Jack Welles glanced at the slip of paper handed him, folded it up and stuffed it in his pocket. As soon as his "gang" was fitted out with snow shovels, he marched them away in the wake of one of the lumbering wagons that was to carry the snow off to a vacant field on the outskirts of the town.
"What did we draw, Jack?" asked Norman Cox curiously.
"Plummers Lane," said Jack laconically.
Plummers Lane, was the nearest approach to a "slumming section" that Eastshore possessed. The idle, the shiftless and the vicious congregated there, living in tumbled down shacks in the winter and the middle of the streets, in summer. There were two factories, one a novelty works, the other a canning and candy factory and the "dump lot" bounded the Lane on the north and the jail on the south. Altogether it was not the choicest portion which could fall to the lot of the young snow cleaners.
"It's enough to make you want to resign from the dramatic club!" exclaimed Kenneth Vail, who, in common with the other boys, labored under no delusion that chance fortune had sent them to Plummers Lane.
"If you had only put some one else in my place—" began Eustice Gray uncomfortably, but seven voices immediately shouted to him, in friendly chorus to "dry up."
"We'll make Plummers Lane look sick," declared Jack. "From the looks of it, I don't think there's been a shovel down here since the first snow. If the S. C. thinks they have marked more off for us than we can clean up, we'll showthem! Here goes for the first shovel—out of the way, Mike!"
The grinning driver reined in his team and dodged as Jack hurled a heavy shovelful over the side of the cart. The other boys followed suit and twelve strong, sturdy backs bent to their task. The population of Plummers Lane, that part of it visible by day, draped itself along the curb to watch operations and hand out advice, but any more practical help was not offered or expected.
I
'M an old man," announced Jack Welles that night, dropping into a chair in Doctor Hugh's office, while he waited for the latter to prepare a bottle of medicine for his father's cough.
"Back broken, I suppose?" suggested the doctor cheerfully. "The first ten years are always the hardest, my boy."
Jack groaned and Rosemary, patiently holding a bleary-eyed cat for Sarah, looked at him anxiously.
"Ten years!" complained Jack. "Another afternoon like this and I won't live to see ten years. Ye gods, who would have thought a little snow shoveling could break me up like this!"
"You're out of practice," replied the doctor, busily writing a label. "Don't try to clean all the streets in one day, Jack; I came through Main street to-night and I must say the boys have made a good job of it, though, of course, it wasfairly well tramped down. It's the side streets that are blocked. Where are you working?"
"Plummers Lane," said Jack dryly. "The Juniors have uptown and Main street. We're providing a side show for the unemployed and if we don't get any fun out of our job, they at least can laugh their heads off."
"I told Hugh about the Student Council and the way they acted," said Rosemary hotly. "Don't you think they are too hateful for anything, Hugh?"
The doctor looked at Jack who managed a grin.
"Jack isn't hurt yet," said Doctor Hugh, smiling, "and I don't know but digging out Plummers Lane is a man-sized job and one to be proud of. Certainly if you get the streets in passable condition so that we don't have to carry a sick woman through snow drifts to get her to the ambulance—which happened last week—you'll have the thanks of the doctors if not of the Student Council."
"We're going to stick," declared Jack, taking the bottle the doctor held out to him. "If there should ever be a fire down there, with the snow piled over the hydrants and kerosene oil cans mixed up with packing boxes and kindling woodin the front yards, after the happy-go-lucky housekeeping methods followed by Plummers Lane housekeepers, I should say three blocks would go like tinder. Bill McCormack was down to see us, just as we were knocking off, and he was pleased as Punch at what we'd done."
"I'm coming down to see you," announced Rosemary.
"So 'm I," cried Sarah. "I can shovel snow, too."
"Come on, if you want to," said Jack, "but don't expect us to have much time to talk to you. We're being paid by the hour and business is business."
He went off whistling, leaving Rosemary with an odd expression on her face. It was the first time Jack had ever hinted he could possibly be too busy to talk to her.
"Hugh," she said seriously, when the doctor had prescribed for Sarah's sick pussy cat and the anxious mistress had gone off to tuck the patient in bed down cellar. "Hugh, couldn't I take hot coffee and doughnuts to the boys while they are working in the snow afternoons? I know they must get hungry and it is so cold and windy down Plummers Lane—the wind comes across the marsh."
"Go ahead," her brother encouraged her. "Get Sarah to help you. I imagine Jack is having a tough time and he'll appreciate a little unspoken sympathy. I'll give you a testimonial for your coffee, Rosemary, if you think you need one; where are the doughnuts coming from?"
"They're all made, a stone crock full," dimpled Rosemary. "That was what made me think of doing it. We'll come home from school and get the big tin pail with the lid and a pan of doughnuts. But I can't carry twelve cups."
"Paper ones will do," the doctor assured her. "The boys will gulp the coffee before it can possibly seep through. Make Sarah do her share, and don't stay late, either one of you."
The next afternoon, as Jack straightened his aching back to answer the questions of Frank Fenton, who was serving as time-keeper for the four squads, he looked across the street and saw two little figures who waved gloved hands at him and beckoned in a mysterious manner.
"Isn't that Rosemary Willis?" asked Frank, "stunning kid, isn't she?"
Rosemary, rosy from the cold and with her eyes dark and starry, left Sarah on the curb and crossed over.
"Oh, Jack," she began before she reached him,"Sarah and I have brought you some hot coffee and doughnuts. There's enough for everyone."
Frank had his data, but he still lingered, and the other boys at Jack's shout, crowded around. Rosemary knew most of them and Jack hurriedly performed the few necessary introductions leaving Frank till the last. Norman Cox and Eustice Gray had hastened across the street and returned with Sarah and the supplies just as Jack said, "Rosemary, this is Frank Fenton."
"He can't have any," said Sarah with blunt distinctness.
Rosemary flushed scarlet and then, with the quickness characteristic of her, jerked the lid from the coffee can and filled one of the paper cups with the steamy, fragrant, liquid.
"Please," she said gravely, holding it out to the astonished president of the Student Council. "The sugar and cream are already in. And these are fresh doughnuts."
Mechanically Frank drank the hot coffee and ate a doughnut, while Rosemary poured out the remainder of the coffee and Jack passed the cups around, Sarah serving the doughnuts.
"That is the best coffee I ever drank," declared Frank, when he had finished. "And now, couldn't I take you home? I have my car downthe street a ways and I go right past your house."
Jack choked over his coffee, but Rosemary thanked the senior politely and said that she and Sarah had planned to stay and watch the shovelers a while.
"This isn't a very nice neighborhood, especially after dark you know," said Frank.
"We're not going to stay long," Rosemary was beginning, but Jack cut her short.
"I live next door to Rosemary, and I'll see that she and Sarah get home all right," he said brusquely. "I know all about Plummers Lane, too, Frank."
The Student Council president lifted his cap and went back to his car.
"I don't like him," said Sarah decidedly.
"I shouldn't wonder if he was faintly aware of your dislike," grinned Jack. "Any more coffee left, Rosemary? You certainly had a bright idea when you thought of this."
Rosemary and Sarah were more than repaid for their long, cold walk, by the evident pleasure the boys took in their warm drink and the two fat doughnuts apiece they had brought them. They knocked off work fifteen or twenty minutes earlier in order to see the girls home before dark, but the next afternoon the doctor's carcame and picked up the sisters and the empty coffee can so that the workers lost no time.
For nearly a week, the boys shoveled steadily after school hours, sticking to the job long after the first novelty had worn away. Bill McCormack declared that they were the best "gang" he had ever hired and the Plummers Lane residents ceased to regard them as a joke and began to exchange sociable comments and quips with them, though never descending to the plane of familiarity that included a shovel. Rosemary and Sarah, and now and then Shirley, carried coffee and doughnuts, or hot cocoa and cakes, each afternoon and Doctor Hugh willingly stopped for them in his car. Even the weather ceased to consent to co-operate for after one heavy snow, it cleared and the streets made passable, remained that way till after Christmas.
The most important subject of discussion in the Willis household, along the lines of Christmas preparations, was the box to be sent the little mother in the sanatorium.
"I think we ought to make her something!" announced Rosemary.
"Well, what?" asked Sarah. "I most know she'd love to have one of Tootles' kittens, butI don't suppose we could mail that, could we?"
"Praise be, you can't," said Winnie who had overheard. "Those kittens will be the death of me yet, and what they'd do to sick folks in a sanatorium, I'm sure I don't know and don't want to."
"What'll we make Mother?" urged Shirley, pulling Rosemary's belt.
"I know—a kimona," said Rosemary triumphantly. "That won't be hard, because we'll have only two seams. Mother will love to have something we made her, instead of a gift we just went down town and bought. What color do you think would be pretty, Sarah?"
"Red," said Sarah promptly.
"Pink," begged Shirley. "Make it pink, Rosemary."
"I like blue," said Rosemary wistfully.
"Let's ask Aunt Trudy," suggested Sarah.
"I think you're awfully foolish to try to make anything," pronounced Aunt Trudy when they consulted her. "But I suppose, if you have set your hearts on it, why nothing will dissuade you. Why don't you make your mother a white kimona, and bind it with pink ribbon? White was always her favorite."
So it was decided the kimona should be whiteeiderdown and bound with pink satin ribbon and Rosemary and Sarah and Shirley went shopping one afternoon after school and bought the materials. Their purchase included a pattern, the first in their joint experience and when they had spread it out on Rosemary's bed the three girls looked at it helplessly.
"We'll put it on paper, till we learn how to cut it," said Rosemary, secretly wondering how anyone ever learned to understand such complicated directions as were printed on the pattern envelope.
They had decided that neither Aunt Trudy nor Winnie could be allowed to help them and since Rosemary had a working knowledge of the sewing machine's mysteries and could sew neatly by hand, they had not anticipated any trouble.
"But how could we know a pattern was such a silly thing?" wailed Rosemary, tired and cross when the dinner gong sounded and they had made no progress. The floor of the room was littered with paper and the top of the bed resembled a pincushion for Shirley had amused herself by sticking the contents of the entire paper of pins in orderly rows on the counterpane.
"Aren't you coming down to dinner?" asked Sarah, moving toward the door.
"No, I'm not," retorted Rosemary. "I'm not hungry and I don't want anything to eat. Don't let Winnie come up here making a fuss; you tell Aunt Trudy I don't want any dinner to-night. I'm not going to do a thing till I get this kimona cut out."
"Hugh will be mad," said Sarah, half way down the hall.
"Let him," called Rosemary recklessly, shutting the door of her room with a bang.
She was deep in the pattern directions for the tenth time, when someone rapped on her door.
"I'm not hungry—don't bother me," she called, frowning.
The door knob turned and Doctor Hugh smiled in at her.
"Heard you were having trouble with the dressmaking," he announced. "Can't I help? I'm not Winnie or Aunt Trudy, you know. I'd like to have a finger in this, if I could."
Rosemary drew a long breath.
"You do understand, don't you?" she said, standing on the foot that had not gone to sleep and trying to rouse the circulation in the other one. "We didn't want anyone to touch our present for Mother, except us; but you're us, too, aren't you?"
"Surest thing," agreed the doctor, approaching the terrible pattern with grave interest. "What's the matter with this—aren't you sure how it should be cut?"
Rosemary shook her head hopelessly.
"I'm afraid to cut it before I know and I've tried it every way I can think of," she confessed.
"Well, if this is wrong, I'll buy you some more goods to-morrow," promised the doctor, twitching the pattern to his liking.
He took up the scissors and cut around the outline with what seemed to Rosemary, reckless abandon. But when he had finished and she took up the two pieces, they fitted together like parts of a picture puzzle.
"It's right!" she cried in delight. "Hugh, you darling, it's all right! And I can baste it to-night and sew it on the machine to-morrow and put the ribbon on by hand. Won't Mother love it!"
"No more sewing to-night," said her brother firmly. "Dressmakers always make mistakes when they're tired. Come down and eat your dinner now, and then put this truck away till after school to-morrow afternoon."
Rosemary followed him downstairs meekly, though her fingers itched to get at the basting.Sarah looked up at them in surprise as they entered the dining-room.
"I thought Rosemary was going to be cross!" she said frankly.
"You were mistaken," retorted Doctor Hugh, smiling so infectiously at Rosemary that she could do no less than twinkle back at him.
T
HE kimona was finished without further mishap and packed away in the Christmas box.
"And no one was more surprised than I when the thing proved to be cut right," Doctor Hugh confided to Winnie. "I never looked at a pattern before, but I took a chance. I could see Rosemary was just on the edge of 'nerves' and I figured out that if I did make a mess of it, she might not find it out till the next day, and by that time she might be able to see the humor in the situation."
"You're a wise lad, Hughie, and I'm proud of you," said Winnie fondly. She had guessed something of the cost of the fur lined coat that the doctor had proudly displayed as his Christmas gift for the little mother, now well enough to take short tramps through the pine woods daily. Winnie did not know that a set of sorely needed medical books had gone into the coat, but she suspected something of the kind.
The box was packed and sent and the Willis family settled down to the first Christmas they had known without the gentle spirit who had tirelessly planned for every holiday. But they had the dear knowledge that she was coming home again to them, well and strong, and they hung the wreaths in the windows and wound greens about the lights and trimmed a tree for Shirley with thankful and merry hearts. Doctor Hugh had missed so many home Christmas Days that he in particular, enjoyed the preparations and his attempts at secrets and his insistence on tasting all of Winnie's dishes drove the girls into fits of laughter. A pile of packages surrounded every place on Christmas morning and there was something pretty and practical and purely nonsensical for each one from the doctor. He, in turn, declared that for once in his life he had everything he wanted. Aunt Trudy's gift to her nephew and each of her nieces was a cheque and the announcements that followed were characteristic.
"What are you going to get, Hugh?" asked Sarah curiously, when the nature of her slip of paper had been explained to her.
"Books," said Doctor Hugh, promptly, smiling at his aunt.
"Music and a new music case, a leather one," declared Rosemary, her eyes shining.
"I'd like to buy a dog," said Sarah, and grinned good-naturedly at the groan which greeted her modest wish.
"You'd better buy an electric heater for the cats," suggested Winnie. "I'm forever taking 'em out of the oven; some day I'll forget to look, and there will be baked cats when you come down."
Shirley was distressed at this dismal prediction, but Sarah did not take it to heart.
"I think, after all," she said meditatively, "I'll buy a hen and keep chickens."
"What are you going to buy with your money, Shirley lamb?" asked Rosemary, as Sarah fell to planning a chicken yard.
"A doll I guess," said Shirley who had had three that morning.
When Sarah reminded her of that fact, Aunt Trudy protested.
"No one is to attempt to dictate in any way," she said with unaccustomed firmness. "When I was a child I was never allowed to spend a cent as I wanted to and I gave you each this money to do with exactly as you please. If you spend it foolishly, all right, I don't care. But I wanteach one of you to get what you want, whether or not it pleases some one else. I could have bought you what I thought you ought to have, but that's the kind of presents I had as a child and the only kind. And my goodness, didn't I hate 'em!"
The girls stared a little at this outburst and then the doctor laughed.
"Well all I can say," he remarked drolly as he pushed back his chair in answer to the summons of the telephone, "is that it is lucky Christmas comes only once a year. Otherwise, Aunt Trudy, you'd have us completely demoralized."
Spending their Christmas money gave the three girls a good deal of pleasure during holiday week and a letter from their mother was another pleasant incident. Mrs. Willis wrote that the fur coat and the kimona had made her the envy of the whole sanatorium and she was so proud of them both that she cried whenever she looked at them!
"—But, of course, I know you don't want me to do that, so I have stopped, really I have," ran one paragraph of her letter. "I am so proud of you all, my darlings and it seems such a short time ago that you were all babies. How could I look ahead and see that my son would grow upso soon and buy his mother a fur-lined coat, or that my three girl babies for whom I sewed so happily would make me a kimona and such a beautiful garment? I am wearing it now...."
The clear cold weather came to an end during holiday week and a heavy storm set in a few days before New Year's. For two days and a night it snowed steadily and Sarah was almost beside herself to think that now she could play in the snow as long as she liked with no school to interfere. Shirley suffered from cold and did not like to play out long at a time, but Rosemary was not too old to enjoy snow ball fights and coasting and she joined Sarah on the hill as often as she felt she could leave her beloved practising. Nina Edmonds did not care for coasting, but Fannie Mears and several of the girls in the grade above the seventh liked to coast on Fred Mears' bob-sled.
Late in the afternoon of the second day, when the snow had almost stopped, except for a few large flakes, Rosemary set out to find Sarah and bring her in in time for dinner. She was ploughing along through the snow when Jack Welles hailed her.
"'Lo, Rosemary!" he called. "Where you going—home?"
"I'm going to the hill to get Sarah," Rosemary explained. "Hugh says she'd coast till breakfast time if no one stopped her and I believe she would. Where's your sled? Haven't you been out to-day? They say the coasting is fine."
"I know it is, but I haven't had time to try it, worse luck!" growled Jack, falling into step beside Rosemary as they walked on. "The Common Council has sent out a call for the snow cleaning gangs again and I've been trying to round the fellows up."
"Yes, I suppose the streets are piled up," agreed Rosemary. "When are you expected to start work—not to-night?"
"To-morrow morning," the boy replied. "But there won't be more than six of us."
"Six!" repeated Rosemary in astonishment. "Why I thought there were twelve in each gang."
"There were," said Jack briefly. "But, you see, it is holiday week, and no one wants to work. The only five I can get are Norman Cox, Eustice Gray, Jerry and Fred Gordon and Ben Kelsey. I'm the sixth. Two of the others are away and the rest are going on a sleighing trip up to the woods."
"Where's Frank Fenton?" demanded Rosemary. "Can't he make 'em work?"
"Oh, he's going on the ride, too," explainedJack. "A bunch are going, girls and boys and three of the teachers will chaperone. They go up to a camp, you know, and build a big fire and dance and have a good time. Frank says it won't hurt to wait a day or two. I think he's hoping the snow will melt."
"What about the dramatic fund?" inquired, Rosemary, not intentionally sarcastic. "I thought they wanted the money."
"Too soon after Christmas," grinned Jack. "No, I guess the six of us will have to represent the school. Is that Sarah over there with the red hat?"
"Yes, it is," answered Rosemary, beckoning to her sister. "Didn't you want to go on the ride, Jack? Or the other boys?"
"Well I don't care so much," replied Jack slowly. "Of course I'd have a good time, but I can live without a sleigh ride. I'm sorry on the fellows' account though—they wanted to go with some girls and they don't have much fun. I hated like time to ask them to come and shovel snow to-morrow morning. As Eustice says most of the school fun costs too much for him, but this wasn't going to be expensive."
"Couldn't you wait just one day?" suggested Rosemary.
Jack shook his head.
"It's understood that we stand ready to help the Council out," he said in a business-like manner. "They depend on us, and it isn't their fault the snow came during the holidays. We were glad enough to get the chance before and I think it looks mighty cheap to try to beg off now just because it isn't convenient to work. I'm going to be on deck to-morrow morning if I'm the only one who turns up."
Six boys, however, reported the next morning to Bill McCormack and at their own suggestion, were set to work clearing the Plummers Lane section of the accumulated snow.
"My father is always talking about the fire risk down here," said Jack to Jerry Gordon as they shoveled side by side. "Eastshore has a nifty little fire department I'm ready to admit, but it can't climb a snow bank even with the new chemical engine."
The boys found the day unexpectedly long. Hitherto they had worked three or four hours after school and the one Saturday they had shoveled had been at the end of their task so that they had been able to quit at noon. But, although they were genuinely tired long before night—and the noon rest had never been so appreciated!—not one of them suggested giving in or knocking off an hour or two earlier. They worked so steadily and to such good purpose that by half-past four, when Rosemary and Sarah appeared with hot coffee and sandwiches, the most congested area in Plummers Lane was comparatively clear.
"Gee, Rosemary, you certainly are all right!" approved Jack as he held the can for her while she ladled out coffee. "I never was so hungry in my life."
"They're chicken sandwiches and turkey, too," said Rosemary, smiling. "Winnie said if you couldn't go on the sleigh ride she'd see to it that you had something extra good to eat."
The hungry boys fell upon Winnie's sandwiches with a vigor that would have done her heart good, and the coffee disappeared magically. When the last drop was gone and the last crumb vanished, Jack insisted that the girls start for home.
"It's getting dark now," he said, "and Hugh won't like it if you are out late down here. I'd walk home with you, but we want to finish; we're not going to quit till we get to the end of the street. There's a fire hydrant there."
Rosemary and Sarah, carrying the empty coffee can and the basket that had been packed with sandwiches, walked slowly toward home, Sarah audibly regretting that they had left the sled at the house.
"We could have a good coast, before dinner," she argued, walking backward, an accomplishment of which she was exceedingly proud.
Pride, as often happens, went before a fall, in this instance, a collision. Sarah, heedless of Rosemary's cry of warning, walked into a stout, silver-haired gentleman in a fur-collared coat.
"Bless my soul, what's this?" he asked in astonishment, looking down at the small girl who had bumped into his knees.
"How do you do Mr. Jordan?" said Rosemary respectfully, recognizing the president of the Common Council.
"Why it's Rosemary Willis!" beamed Mr. Jordan. "And Sarah, as I live. Where are you going my dears?"
"We're going home," explained Rosemary. "We took the boys some coffee and sandwiches. They are shoveling snow, you know."
"Oh, the high school lads, yes, I recollect," said Mr. Jordan. "I meant to go around andsee them at work, but I've spent the afternoon in the library. Pretty faithful lads, aren't they, to stick to their job in holiday week?"
Rosemary held an instant's swift debate with herself. Jack, she knew, would hold his tongue. But Jack was not within hearing distance and his scruples did not honestly affect her. She put down the coffee can and began to speak. She told Mr. Jordan the whole story, from the beginning when the Student Council had objected to Jack's list of workers. She told about the streets assigned to the boys. She mentioned the sleigh ride and told who had gone. She named the six boys who had spent the day shoveling. The faster she talked, the prettier and more earnest she looked and the more interested Mr. Jordan seemed. Sarah listened dumbly, fascinated by her sister's eloquence.
Mr. Jordan walked with them to their front steps and shook hands with them both.
"I am extremely obliged to you," he told Rosemary as he lifted his hat to go. "I find that I have been a little out of things and you have set me right."
"Goodness knows what I've done," said Rosemary to Sarah as they brushed their hair and made ready for the table. "Don't you say aword to Jack—he will be furious. But I don't care what happens, I'm glad I said what I did; this 'silence is golden' is a silly saying, I think."
Late that night, when every one had gone to bed, the fire whistle sounded. Rosemary raised up in bed, shivering with excitement. She counted the strokes. One-two—one-two—one-two-three-four. Reaching for her dressing gown at the foot of the bed, she seized it and rushed for the door. Sarah's door opened at the same moment and the two little figures met in the hall. They shouted together, rousing the household.
"Plummers Lane!" they shrieked. "The fire's in Plummers Lane!"
S
HIRLEY, half-awake and crying, came pattering out into the hall and Winnie dashed from her room. On the second floor, Aunt Trudy scuttled back and forth demanding where the fire was.
"Go to bed girls," ordered Doctor Hugh, who had just come in and was fully dressed. "Go back to bed, and I'll tell you all about the fire in the morning."
"Oh, Hugh, are you going? Wait for me, please?" cried Rosemary. "I won't be a minute."
"Me, too," shouted Sarah. "Wait for me, Hugh."
He was already in the lower hall, struggling into his overcoat.
"Go back to bed, and don't be silly," was his parting injunction as he opened the door. "You'll catch cold, running through the halls. Send 'em to bed, Winnie."
The door banged behind him and they heard a familiar whistle.
"Hugh!" some one called. "Hugh, it's down Plummers Lane. Going to get the car out? I'll help you."
"That's Jack," cried Rosemary, trying to see through the white curtains without being seen. "Oh, dear, men have all the fun!"
In spite of Winnie's remonstrances and Aunt Trudy's worry that they would have pneumonia, the three girls tried to stay up till their brother came back. After half an hour they gave up and went sleepily to bed. The next morning they heard that the fire had been in one of the novelty factories and that several houses had also been destroyed.
"If the hydrants hadn't been open and the street clear, they say the whole block would have gone," the doctor reported. "In some way it's got over town that Jack and his gang were the only high school boys on the job yesterday and that they voluntarily cleaned the snow out of Wycliffe street. The Common Council is talking of doing something handsome to show their appreciation."
Rosemary beamed, but Sarah who never could keep still blurted out the truth.
"Rosemary told Mr. Jordan last night," she said matter-of-factly.
When Doctor Hugh had heard the details, he declared that while Jack might not approve at once, he was sure he would later be glad.
"You're a loyal friend, Rosemary," said the doctor patting the gold-red hair now long enough to tie back in a thick bunch of curls again, "and there are few finer qualities to possess than that."
The Common Council, through Mr. Jordan passed a resolution thanking the boys, by name, for their faithful "and valuable" services, and the resolution was printed in the Eastshore "Chronicle" much to the confusion of the lads and the delight and pride of their admiring families. The Council also voted each boy the sum of $25, not, Mr. Jordan explained, as an attempt to pay them, but in recognition of "the devotion to duty which is able to ignore personal pleasure and the initiative which is directed by common sense."
"Incidentally," he added, "the property, saved because the street was clear and the fire apparatus could get through, totals considerable more than the sum we are voting you."
Jack learned, of course, of the part Rosemaryhad played in this train of events and though he made several cutting remarks about the inability of girls to hold their tongues, he gradually, if grudgingly, admitted that "it might have been worse."
"Norman Cox and Eustice Gray and the others are tickled pink with the $25," he confided. "They think you are great. And I suppose you couldn't help spilling the beans to Mr. Jordan."
But Rosemary was content to do without pæans of praise.
The famous "January thaw" filled the streets with slush a few weeks later and made indoors a pleasant place to stay. Fannie Mears caught a heavy cold and was out of school a week and Nina Edmonds began to seek the society of Rosemary, whom she had rather neglected.
"You never come to my house any more," said Nina, one noon period. "Come home with me this afternoon, won't you, dear?"
Rosemary was acutely conscious of her brother's wishes concerning Nina, and she knew that he preferred she did not go often to the Edmonds' handsome home.
"Well at least come shopping with me," suggested Nina, noticing the younger girl's hesitation. "Go uptown after school this afternoon, please, Rosemary?"
"Aunt Trudy expects me home," said Rosemary doubtfully.
"For goodness sake, do you have to go straight home from school every day?" demanded Nina fretfully. "Why any one would think you were Shirley's age! Can't Sarah tell your aunt you won't be home?"
"I suppose she could," admitted Rosemary. "All right, Nina, I'll go with you."
Sarah accepted the message reluctantly after school that afternoon and she and Shirley went home while Nina and Rosemary hurried off up town. Nina's shopping manners were remarkably like her mother's and she was respectfully treated in all the shops. Eastshore had no very large stores, but the merchandise was of the better grade in even the tiny places, the lack of variety, as in many small towns, being balanced by uniform quality.
"Charge it," said Nina airily, flitting from shop to shop and counter to counter.
It was dark, almost before they knew it and though Nina was insistent that Rosemary comehome to dinner with her, Rosemary refused. No, she must go home.
"Well, here's your parcel," said Nina good-naturedly. "You'll love 'em when you get used to them and you look perfectly stunning in them, you know you do."
Rosemary tucked the brown paper package under her arm and fled up the street, dashing up the front steps behind a tall figure just putting a key in the Willis front door.
"Well, honey, why this haste?" demanded the doctor, stepping back to let her go in first. "You didn't smell Winnie's apple pudding a block away, did you?"
"Where have you been, Rosemary?" asked Aunt Trudy, coming into the hall. "Sarah said you said you would be home by half-past four."
"What you got?" inquired Sarah, eyeing the parcel under Rosemary's arm with frank curiosity.
"Let me open it, Rosemary?" begged Shirley, standing on tip-toe to pinch the package, her usual method of guessing the contents.
"There isn't a speck of privacy in the house!" flared Rosemary. "I think I might buy something once in a while that the whole family didn't have to see. And no one has to come straight home from school, except me. If I'm an hour late, Aunt Trudy always wants to know where I've been."
"I told her you went shopping with Nina Edmonds," remarked Sarah sweetly, "And you're always cross when you go anywhere with her."
"Sarah!" said Doctor Hugh, warningly, but Rosemary dashed past them and up the stairs to her own room.
She thrust the package down deep in her cedar chest and there it stayed till the next Saturday afternoon. Then Rosemary deliberately locked her door and proceeded to array herself in gray silk stockings and patent leather pumps with narrow, high heels, the results of Nina Edmonds' persuasive arguments and Rosemary's deep longing to possess these accessories.
Walking in the pumps proved to be unexpectedly difficult, but Rosemary practised while she dressed and by the time she had put on her best hat and coat and was ready to go down stairs she was able to manage them better. Sarah and Shirley had gone to the library, Winnie was busy in the kitchen and Aunt Trudy wassewing in her room. Rosemary counted on leaving the house unobserved. She teetered to the door of her aunt's room and carefully keeping out of her range of vision announced that she was going up town for a little walk.
"All right, dearie, have a nice time," answered Aunt Trudy, rocking placidly. "Tell Winnie to answer the telephone if it rings, because I don't want to have to go down stairs."
Rosemary experimented cautiously with the top step and then discretion prompted her to abandon valor. In her best coat and hat and gorgeously arrayed as to her pretty feet, she, who considered herself quite grown up this afternoon, quietly slid down the banister! Just as she reached the newel post the door opened. There stood Doctor Hugh!
"Haven't forgotten how, have you?" he said, laughing. "That was neatly done, dear. I saw you through the glass before I opened the door."
Rosemary was painfully conscious of her shoes. Against her will, her glance strayed down and the doctor's eyes followed hers.
"Why how fine we are!" he said.
Rosemary sat down on the last step and tried to pull her skirt down over her feet.
"I know you don't like them, Hugh," she answered resentfully, "but I don't see why I can't wear high heels when I'm dressed up. All the girls do."
"They are very pretty shoes," said the doctor gravely. "And very unsuitable for a walk on a cold, slushy winter day," he added.
Rosemary said nothing.
"I suppose you wheedled Aunt Trudy into letting you buy them," commented her brother presently. "Well, dear, there are some things we won't learn except through experience. I'm disappointed that Mother's wishes didn't have more weight with you."
Rosemary half expected him to forbid her to leave the house wearing the new shoes, but he went on to his office without another word. She opened the front door noiselessly and hastened uptown to meet Nina Edmonds.
Walking was not the unconscious, easy swing that Rosemary was accustomed to, in the patent leather footgear and it was simply impossible for her to forget her feet for one instant. Nina was bent on more shopping and Rosemary found it very tiresome to stand before the counters and look at things she knew Nina did not mean to buy. Finally the latter suggested that they goto the little tea room recently opened and have tea. The prospect of being able to sit down delighted poor Rosemary.
They had to cross the street and the tracks of the Interurban trolley to reach the tea room and in crossing one of Rosemary's high heels caught in the trolley rail.
"I can't get it out!" she cried, snatching off her glove and working frantically at the shoe.
"Work your foot back and forth," advised Nina. "Oh, goodness, people are stopping to look at you."
Sure enough, the Saturday afternoon shoppers, a larger crowd than usual for many farmers drove in on the last day of the week to make their purchases, were beginning to be attracted by the sight of the two girls on the trolley tracks.
"How could you be so silly!" cried Nina in vexation. "Look at all the rubes—if there is anything I detest, it is to be made conspicuous."
Rosemary flushed angrily, but a sudden shout drowned her reply.
"Car coming!" cried a man on the curb. "Somebody flag the trolley!"
The Interurban cars operated at a high rate of speed, even through the town, and as the wires started their humming, Rosemary and Ninaglanced up and saw a car bearing down on them.
"You'll be killed!" shrieked Nina, taking a flying leap that landed her safely across the tracks.
A man shot out of the crowd toward Rosemary and another dashed up the street in the direction of the trolley, waving his cap. The motorman put on the brakes, there was an ear-splitting noise as the wheels locked and slid and the car stopped a good ten feet from the frightened girl. Meanwhile the man who had come to her rescue had unbuttoned the straps of the pump and pulled Rosemary free from her shoe.
"Fool heels!" he commented, while a crowd of the curious surged out from the curb. "If I had my way no girl should ever own a pair. Here, I'll get it out for you—"
He tugged at the obstinate pump, the heel gave way and the man fell back, the shoe in his hand, the heel neatly ripped off.
"Oh, say, I'm sorry!" he stammered. "I didn't mean to tear it off—here's the heel; I guess a shoemaker can put it on again for you."
He handed her the pump and the heel and the motorman and conductor went back to their trolley.
"Thank you very much—it doesn't matter about the heel, it really doesn't matter at all," said Rosemary incoherently, her one wish being to get away from this awful crowd.
"If you're looking for the girl who was with you, she's gone," volunteered a freckle faced boy. "I saw her streaking it up the street as soon as the trolley stopped."
Getting home with one heel off and one heel on, was not an easy matter, but Rosemary managed it. Half an hour later, Doctor Hugh reading at his desk, was astonished to have two patent leather pumps flung down on the book before him and to see Rosemary, crimson-cheeked and stormy-eyed confronting him.
Y
OU may burn them up or give them away or sell them!" Rosemary cried. "I never want to see a pair of high-heeled shoes again as long as I live. I despise them!"
The doctor picked up the offending little shoes and eyed them critically.
"Wait," said Rosemary as he seemed about to speak. "I have something to tell you, Hugh. I've been as bad as I could be, and I've done everything you didn't like. But you'll be glad, because I never want to see Nina Edmonds again. I never want any one to mention her name to me."
Her voice was hard and unnatural.
"Hadn't you better sit down, dear?" Doctor Hugh suggested. "I'm sorry if you and Nina have quarreled."
"Oh, we haven't quarreled," said Rosemary bitterly. "I can't tell you about it, Hugh, but she isn't the kind of girl I thought she was.And I did like her so! I won't cry," she added doggedly. "I haven't told you the worst yet. Hugh, you thought I persuaded Aunt Trudy to buy me the pumps, but she didn't know anything about it; I had them charged on Nina's account at the Quality shoe store. And I owe Nina $12.98 this minute and I have to pay her right away. I can't owe it to her another day. Will you lend me the money? I don't care what you do to me, or how you punish me, but don't make me stay in debt. I can't stand it."
Doctor Hugh put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He counted out several bills and gave them to Rosemary.
"Don't you want to tell me about it, dear?" he said quietly. "I can not bear to see you hurt and not to know the reason. Perhaps I can set it right for you."
Rosemary shook her head.
"Nobody can help," she said despondently. "There's nothing to help." Her lips quivered. "I thought Nina was different," she said, and then the tears overflowed.
The doctor had seen Rosemary cry before, but never like this. As he held her in his arms and she sobbed out the hurt and humiliation of the afternoon against his shoulder, he wonderedwhat had happened to shake her so. He did not know that she had had her first experience with disloyalty or that her first broken friendship was teaching her a hard lesson. By and by the passion of weeping grew quieter and Rosemary fumbled for her handkerchief.
"I didn't know I was going to be so silly," she said, sitting up and trying to smile as the doctor tucked his own clean handkerchief into her hand.
"You won't tell me what is troubling you?" he said persuasively.
"I can't, Hugh," Rosemary answered, her tear drenched eyes meeting his gaze squarely. "I can't talk about it, not even to you."
"All right, dear, if that's the way you feel," he said instantly. "Only remember, any time you want to confide, I'm always ready. Don't be afraid of me, Rosemary; that is one thing I can not stand. If I thought any of you girls were afraid to come to me and tell me your troubles—"
Rosemary threw her arms around his neck.
"I'm not afraid of you, I'm only ashamed of myself," she whispered. "And I love you more than any one in the world, next to Mother!"
The doctor heard of the shoe incident the next morning, indeed the story was known aboutEastshore within a few hours, and he was able to piece together from what he heard a fair understanding of Nina Edmonds' part in the incident. He succeeded in impressing on Sarah and Shirley, and even Winnie and Aunt Trudy, that they were not to mention Nina's name, or anything they might hear about that unfortunate afternoon, to Rosemary, on pain of his severest displeasure. Nina nodded, rather shamefacedly, to Rosemary in school the next Monday morning and Rosemary spoke pleasantly; but she never voluntarily sought the society of the other girl again and there was something about her that effectually discouraged Nina from attempting any overtures.
A week or two later, Winnie walked into Doctor Hugh's office one night a few minutes before ten o'clock, ostensibly to bring him a glass of milk and a sponge cake before he went to bed.
"Out with it, Winnie," he said good-naturedly. "I can see that you are fairly bristling with the necessity of making an important communication."
"It's Sarah, then," announced Winnie, putting down the glass of milk. "Something has got to be done about her, Hughie."
"Sarah?" inquired the doctor meditatively."Why I thought she was conducting herself in an exemplary manner these last few weeks."
Winnie sniffed.
"I'm always the one that has to tell you," she complained. "I'm after asking Miss Trudy these three nights running to speak to you, but does she? She does not. She speaks to Sarah who minds her about as well as the wind does. And Rosemary won't be doing her duty, either; she says 'twould be telling tales and she's got Shirley around to the same way of thinking."
"A conspiracy, eh?" smiled Doctor Hugh.
"Well, Winnie, what should I know that I don't know about my small sister Sarah?"
Winnie was not to be hurried. She dearly loved a chat with her idol, the doctor, and she had the born story-teller's art of prolonging the climax.
"I'm not one to be going out of my way to find something to babble," she declared now. "There's plenty of things goes on I could be running to you with every day in the week, did I so mind; but I believe in letting folks have their own heads, as long as they don't go too far."
The doctor sampled the cake appreciatively.
"Sarah, I take it, has gone too far?" he suggested.
"I don't know as you'd call it that," said Winnie with a faint suspicion of sarcasm. "I may be too finicky and if I am, may I be forgiven for troubling you. But when it comes to sleeping in the same room with six sore-eyed kittens and in the same bed with a mangy street dog, I think something should be done about it. 'Tisn't Christian-like."
"Do you mean to tell me Sarah has got a mess like that up in her room?" demanded Doctor Hugh.
"She has that," said Winnie firmly. "That and worse. She has rabbits in her clothes closet and this morning I had to carry out two dead chickens. She lugs them all up every night to keep 'em warm, she says."
"Is everyone in the house crazy?" asked the bewildered doctor. "What's the matter with you, Winnie? Ordinarily you can make the world take orders from you—couldn't you put a stop to this?"
"I've argued and I've scolded and I've threatened to chloroform every animal on the place," said Winnie impressively, "but Sarah is like cement. Where the Willis will is going to lead her, I'm sure I don't know; but she's too much for me."
"Nonsense!" the doctor pushed back his chair sharply. "At least you could have come to me and told me the first night she tried to keep an animal in her room."
"I'm as weak as the rest of 'em," admitted Winnie. "Miss Trudy cried and Shirley grumbled because she had to go in and sleep with Rosemary; but none of us liked to say a word to you. I don't suppose I'd be after telling you now if I wasn't afraid Sarah would catch something from that dog she brought home to-night."
"I'll go up and read the riot act to her, even if it is late," said Doctor Hugh, frowning. "Such a state of affairs is beyond belief. Shirley is sleeping with Rosemary, you say, and Sarah has the menagerie in the bed with her?"
"Well, she has the dog—I saw him under the blanket. But you're not going to bother her to-night, are you?" asked Winnie anxiously.
"Do you suppose I'm going to have her sleeping with a dog that came from Heaven alone knows where?" was the impatient answer. "If I can get the animals out of her room without waking her, well and good; but in any case, out they come."
Sarah woke up the moment the light wasswitched on. So did the touseled little yellow dog who thrust his head out from under the covers, close to Sarah's face, and barked sharply at the tall figure standing in the center of the room. The rabbits could be heard scampering about behind the closet door and the kittens set up a hungry mewing from their basket under the bed. A faint scratching came from beneath the inverted waste-basket where a dejected-looking rooster drooped in lonely melancholy.
"Go away!" said Sarah.
"Give me that dog, Sarah," said Doctor Hugh sternly, hoping that he would not laugh. "What do you mean by this kind of performance?"
"He's a nice dog and he hasn't any home, he followed me all the way from the grocery store," said Sarah, her dark eyes regarding her brother suspiciously. "Leave him alone."
For answer the doctor, with a quick movement, lifted the dog clear of the bed clothes.
"You'll hurt him!" cried Sarah in anguish. "You don't know how to be nice to animals. Give him back to me, Hugh."
"Look here, Sarah, this is no time for argument," said Doctor Hugh crisply. "It is out of the question for you to sleep with your barnyardfriends. Everyone of them must go down cellar for the rest of the night and we'll talk about what is to be done with them in the morning."
Sarah wept and protested and even tried to fight for her pets, but Winnie and the doctor were deaf to her pleas. Between them, they carried down every forlorn animal—Sarah's tastes ran to the lame and the halt and the blind,—and then Doctor Hugh opened the window wide (Sarah had insisted on keeping both windows closed lest a draft strike the sick kittens), kissed the back of his small sister's head, for she persistently refused to turn her face toward him, and snapped off the light, leaving Sarah to cry herself to sleep. Rosemary and Shirley, in the next room, had slept peacefully through the racket.
Unfortunately the next morning a call came for the doctor before eight o'clock and snatching a hasty breakfast, he was out of the house before the girls came down. He had no opportunity for the talk with Sarah that day for although he came home to lunch, she was, of course in school, and he did not get home in time for dinner. In fact, it was nearly nine o'clock before his car rolled into the drive.
Aunt Trudy and Rosemary, Winnie told him,had gone to the movies as a Friday night treat, and Sarah and Shirley had gone to bed promptly at eight o'clock.
"I was setting bread, and didn't see 'em go," Winnie added significantly.
Doctor Hugh went upstairs to the third floor. A light shone under Sarah's door. He knocked, then tried the knob. It was locked.
"Open the door, Sarah," he said quietly.
"Go away!" quavered Sarah, tears in her voice.
Doctor Hugh remembered the communicating door and strode through Rosemary's room. Shirley was fast asleep in her older sister's bed. Sarah had not thought to fasten the door between the rooms and she looked up startled, as her brother came in. She had not undressed, and she sat on the floor, the kittens in her lap. The dog and the rabbits and the rooster were all back in their places.
"This settles it!" said the doctor adamantly. "There's only one way to deal with you, Sarah, and that is to come down like a ton of bricks. You can't keep any pets for two months—that's final."
"Any more pets?" suggested Sarah.
"I said any pets," was the reply. "If you can find homes for these, well and good; if you can't,I'll try to dispose of them for you. But to-morrow morning, they go away. And now you'll have to help me get them down cellar."
When Sarah finally understood that she was to be deprived of all her pets at once, she wept miserably. No amount of tears or storming or wheedling or pleading, however, could alter Doctor Hugh's decision. Even Winnie suggested that one kitten be kept, but to no avail.
"Sarah must learn she can not do as she pleases and escape the consequences," he said to Rosemary, who came to him on Sarah's behalf. "Half way measures don't go with her, I find, so I've had to be drastic. I'm sorry, too, Rosemary, but I believe I am making the future easier for one strong-willed little girl."
He found homes among his farm patients for all the animals and saw to it that Sarah went with him to carry the pets to their new abodes. She felt much better when she saw that they were to be well cared for, but it was a long time before she would go near the empty rabbit hutch in the side yard. Jack, who discovered that she avoided it, chopped it up at last for kindling wood for Winnie and Sarah was silently grateful. She missed her pets inexpressibly, but therest of the household, it must be confessed, enjoyed their absence thoroughly. Sarah and her animals had absorbed the foreground for many hectic weeks.
T
HE brief month of February was starred for the Willis family by the little mother's birthday. She was steadily improving, according to her own letters and the reports from the doctors, and Doctor Hugh, who spent at least one week-end each month with her, brought back glowing accounts of her progress along the road to health. He managed to get away to spend her birthday with her and personally carried her the gifts and notes and loving wishes of the three girls, Aunt Trudy, Winnie and close friends who also remembered.
Almost before the snow had gone, talk of the March fair began to engage the attention of the Eastshore school pupils. This was an annual event and there was much rivalry between the three schools as to which should turn in the most money. The proceeds of the fair went to the Memorial Hospital in Bennington, rather had gone into the building fund until this year forthe hospital had recently been completed. The high and grammar and primary schools, each had tables and exhibits and there was always a large attendance during the Friday afternoon and Saturday the fair was under way.
"The high school is going to have a cafeteria," reported Rosemary at dinner one night. "I wish we'd thought of that. The boys are going to wear white aprons and caps and stand behind the tables and serve the food, while the girls act as waitresses and carry out the dishes and look after the silver. They want every one to eat their supper there Friday and Saturday night."
"All right, we'll come," promised Aunt Trudy. "Hugh can meet us there, can't you, Hugh?"
"Of course," he agreed. "But I'm saving my money for the grammar and primary school tables—I want that understood. I'll treat you all to supper, and please Jack Welles at the same time, but the real expenditures of this family must be where they'll count for the lower grades."
The three girls beamed upon him approvingly.
"I'm going to have charge of the cake table," said Rosemary. "Tell Winnie to buy our Sunday cake from me, won't you, Aunt Trudy? Ihave ten different kinds of icings to make—every one of the girls has asked me to ice her cake, because they say I always have good luck."
"I hope you'll use sugar and not salt," murmured the doctor wickedly.
"Oh, Hugh, wasn't that soup too dreadful!" said Rosemary, shuddering at the recollection. "I know perfectly well I didn't put in too much salt and yet no one else seasoned it—I wish I knew how it happened."
"Let it go as a mystery," advised her brother. "What are you going to do in the fair line, Sarah?" he added, turning to her.
"Sell gold fish," she answered placidly. "What are you laughing at?" she asked them in surprise. "I have a great big bowl with gold fish in it and a lot of little bowls; and people buy the little bowls for fifteen cents and I dip out two gold fish with a soup ladle for twenty-five cents, and they take them home."
"I'm going to sell little baby bouquets," announced Shirley, who looked like a "baby bouquet" herself in a pink challis frock. "I have 'em on a tray and I walk around and people buy them for their buttonholes."
"I'll be your first customer, sweetheart," Doctor Hugh assured her.
Preparations for the fair absorbed most of the after-school time of the next two weeks. There were committee meetings and inter-class conferences, and difficulties that required to be straightened out and sensitive feelings that needed careful handling.
"We could get along so much faster, if every one was pleasant," sighed Rosemary to her brother. "Fannie Mears has a dozen pin-cushions to make and she made twelve of us promise to take one and finish it for the fancy-work table; and then she wouldn't help iron the napkins for the cake plates. She said it wasn't her table and she didn't intend to waste her time. Harriet Reed heard her and she was so mad she ripped up the pincushion she had just sewed and the sewing teacher found it in the waste-basket and she says Harriet has to buy material to replace the stuff she tore and she can't go home after school to-morrow until she has made another pincushion."
"Well, I don't think Harriet helped her cause much," said the doctor pacifically.
"Well Fannie Mears is too mean," said Rosemary. "It isn't a very nice thing to say, Hugh—"
"Then don't say it, dear," he counteredpromptly. "Don't gossip, Rosemary. I know of nothing harder on the nerves and temper than a fair, and if you can keep cheerful and serene and not quarrel with your friends and above all, don't talk about them in their absence, you will have done better than most fair workers twice your age."
Rosemary remembered this bit of advice often in the turbulent days that followed. Fannie Mears was one of those girls who manage to sow discord and dissension wherever they go. She had a tireless industry that commended her to her teachers and she was always ready to accept additional tasks and duties. What they did not see was that she distributed these tasks among her friends and the girls in the lower grades and then was unwilling to help them in turn.
"I suppose you've heard what Fannie Mears and Nina Edmonds have done now?" remarked Sarah one noon period when the fair was a scant week off.
"No, what?" asked Rosemary who avoided Nina's name whenever possible.
"Why they've taken three dozen needle-books that have to have the flannel leaves tied in them with ribbon," explained Sarah. "See, Shirley has four to do. Fannie and Nina promisedMiss Carlson they'd do them, and now they've handed them all out in the primary grades. They wanted me to do six, but I wouldn't."
Sarah was engrossed with the gold fish which had already arrived and were housed in the natural history room in the high school building. She visited them several times daily and in his heart Mr. Martin, the biology teacher feared she would kill them with kindness before the fair opened.
"Shirley doesn't mind tying the leaves in, do you dear?" asked Rosemary cheerfully.
"Not much," replied Shirley, "only I wanted to cut the ribbons for my flower bouquets yesterday afternoon, and Fannie wouldn't lend me the scissors."
"I'll help you do it this afternoon," promised Rosemary, who had planned to assemble the recipes for her cake icings and see what supplies were lacking that she would need.
"If that fancy-work table ever gets enough things, the rest of us may be able to pay a little attention to our own tables," she said to herself.
But that afternoon Shirley came crying to Rosemary to say that she had lost the four little needle-books.
"I've looked everywhere," the child insisted."All over everywhere, Rosemary. And they're all gone."
"That means I'll have to make four," said poor Rosemary. "Don't cry, Shirley, Sister will see that you have four needle-books to turn in. Though I don't see how you could lose them," she added wearily.
"I'll bet Fannie Mears took those books," declared Sarah when she heard of the loss. "It would be just like her. She thinks it's smart to get four extra books."
Rosemary protested weakly at this idea. In her heart of hearts, she thought Fannie quite capable of such an act, but she had loyally resolved to try and follow Hugh's advice.
"But I can't help wishing he knew Fannie," said Rosemary to herself.
She made the needle-books and helped Shirley measure and cut the ribbon for her bouquets. Sarah's "soup ladle" proved to be a net and that small girl "experimented" with the netting so earnestly that she required a new net to be inserted practically every day. Of course Rosemary was called on for this and as a result her own work was left quite to the last.
"But I couldn't ice the cakes till the day before the fair, anyway," she said philosophicallyto Miss Parsons, "though I did want to have time to see that the plates and napkins were matched; last year we ran short of napkins."
The morning of the fair, Rosemary hurried upstairs to ice her cakes. They were all arranged on the kitchen table, thirty of them, each one a triumph of culinary art. Rosemary was excused from school for the day, but the cakes had been baked late the previous afternoon for it was a school rule that the fair was not to interfere with class attendance.
"And I don't see why Rosemary Willis should be excused," muttered Fannie Mears indignantly.
"I suppose you think she can ice thirty cakes in half an hour," Sarah flung back. "And set the table and go home and get dressed, too."
Humming happily, Rosemary tied on her white apron and went about her mixing. As she had said, there were ten different icings to be made, the same flavor being allowed only three cakes. Some were loaves and some were layers and one or two had been scorched. These Rosemary carefully grated and planned to ice thickly.