaming you, except that I wish you had told me at once. This experience will probably quite cure Shirley from running off. Heigh-o, I wonder what you girls will think of to do next?"
Moreland was the town adjoining Eastshore, and ten minutes' ride brought them to the door of the police station. Rosemary clung tightly to her brother's arm as they went up the steps.
"There is nothing to be afraid of," he assured her.
Then someone folded back one of the heavy oak doors and they found themselves in a large, bare room.
T
HE first person Rosemary saw was Shirley, looking very small and forlorn. She sat on a chair so high that her little feet dangled in mid-air. One hand clutched a half eaten bun, the other held a scarcely tasted glass of milk.
"Oh Rosemary!" cried the familiar little voice. "I'm so glad you've come!"
An obliging man in a blue uniform took the bun and the glass of milk and Rosemary hugged Shirley tightly.
"How could you run away again, darling?" the older sister whispered reproachfully. "You worried us so! Were you out in the rain?"
"Only a little," said Shirley, restored to cheerfulness now that Rosemary was here to take care of her.
"She got frightened when it began to thunder," the sergeant at the desk was saying to Doctor Hugh. "As nearly as I can make out, from what she says, she started to run at the first clap,and ran away from her home, instead of toward it. She crossed the line from Eastshore into Moreland before Jim Doran found her, running as hard as she could and jerking the express wagon behind her and crying as though her heart would break. He brought her here and as soon as she calmed down a bit and told us her name and address, we telephoned you. Oh, no thanks due us at all—we get a lost child every week or so. But you ought to break her of running away—the automobile traffic is so heavy, specially in the summer time, it's dangerous for a child to be crossing the streets alone."
Doctor Hugh shook hands with the sergeant and turned toward Rosemary and Shirley.
"Come here, Shirley," he said quietly.
A little frightened, Shirley approached him dubiously. He lifted her gently and swung her to the top of the table before the sergeant's desk.
"There's a sand box and a box of sand toys coming to our house to-morrow," he said unexpectedly, "but I couldn't think of letting a little runaway girl touch them. Perhaps I had better send them back to the store."
A sand-box had been one of Shirley's fondest wishes.
"Oh, no, Hugh," she begged, "Don't send them back, please don't. I won't run away again, ever. Honestly."
"Will you promise not to leave the yard again unless you first ask Rosemary or Winnie or Aunt Trudy?" asked the doctor.
"Yes," nodded Shirley instantly.
"Well then, if you are not going to run away again, I'll keep the sand-box," decided Doctor Hugh. "And now we must be getting home for I have a busy afternoon ahead of me."
The sergeant shook hands with Shirley and told her that she was wise to make up her mind to play in her own yard. His little girl, he said, never ran away. The blue-coated man who had taken the bun and the milk, carried the express wagon down and put it in the car, and fifteen minutes later Shirley was deposited safely on her own front porch.
The sand-box and the toys came the next morning and Shirley played for hours with them. Sometimes she induced Sarah to play with her, but more often that young person was otherwise engaged. She had a lame cat to care for now in addition to the rabbits and Winnie declared that if it came to a choice between cream for her aunt'stea or the cat, she wouldn't trust Sarah with the bottle.
"I don't think you have a very kind heart, Winnie," said Sarah one morning when she had been discovered in a raid on the refrigerator.
"Well I have some conscience and you haven't, or you wouldn't be wanting to feed loin chops that cost forty-five cents a pound to a cat," declared Winnie grimly.
"Sick animals need good food," maintained Sarah, swinging on the screen door, a habit which invariably irritated Winnie.
"Go on out and play, do," she now advised Sarah. "How can I get my work done with you buzzing around me like a fly! Well what do you suppose struck the child that minute—" Winnie broke off in amazement. Sarah had dashed around to the front of the house, banging the screen door noisily behind her. Not curious enough to speculate further, Winnie went on with her task of scrubbing the table top already immaculate in its snowy purity.
Aunt Trudy was descending the front stairs leisurely an hour or two later, pleasantly contemplating the nearness of the lunch hour, when the door bell rang sharply. Really it sounded as though someone had jabbed it viciously.Aunt Trudy approached the door with reproving dignity.
"You're Miss Wright, aren't you?" said a rasped voice. "Well, I'm Mrs. Anderson and I want to tell you that something has got to be done to Sarah; that child is simply unbearable. She slapped the face of my Ray this morning and the poor lamb came into the house crying with pain. He's only four years old, and I think when a great girl of nine takes to slapping babies' faces, she needs a sound whipping. No, I won't come in, but I was determined you should know about it. That child will end up in prison if her temper isn't curbed."
"No one ever spoke to me like that, Hugh," complained Aunt Trudy tearfully to her nephew when he came in a few minutes later. "She didn't give me a chance to say a word. I'm sure I don't approve of Sarah slapping any one's face."
"Of course you don't," agreed the doctor soothingly. "Where is the culprit? We'll see what she has to say for herself. Look here, Sarah," he opened fire as that young person came up the porch steps and into the hall, "Mrs. Anderson says you slapped Ray's face this morning."
"Well?" inquired Sarah coolly.
"Did you?" said the doctor matching her briefness.
"I certainly did," Sarah assured him. "He is a bad, cruel boy and I wish I had slapped him harder. He was stepping on poor baby ants!"
Aunt Trudy stared in astonishment, but something pathetic in Sarah's defiant little figure touched Doctor Hugh. She so evidently considered she had vindicated herself.
"That wasn't being kind, was it?" he said gently, "but, Sarah, slapping his face didn't teach him not to step on ants—it merely taught him that one of his neighbors was a very impolite little girl. I want you to go over now and apologize to Mrs. Anderson."
"But I slapped Ray," hedged Sarah cannily.
"Well Ray is so little he probably doesn't hold malice," explained Doctor Hugh seriously. "It is Mrs. Anderson's feelings that are hurt; don't you think you are a little ashamed, Sarah, to know you struck a child so much younger than you are?"
"Go and tell her you are sorry, dearie," suggested Aunt Trudy.
"I won't say I am sorry, because that would be a lie," said Sarah virtuously.
"If you are not sorry you slapped Ray youought to be, because such an act is the height of discourtesy," declared the doctor. "However, if you apologize, I don't doubt that will be satisfactory. Go right away, Sarah."
"I think Mrs. Anderson should apologize to us," announced Sarah with explosive suddenness. "She came over here telling tales and that is the meanest thing any one can do. You hate tale-bearers, you said so Hugh."
The doctor's long-suffering patience snapped.
"What Mrs. Anderson does is no concern of yours," he said testily. "If you do not go to her house immediately and apologize, Sarah, I'll march you over there and wait while you do it. I've listened to all the argument I intend to."
"I'll go," surrendered Sarah sullenly.
What she said could only be conjectured but apparently Mrs. Anderson was mollified for peace reigned the remainder of the week. Sunday afternoon though, a fresh storm broke, with Sarah again the center.
"Where's Sarah?" Doctor Hugh demanded, meeting Rosemary in the hall on his return from a round of calls.
Rosemary was dressed in white and ready for a sedate walk with Aunt Trudy.
"She's in your office, reading," she answered. "She likes the goat skin rug, you know."
"All right," nodded the doctor, "run along, chick, and tell Aunt Trudy to keep on the shady side of the street. The sun is blazing."
Sarah was not visible from the door, but walking around his desk, her brother discovered her stretched full length in her favorite reading attitude, on the white goat skin rug. Her book dealt with the health of cats.
"Sarah," began the doctor looking down at her, "did you take a telephone message from Mrs. Anderson yesterday morning?"
Sarah looked obstinate.
"Did you?" her brother insisted. "Answer me," he commanded, pulling her to her feet.
"Yes I did," muttered Sarah. "Rosemary was busy practising and Winnie's bread was in the oven."
"Why didn't you tell me she wanted me to call there Saturday night?" demanded the doctor sternly.
"'Cause," murmured Sarah uneasily.
"You're ashamed to tell me, and I don't wonder," Doctor Hugh said crisply. "You'd let a miserable little thing like an apology you wereforced to make her, interfere with your loyalty to service. I thought you were bigger than that, Sarah," he added.
Sarah said nothing.
"If you were a nurse in a hospital or a doctor's office, you'd be dismissed," her brother went on, "for all you know I might have been needed seriously. As it happened, no harm was done, but that doesn't excuse you. Hereafter you are not to answer the phone under any circumstances. You can't be trusted to deliver the messages you receive."
If he had only known it, Doctor Hugh had delivered a severe blow to Sarah's pride. She had been extremely proud of her ability to answer the telephone and welcomed the rare opportunities when Rosemary was out or busy with her beloved music. But she said nothing and after a day or two the doctor realized that she was not on "speaking terms" with him.
"She ought to be spanked," he confided to Winnie, "but I don't believe in that form of punishment for children as old as she is."
"It wouldn't do any good," said Winnie, "your mother spanked her years ago when she'd take these silent fits. It only made her more obstinate. You can do more with Sarah, Hughie,by helping her out of a tight place than any way I know. She's always getting into trouble and she never forgets the ones that stand by her. You keep your eyes open and the chance will come."
The opportunity came sooner than either of them expected. For nearly a week Jack Welles had been storming, to any one who would listen to him, about the "low-down" thief who nightly took his can of fishing worms.
"Plumb lazy, I call it," grumbled Jack, "to cart away the worms a fellow breaks his back digging. Some worthless tramp is catching fish with my worms and I intend to catch him."
His wails had reached the ears of Doctor Hugh, himself an ardent fisherman when time permitted and his sympathies were entirely with the defrauded one.
"Sit up some night and watch," he advised the lad. "Put the can in the usual place—where do you keep it—on the back step?—all right, put it there, and then hide back of the willow tree. You say it is done sometime between ten and twelve, for you go to bed at ten and your father comes home at midnight and finds the can empty? That ought to make it easy for you, for you know when to watch for the thief."
Jack's father was engaged in some delicate electrical experiments that were conducted in his factory at night to escape the vibration caused by the heavy machines.
Coming home from the Jordan office a little after then the next night after he had given Jack his advice, Doctor Hugh remembered what he had said and wondered if the boy had been successful in detecting the thief. As he neared the Welles house he heard loud and angry voices.
i
F I ever catch you touching my can of worms again, I'll—I'll—" words apparently failed Jack and he began to sputter.
"Got him, Jack?" the doctor leaped the hedge lightly and ran diagonally across the lawn to the back of the Welles's house.
"Him?" growled Jack in disgust. "Him! Look at this—" and he flashed a pocket light that revealed to the astonished Doctor Hugh the tear-streaked face of Sarah.
"For the love of Mike!" gasped her brother. "Have you been taking Jack's worms?"
"Yes she has," Jack answered for her. "She's been dumping the can out every night. And if she does it again I'll shake her if she is a girl."
"Hold on, hold on," said Doctor Hugh pacifically. "Let's get the hang of this; why did you empty Jack's can of worms, Sarah?"
"It—it hurts them to be jabbed with a hook," wept Sarah.
"Like fun it does," retorted Jack scornfully. "Worms haven't any feelings, hardly."
"Well fishes have and if you haven't any worms you can't catch fishes," stormed Sarah. "I will too throw away your worms."
"You will not!" flashed Jack, taking a step toward her.
Sarah, the defiant, turned and fled toward her brother. He put his arm about her and found that she was shaking with nervous sobbing.
"I'll see you to-morrow, Jack," he said quietly. "There is no use in rousing the whole neighborhood. Come on, Sarah, we're going home."
He lifted the little girl in his arms and strode across the grass, entering the door of the house noiselessly and depositing her in a large arm chair in the office. Then he went into the kitchen, warmed a glass of milk and made her drink it.
"Now tell me all about it," he said, sitting down at his desk to face her. Sarah, he knew, had a horror of being "fussed over" and he did not dare pet her though he wished his mother were there to cuddle the pathetic little figure in her arms.
"I emptied the can every night, after Jackwent to bed," said Sarah. "That's all. He doesn't care how much he hurts them, but I do."
"But how could you stay awake from eight till ten o'clock?" asked the doctor curiously, "and how could you come down stairs without waking Shirley or being seen by Aunt Trudy or Winnie?"
"I didn't go to bed, that is not really," confided Sarah. "I lay down with all my clothes on, because Rosemary always comes in to see that our light is out before she goes to bed. But after nine o'clock I stayed up till I saw Jack shut the kitchen door of his house and then I knew he was through digging worms."
"Didn't you ever go to sleep before Rosemary came in to look at you?" asked her brother. "Not once?"
"Not once," said Sarah firmly. "I put three of Shirley's building blocks under my back so I couldn't. And when I got up I sat on the window sill so if I went to sleep I'd wake up when I fell out."
"Well you are thorough," admitted the doctor. "Weren't you afraid Aunt Trudy would come in and find you sitting up? Or hear you falling out of the window?"
"I didn't fall," declared Sarah, matter-of-factly. "And Aunt Trudy never comes to see if we are in bed. Mother used to, every night."
"I see," the doctor frowned a little. "Well, Sarah, you'll have to let Jack's worms alone after this. I'm not going to argue with you about the feelings of the worms or the fish (you'll get that point better when you are a little older) but I'll put it to you this way; they're Jack's worms and you mustn't touch what belongs to him. And, also, you can't go about making people think as you do. If you don't believe in fishing, all right; you are at perfect liberty not to fish. But you have no call to try to stop other people from fishing. Jack may not approve of the way you keep your rabbits. He may think they should be turned loose and allowed to destroy the garden. If he came over here night after night and let your rabbits out, think how angry you would be. Do you see, dear? You do what you feel to be right and let the other fellow keep tabs on his own conscience."
Sarah thought a few minutes.
"Well, I will," she sighed reluctantly. "Worms are awfully nasty things, anyway, Hugh. I had to pick some of them out of thecan with my fingers, because they wouldn't come out."
"Then we're all serene again," said her brother cheerfully. "And now it is after eleven and high time you were asleep."
Sarah gave him a quick, shy kiss at the head of the stairs and vanished into her room. She was always chary of caresses and her mother declared that she could count the times Sarah had voluntarily kissed her.
The last two weeks of July were an unbroken "hot spell." Eastshore was ordinarily comfortable in the summer time but the heat wave that gripped the country made itself felt and not all the pleasant effect of wide lawns and old shade trees could counteract the hot, humid nights and the blazing, parched days. An occasional thunder shower did its best to bring comfort, but the heat closed in again after each gust, seemingly more intense than ever. It was a trying test for tempers and dispositions and the Willis household began to develop "nerves."
"I should think you children could manage to remember to shut the screens doors behind you," remarked Doctor Hugh one morning at the breakfast table. "If there is one thing positively unendurable, it is flies in the house!"
Winnie put down the cream pitcher beside his cup of coffee with an emphasis that threatened to spray him with its contents.
"You'd better be speaking to Sarah," she said grimly. "I'm about wore out, arguing with her. She won't let me use the fly-batter at all and why? Because it is cruel to kill the dear darling little flies that tramp all over our food with their filthy feet!"
Rosemary giggled. She sat in Aunt Trudy's place, cool and neat in a blue gingham dress, her charming bobbed head making a pretty picture silhouetted against the light of the window behind her. The warm weather had reconciled Rosemary to the loss of her hair. Aunt Trudy often pleaded a headache mornings and Rosemary took her place at the silver tray and poured her brother's coffee.
"Don't let me hear any more such nonsense," said he sternly now. "Keep the screens closed, Winnie, and kill any flies that get in. Sarah, you are not to interfere in any way—and don't scowl like that."
For reply Sarah kicked the table leg to the peril of her glass of milk and Shirley's.
"You'll find yourself sent away from the tablein another minute," her brother warned her. "Eat your breakfast and behave yourself."
"You'll be sorry when I'm dead," said Sarah, her voice plaintive with self-pity.
Shirley thought the moment auspicious to make a reach for a hot biscuit. Over went her glass of milk and her fat little hand landed in the butter dish. The telephone bell saved her, as far as Doctor Hugh was concerned, and when he came back to tell Rosemary that he would not be home till dinner time and to give her a list of the time and places when he could be reached during the day, Winnie had removed all traces of the accident.
"I guess you must think I'm a washing machine," she grumbled after the doctor had gone. "That's the tenth clean runner we've had on the table this week. If we were using table cloths every meal I'd have to give up—no living woman could keep this family in table cloths!"
"Sarah, are you going to make the beds this morning?" asked Rosemary, on her way to sweep the porch, a duty she had assumed.
"No, I'm not," returned Sarah with characteristic candor. "It's too hot. Let 'em air till night. I want to play in the sand-box."
"Ray Anderson and me's going to play in the sand-box," said Shirley. "You can't come—you take all the toys."
"Oh, Shirley, how cross you are!" cried Rosemary, aghast at the frown on Shirley's pretty forehead. "Don't be so cranky, darling. Sarah will play in one end of the box and you play in the other."
But Sarah, her nose in the air, announced that she wouldn't "have a thing to do with the old sand-box," and she departed to sit in the swing and read, leaving Rosemary to make the beds or "let them air" as she decided.
Rosemary finished sweeping the porch and had just begun to make her own bed, when her aunt called her.
"Shirley and that little Anderson boy are making so much noise, I can't rest," Aunt Trudy complained. "I should think you could tell them to play quietly, Rosemary. And I wish you wouldn't practise this morning, dearie; my head is splitting and the piano does annoy me so. This afternoon I'll take my sewing out under the tree and you may have two hours to yourself, if you like."
Rosemary went down and suggested to Shirley and Ray that they make sand pies instead ofbuilding a railroad, knowing from experience that sand pies was a comparatively quiet play. Then she dusted her beloved piano with a little lump in her throat. Mother had loved to hear her practise and had liked to sit on summer mornings in a chair close by, sewing and listening. Mother was an accomplished musician and she knew and noted her little daughter's enthusiastic progress. One reason that Rosemary practised so steadily through the warm weather in spite of discouragement was her determination to surprise her mother by her improvement when that dear lady came back to them.
"It's a shame you have all the beds to do, Rosemary," said Winnie, coming up for a salve from the medicine closet in the bathroom and discovering Rosemary wearily putting the bedrooms to rights. "I've burned my finger on that silly hot water heater again. I've told the doctor and told him to have the plumber stop in and fix it, but he forgets every time."
"I'll telephone Mr. Mertz," said Rosemary absently.
"You ought to make Sarah do her part," went on Winnie, spreading salve on a piece of gauze and binding it around her finger. "I'm tired trying to get any help from her. And MissTrudy wants ice-water every minute of the day and if I don't get it for her she comes out to the refrigerator and wastes half a block, hacking it. Shirley wants nothing but hot breads and meat and first thing we know she'll be sick on our hands."
Winnie sat on the edge of the bath-tub and let her mind dwell on her woes. Rosemary tried to listen sympathetically, but she was warm and tired and if Winnie would only go perhaps she could finish the rooms in time to read a little before lunch. The afternoon would have to be given over to her delayed practising.
"Well, I'm going down stairs," said Winnie, putting the salve jar back on its shelf, "and all we're going to have for lunch is tomato salad and bread and butter. If any one doesn't like it, they can leave it; I'm not going to spend any time fussing with special dishes this kind of weather."
Rosemary's practising that afternoon was interrupted several times by the telephone, twice for the wrong number. Aunt Trudy, with the air of a martyr, took her sewing out under the horse chestnut tree, Sarah and Shirley went to a neighbor's to play and Winnie announced that she intended to take a nap. So there was noone to answer the bells except Rosemary. By the time she had jumped up to be asked "Is this the grocery store?" once or twice, had admitted the butcher boy with fresh meat which must be put on the ice and had been summoned three times by Aunt Trudy to thread her needle—for glasses, declared her aunt made her warmer in summer and she would not wear them—Rosemary's temper was fraying sadly.
"Rosemary," said Aunt Trudy, coming into the living room as the practise hour was about over (not allowing for time wasted, Rosemary told herself resentfully), "Rosemary, where is Sarah?"
"I don't care where she is!" cried Rosemary, whirling around on the piano bench. "I'm tired of always being asked where Sarah and Shirley are. I don't care!"
Aunt Trudy burst into tears.
"I don't think you ought to speak to me like that," she sobbed.