CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IVGETTING A START

Often people who have been visited by great misfortunes become soured and suspect the motives of even those who are trying to help them. Eleanor understood this trait of human nature very well, thanks to the fact that as a volunteer she had helped out the charity workers in her own city more than once. And as a consequence she did not at all resent the dark looks that were cast at her by the poor woman whose every glance brought home to her more sharply the disaster that the fire had brought.

“We’ve got to be patient if we want to be really helpful,” she explained to Dolly Ransom, who was disposed to resent the woman’s unfriendly aspect.

“But I don’t see why she has to act as if we were trying to annoy her, Miss Eleanor!”

“She doesn’t mean that at all, Dolly. You’ve never known what it is to face the sort of trouble and anxiety she has had for the last few days. She’ll soon change her mind about us when she sees that we are really trying to help. And there’s another thing. Don’t you think she’s a little softer already?”

“Oh, she is!” said Bessie, with shining eyes. “And I think I know why—”

“So will Dolly—if she will look at her now. See, Dolly, she’s looking at her children. And when she sees how nice the girls are to them, she is going to be grateful—far more grateful than for anything we did for her. Because, after all, it’s probably her fear for her children, and of what this will mean to them, that is her greatest trouble.”

Dinner was soon ready, and when it was prepared, Eleanor called the homeless family together and made them sit down.

“We haven’t so very much,” she said. “We intended to eat just this way, but we were goingon a little way. Still, I think there’s plenty of everything, and there’s lots of milk for the children.”

“Why are you so good to us!” asked the woman, suddenly. It was her first admission that she appreciated what was being done, and Eleanor secretly hailed it as a prelude to real friendliness.

“Why, you don’t think anyone could see you in so much trouble and not stop to try to help you, do you?” she said.

“Ain’t noticed none of the neighbors comin’ here to help,” said the woman, sullenly.

“I think they’re simply forgetful,” said Eleanor. “And you know this fire was pretty bad. They had a great fight to save Cranford from burning up.”

“Is that so?” said the woman, showing a little interest in the news. “My land, I didn’t think the fire would get that far!”

“They were fighting night and day for most of three days,” said Eleanor. “And now they’repretty tired, and I have an idea they’re making up for lost sleep and rest. But I’m sure you’ll find some of them driving out this way pretty soon to see how you are getting on.”

“Well, they won’t see much!” said the woman, with a despairing laugh. “We came back here, ’cause we thought some of the buildings might be saved. But there ain’t a thing left exceptin’ that one barn a little way over there. You can’t see it from here. It’s over the hill. We did save our cattle and a good many chickens and ducks. But all our crops is ruined—and how we are ever goin’ to get through the winter I declare I can’t tell!”

“Have you a husband? And, by the way, hadn’t you better tell me your name!” said Eleanor.

“My husband’s dead—been dead nearly two years,” said the woman. “I’m Sarah Pratt. This here’s my husband’s sister, Ann.”

“Well, Mrs. Pratt, we’ll have to see if we can’t think of some way of making up for all this loss,” said Eleanor, after she had told the womanher own name, and introduced the girls of the Camp Fire. “Why—just a minute, now! You have cows, haven’t you! Plenty of them? Do they give good milk!”

“Best there is,” said the woman. “My husband, he was a crank for buyin’ fine cattle. I used to tell him he was wastin’ his money, but he would do it. Same way with the chickens.”

“Then you sold the milk, I suppose?”

“Yes, ma’am, and we didn’t get no more for it from the creamery than the farmers who had just the ornery cows.”

“Well, I’ve got an idea already. I’m going back to Cranford as soon as we’ve had dinner to see if it will work out. I suppose that’s your son?”

She looked with a smile at the awkward, embarrassed boy who had so little to say for himself.

“Well, while the girls fix you up some shelters where you can sleep to-night, if you stay here, I’m going to ask you to let him drive me into Cranford. I want to do some telephoning—andI think I’ll have good news for you when I come back.”

Strangely enough, Mrs. Pratt made no objection to this plan. Once she had begun to yield to the charm of Eleanor’s manner, and to believe that the Camp Fire Girls meant really to help and were not merely stopping out of idle curiosity, she recovered her natural manner, which turned out to be sweet and cheerful enough, and she also began to look on things with brighter eyes.

“Makes no difference whether you have good news or not, my dear,” she said to Eleanor. “You’ve done us a sight of good already. Waked me up an’ made me see that it’s wrong to sit down and cry when it’s a time to be up an’ doin’.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t have stayed in the dumps very long,” said Eleanor, cheerfully. “Perhaps we got you started a little bit sooner, but I can see that you’re not the sort to stay discouraged very long.”

Then, while a few of the girls, with the aid ofthe Pratt children, washed dishes and cleared up after the meal, Eleanor took aside Margery and some of the stronger girls, like Bessie and Dolly, to show them what she wanted done while she was away.

“There’s plenty of wood around here,” she said. “A whole lot of the boards are only a little bit scorched, and some of them really aren’t burned at all. Now, if you take those and lay them against the side of that steep bank there, near where the big barn stood, you’ll have one side of a shelter. Then take saplings, and put them up about seven feet away from your boards.”

She held a sapling in place, to show what she meant.

“Cut a fork in the top of each sapling, and dig holes so that they will stand up. Then lay strips of wood from the saplings to the tops of your boards, and cover the space you’ve got that way with branches. If you go about half a mile beyond here, you’ll be able to get all the branchesyou want from spots where the fire hasn’t burned at all.”

“Why, they’ll be like the Indian lean-tos I’ve read about, won’t they?” exclaimed Margery.

“They’re on that principle,” said Eleanor. “Probably we could get along very well without laying any boards at all against that bank, but it might be damp, and there’s no use in taking chances. And—”

“Oh, Miss Eleanor,” Dolly interrupted, “excuse me, but if it rained or there were water above, wouldn’t it leak right down and run through from the top of the bank?”

“That’s a good idea, Dolly. I’ll tell you how to avoid that. Dig a trench at the top of the bank, just as long as the shelter you have underneath, and the water will all be caught in that. And if you give the trench a little slope, one way or the other, or both ways from the centre, not much, just an inch in ten feet—the water will all be carried off.”

“Oh, yes!” said Dolly. “That would fix that up all right.”

“Get plenty of branches of evergreens for the floor, and we’ll cover those with our rubber blankets,” Eleanor went on. “Then we’ll be snug and dry for to-night, anyhow, and for as long as the weather holds fine.”

“You mean it will be a place where the Pratts can sleep?” said Margery. “Of course, it would be all right in this weather, but do you think it will stay like this very long?”

“Of course it won’t, Margery, but I don’t expect them to have to live this way all winter. If it serves to-night and to-morrow night I think it will be all that’s needed. Now you understand just what is to be done, don’t you? If you want to ask any questions, go ahead.”

“No. We understand, don’t we, girls?” said Margery.

“All right, then,” said Eleanor. “Girls, Margery is Acting Guardian while I’m gone. You’re all to do just as she tells you, and obey her justas if she were I. I see that Tom’s got the buggy all harnessed up. It’s lucky they were able to save their wagons and their horses, isn’t it!”

“What are you going to do in Cranford!” asked Dolly. “Won’t you tell us, Miss Eleanor?”

“No, I won’t, Dolly,” said Eleanor, laughing. “If I come back with good news—and I certainly hope I shall—you’ll enjoy it all the more if it’s a surprise, and if I don’t succeed, why, no one will be disappointed except me.”

And then with a wave of her hand, she sprang into the waiting buggy and drove off with Tom Pratt holding the reins, and looking very proud of his pretty passenger.

“Well, I don’t know what it’s all about, but we know just what we’re supposed to do, girls,” said Margery. “So let’s get to work. Bessie, you and Dolly might start picking out the boards that aren’t too badly burned.”

“All right,” said Dolly. “Come on, Bessie!”

“I’ll pace off the distance to see how big a place we need to make,” said Margery. “Mrs. Pratt,how far is it to a part of the woods that wasn’t burned? Miss Mercer thought we could get some green branches there for bedding.”

“Not very far,” said Mrs. Pratt, with a sigh. “That’s what seemed so hard! When we drove along this morning we came quite suddenly to a patch along the road on both sides where the fire hadn’t reached, and it made us ever so happy.”

“Oh, what a shame!” said Margery. “I suppose you thought you’d come to the end of the burned part?”

“I hoped so—oh, how I did hope so!” said poor Mrs. Pratt. “But then, just before we came in sight of the place, we saw that the fire had changed its direction again, and then we knew that our place must have gone.”

“That’s very strange, isn’t it?” said Margery. “I wonder why the fire should spare some places and not others?”

“It seems as if it were always that way in a big fire,” said Mrs. Pratt. “I suppose there’dbeen some cutting around that patch of woods that wasn’t burned. And only last year a man was going to buy the wood in that wood lot of ours on the other side of the road, and clear it. If he had, maybe the fire wouldn’t ever have come near us, at all.”

“Well, we’ll have to think about what did happen, not what we wish had happened, Mrs. Pratt,” said Margery, cheerfully. “The thing to do now is to make the best of a bad business. I’m going to send four or five of the girls to get branches. Perhaps you’ll let one of the children go along to show them the way?”

“You go, Sally,” said Mrs. Pratt to the oldest girl, a child of fourteen, who had been listening, wide-eyed, to the conversation. “Now, ain’t there somethin’ Ann an’ I can do to help?”

“Why, yes, there is, Mrs. Pratt. I think it’s going to be dreadfully hot. Over there, where we unpacked our stores, you’ll find a lot of lemons. I think if you’d make a couple of big pails full of lemonade we’d all enjoy them while we wereworking, and they’d make the work go faster, too.”

“The water won’t be very cold,” suggested Ann.

“Pshaw, Ann! Why not use the ice?” said Mrs. Pratt, whose interest in small things had been wonderfully revived. “The ice-house wasn’t burned. Do you go and get a pailful of ice, and we’ll have plenty for the girls to drink. They surely will be hot and tired with all they’re doing for us.”

“I’m sorry I ever said Mrs. Pratt wasn’t nice,” said Dolly to Bessie, when they happened to overhear this, and saw how Mrs. Pratt began hustling to get the lemonade ready.

“I knew she’d be all right as soon as she began to be waked up a little,” said Bessie. “This is more fun than one of our silly adventures, isn’t it, Dolly? Because it’s just as exciting, but there isn’t the chance of things going wrong, and we’re doing something to make other people happy.”

“You’re certainly right about that, Bessie.And it makes you think of how much hard luck people have, and how easy it would be for people who are better off to help them, doesn’t it?”

“Itiseasy, Dolly. You know, I think Miss Eleanor must help an awful lot of people. It seems to be the first thing she thinks of when she sees any trouble.”

“She makes one understand what Wo-he-lo really means,” said Dolly. “She’s often explained that work means service—doing things for other people, and not just working for yourself.”

“That’s one of the things I like best about the Camp Fire,” said Bessie, thoughtfully. “Everyone in it seems to be unselfish and to think about helping others, and yet there isn’t someone to preach to you all the time—they just do it themselves, and make you see that it’s the way to be really happy.”

“I wouldn’t have believed that I could enjoy this sort of work if anyone had told me so a year ago. But I do. I haven’t had such a good timesince I can remember. Of course, I feel awfully sorry for the Pratts, but I’m glad that, if it had to happen to them, we came along in time to help them.”

They hadn’t stopped working while they talked, and now they had brought as many boards as Margery wanted.

“There are lots more boards, Margery,” said Dolly. “Why shouldn’t we make a sort of floor for the lean-to? If we put up a couple of planks for them to rest on, every so often, we could have a real floor, and then, even if the ground got damp, it would be dry inside.”

“Good idea! We’ll do that,” said Margery, who was busy herself, flying here, there, and everywhere to direct the work. “Go ahead!”

And so, when the sound of wheels in the road heralded the return of Miss Eleanor in the buggy, the work was done, and the lean-to was completed, a rough-and-ready shelter that was practical in the extreme, though perhaps it was not ornamental.

“Splendid!” cried Eleanor. “But I knew you girls would do well. And I’ve got the good news I hoped to bring, too!”

CHAPTER VGOOD NEWS FROM TOWN

Everyone rushed eagerly forward, and crowded around Miss Mercer as she descended from the buggy, smiling pleasantly at the bashful Tom Pratt, who did his best to help her in her descent. And not the least eager, by any means, was Tom Pratt’s mother, whose early indifference to the interest of these good Samaritans in her misfortunes seemed utterly to have vanished.

“Oh, these girls of yours!” cried Mrs. Pratt. “You’ve no idea of how much they’ve done—or how much they’ve heartened us all up, Miss Mercer! I don’t believe there were ever so many kind, nice people brought together before!”

Eleanor laughed, as if she were keeping a secret to herself. And her words, when she spoke, proved that that was indeed the case.

“Just you wait till you know how many friendsyou really have around here, Mrs. Pratt!” she said. “Well, I told you I hoped to bring back good news, and I have, and if you’ll all give me a chance, I’ll tell you what it is.”

“You’ve found a place for all the Pratts to go!” said Dolly.

“You’ve arranged something so that they won’t have to stay here!” agreed Margery.

“I don’t know whether Mrs. Pratt would agree that that was such good news,” she said. “Tell me, Mrs. Pratt—you are still fond of this place, aren’t you?”

“Indeed, and I am, Miss Mercer!” she said, choking back a sob. “When I first saw how it looked this morning, I thought I only wanted to go away and never see it again, if I only knew where to go. But I feel so different now. Why, all the time we’ve been working around here, it’s made me think of how Tom—I mean my poor husband—and I came here when we were first married. Tom had the land, you see, and he’d built a little cabin for us with his own hands.”

“And all the farm grew from that?”

“Yes. We worked hard, you see, and the children came, but we had a better place for each one to be born in, Miss Mercer—we really did! It was our place. We’ve earned it all, with the help from the place itself, and before the fire—”

She broke down then, and for a moment she couldn’t go on.

“Of course you love it!” said Eleanor, heartily. “And I don’t think it would be very good news for you to know that you had a chance to go somewhere else and make a fresh start, though I could have managed that for you.”

“I’d be grateful, though, Miss Mercer,” said Mrs. Pratt. “I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t. It’ll be a wrench, though—I’m not saying it wouldn’t. When you’ve lived anywhere as long as I’ve lived here, and seen all the changes, and had your children born in it, and—”

“I know—I know,” interrupted Eleanor, sympathetically. “And I could see how much you loved the place. So I never had any idea at allof suggesting anything that would take you away.”

“Do you really think we can get a new start here?” asked Mrs. Pratt, looking up hopefully.

“I don’t only believe it, I know it, Mrs. Pratt,” said Eleanor, enthusiastically. “And what’s more, you’re going to be happier and more prosperous than you ever were before the fire. Not just at first, perhaps, but you’re going to see the way clear ahead, and it won’t be long before you’ll be doing so well that you’ll be able to let my friend Tom here go to college.”

Mrs. Pratt’s face fell. It seemed to her that Eleanor was promising too much.

“I don’t see how that could be,” she said. “Why, his paw and I used to talk that over. We wanted him to have a fine education, but we didn’t see how we could manage it, even when his paw was alive.”

“Well, you listen to me, and see if you don’t think there’s a good chance of it, anyhow,” saidEleanor. “In the first place, none of the people in Cranford knew that you’d had all this trouble. It was just as I thought. Their own danger had been so great that they simply hadn’t had time to think of anything else. They were shocked and sorry when I told them.”

“There’s a lot of good, kind people there,” said Mrs. Pratt, brightening again. “I’m sure I didn’t think anything of their not having come out here to see how we were getting along.”

“Some of them would have been out in a day or two, even if I hadn’t told them, Mrs. Pratt. As it is—but I think that part of my story had better wait. Tell me, you’ve been selling all your milk and cream to the big creamery that supplies the milkmen in the city, haven’t you?”

“Yes, and I guess that we can keep their trade, if we can get on our feet pretty soon so that they can get it regular again.”

“I’ve no doubt you could,” said Eleanor, dryly. “They make so much money buying from you at cheap prices and selling at high prices that theywouldn’t let the chance to keep on slip by in a hurry, I can tell you. But I’ve got a better idea than that.”

Mrs. Pratt looked puzzled, but Tom Pratt, who seemed to be in Eleanor’s secret, only smiled and returned Eleanor’s wise look.

“When you make butter you salt it and keep it to use here, don’t you?” Eleanor asked next.

“Yes, ma’am, we do.”

“Well, if you made fresh, sweet butter, and didn’t salt it at all, do you know that you could sell it to people in the city for fifty cents a pound?”

Mrs. Pratt gasped.

“Why, no one in the world ever paid that much for butter!” she said, amazed. “And, anyhow, butter without salt’s no good.”

“Lots of people don’t agree with you, and they’re willing to pay pretty well to have their own way, too,” she said, with a laugh. “In the city rich families think fresh butter is a great luxury, and they can’t get enough of it that’sreally good. And it’s the same way, all summer long, at Lake Dean.

“The hotel there will take fifty pounds a week from you all summer long, as long as it’s open, that is. And I have got orders for another fifty pounds a week from the people who own camps and cottages. And what’s more, the manager of the hotel has another house, in Lakewood, in the winter time, and when he closes up the house at Cranford, he wants you to send him fifty pounds a week for that house, too.”

“Why, however did you manage to get all those orders?” asked Margery, amazed.

“I telephoned to the manager of the hotel,” said Eleanor. “And then I remembered the girls at Camp Halsted, and I called up Marcia Bates and told her the whole story, and what I wanted them to do. So she and two or three of the others went out in that fast motor boat of theirs and visited a lot of families around the lake, and when they told them about it, it was easy to get the orders.”

“Well, I never!” gasped Mrs. Pratt. “I wouldn’t ever have thought of doin’ anythin’ like that, Miss Mercer, and folks around here seem to think I’m a pretty good business woman, too, since my husband died. Why, we can make more out of the butter than we ever did out of a whole season’s crops, sellin’ at such prices!”

“You won’t get fifty cents a pound from the hotel,” said Eleanor. “That’s because they’ll take such a lot, and they’ll pay you every week. So I told them they could have all they wanted for forty cents a pound. But, you see, at fifty pounds a week, that’s twenty dollars a week, all the year round, and with the other fifty pounds you’ll sell to private families, that will make forty-five dollars a week. And you haven’t even started yet. You’ll have lots more orders than you can fill.”

“I’m wonderin’ right now, ma’am, how we’ll be able to make a hundred pounds of butter a week.”

“I thought of that, too,” said Eleanor, “and Ibought half a dozen more cows for you, right there in Cranford. They’re pretty good cows, and if they’re well fed, and properly taken care of, they’ll be just what you want.”

“But I haven’t got the money to pay for them now, ma’am!” said Mrs. Pratt, dismayed.

“Oh, I’ve paid for them,” said Eleanor, “and you’re going to pay me when you begin to get the profits from this new butter business. I’d be glad to give them to you, but you won’t need anyone to give you things; you’re going to be able to afford to pay for them yourself.”

Mrs. Pratt broke into tears.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said or done yet, Miss Mercer,” she sobbed. “I just couldn’t bear to take charity—”

“Charity? You don’t need it, you only need friendly help, Mrs. Pratt, and if I didn’t give you that someone else would!”

“And eggs! They’ll be able to sell eggs, too, won’t they!” said Dolly, jumping up and down in her excitement.

“They certainly will! I was coming to that,” said Eleanor. “You know, this new parcel post is just the thing for you, Mrs. Pratt! Just as soon as a letter I wrote is answered, you’ll get a couple of cases of new boxes that are meant especially for mailing butter and eggs and things like that from farmers to people in the city.

“You’ll be able to sell eggs and butter cheaper than people in the city can buy things that are anything like as good from the stores, because you won’t have to pay rent and lighting bills and all the other expensive things about a city store. I’m going to be your agent, and I do believe I’ll make some extra pocket money, too, because I’m going to charge you a commission.”

Mrs. Pratt just laughed at that idea.

“Well, you wait and see!” said Eleanor. “I’m glad to be able to help, Mrs. Pratt, but I know you’ll feel better if you think I’m getting something out of it, and I’m going to. I think my running across you when you were in troubleis going to be a fine thing for both of us. Why, before you get done with us, you’ll have to get more land, and a lot more cows and chickens, because we’re going to make it the fashionable thing to buy eggs and butter from you!”

Mrs. Pratt seemed to be overwhelmed, and Eleanor, in order to create a diversion, went over to inspect the lean-to.

“It’s just right,” she said. “Having a floor made of those boards is a fine idea; I didn’t think of that at all. Good for you, Margery!”

“That was Dolly’s idea, not mine,” said Margery.

“You were perfectly right, too. Well, it’s getting a little late and I think it’s time we were thinking about dinner. Margery, if you’ll go over to the buggy you’ll find quite a lot of things I bought in Cranford. We don’t want to use up the stores we brought with us before we get away from here. And—here’s a secret!”

“What?” said Margery, leaning toward herand smiling. And Eleanor laughed as she whispered in Margery’s ear.

“There are going to be some extra people—at least seven or eight, and perhaps more—for dinner, so we want to have plenty, because I think they’re going to be good and hungry when they sit down to eat!”

“Oh, do tell me who they are,” cried Margery, eagerly. “I never saw you act so mysteriously before!”

“No, it’s a surprise. But you’ll enjoy it all the more when it comes for not knowing ahead of time. Don’t breathe a word, except to those who help you cook if they ask too many questions.”

Dinner was soon under way, and those who were not called upon by Margery busied themselves about the lean-to, arranging blankets and making everything snug for the night.

The busy hands of the Camp Fire Girls had done much to rid the place of its look of desolation, and now everything spoke of hope and renewedactivity instead of despair and inaction. A healthier spirit prevailed, and now the Pratts, encouraged as to their future, were able to join heartily in the laughter and singing with which the Camp Fire Girls made the work seem like play.

“Why, what’s this?” cried Bessie, suddenly. She had gone toward the road, and now she came running back.

“There are four or five big wagons, loaded with wood and shingles and all sorts of things like that coming in here from the road,” she cried. “Whatever are they doing here?”

“That’s my second surprise,” laughed Eleanor. “It’s your neighbors from Cranford, Mrs. Pratt. Don’t you recognize Jud Harkness driving the first team there?”

“Hello, folks!” bellowed Jud, from his seat. “How be you, Mis’ Pratt? Think we’d clean forgot you? We didn’t know you was in such an all-fired lot of trouble, or we’d ha’ been here before. We’re come now, though, and we ain’t goin’away till you’ve got a new house. Brought it with us, by heck!”

He laughed as he descended, and stood before them, a huge, black-bearded man, but as gentle as a child. And soon everyone could see what he meant, for the wagons were loaded with timber, and one contained all the tools that would be needed.

“There’ll be twenty of us here to-morrow,” he said, “and I guess we’ll show you how to build a house! Won’t be as grand as the hotel at Cranford, mebbe, but you can live in it, and we’ll come out when we get the time and put on the finishing touches. To-night we’ll clear away all this rubbish, and with sun-up in the morning we’ll be at work.”

Eleanor’s eyes shone as she turned to Mrs. Pratt.

“Now you see what I meant when I told you there were plenty of good friends for you not far from here!” she cried. “As soon as I told Jud what trouble you were in he thought of this, andin half an hour he’d got promises from all the men to put in a day’s work fixing up a new house for you.”

Mrs. Pratt seemed too dazed to speak.

“But they can’t finish a whole house in one day!” declared Margery.

“They can’t paint it, and put up wall paper and do everything, Margery,” said Eleanor. “That’s true enough. But they can do a whole lot. You’re used to thinking of city buildings, and that’s different. In the country one or two men usually build a house, and build it well, and when there are twenty or thirty, why, the work just flies, especially when they’re doing the work for friendship, instead of because they’re hired to do it. Oh, just you wait!”

“Have you ever seen this before!”

“I certainly have! And you’re going to see sights to-morrow that will open your eyes, I can promise you. You know what it’s like, Bessie, don’t you? You’ve seen house raisings before?”

“I certainly have,” said Bessie. “And it’sfine. Everyone helps and does the best he can, and it seems no time at all before it’s all done.”

“Well, we’ll do our share,” said Eleanor. “The men will be hungry, and I’ve promised that we’ll feed them.”

CHAPTER VITHE GOOD SAMARITANS

“Well, I certainly have got a better opinion of country people than I ever used to have, Bessie,” said Dolly Ransom. “After the way those people in Hedgeville treated you and Zara, I’d made up my mind that they were a nasty lot, and I was glad I’d always lived in the city.”

“Well, aren’t you still glad of it, Dolly? I really do think you’re better off in the city. There wouldn’t be enough excitement about living in the country for you, I’m afraid.”

“Of course there wouldn’t! But I think maybe I was sort of unfair to all country people because the crowd at Hedgeville was so mean to you. And I like the country well enough, for a little while. I couldn’t bear living there all the time, though. I think that would drive me wild.”

“The trouble was that Zara and I didn’t exactlybelong, Dolly. They thought her father was doing something wrong because he was a foreigner and they couldn’t understand his ways.”

“I suppose he didn’t like them much, either, Bessie.”

“He didn’t. He thought they were stupid. And, of course, in a way, they were. But not as stupid as he thought they were. He was used to entirely different things, and—oh, well, I suppose in some places what he did wouldn’t have been talked about, even.

“But in the country everyone knows the business of everyone else, and when there is a mystery no one is happy until it’s solved. That’s why Zara and her father got themselves so disliked. There was a mystery about them, and the people in Hedgeville just made up their minds that something was wrong.”

“I feel awfully sorry for Zara, Bessie. It must be dreadful for her to know that her father is in prison, and that they are saying that he was making bad money. You don’t think he did, do you?”

“I certainly do not! There’s something very strange about that whole business, and Miss Eleanor’s cousin, the lawyer, Mr. Jamieson, thinks so too. You know that Mr. Holmes is mighty interested in Zara and her father.”

“He tried to help to get Zara back to that Farmer Weeks who would have been her guardian if she hadn’t come to join the Camp Fire, didn’t he?”

“Yes. You see, in the state where Hedgeville is, Farmer Weeks is her legal guardian, and he could make her work for him until she was twenty-one. He’s an old miser, and as mean as he can be. But once she is out of that state, he can’t touch her, and Mr. Jamieson has had Miss Eleanor appointed her guardian, and mine too, for that state. The state where Miss Eleanor and all of us live, I mean.”

“Well, Mr. Holmes is trying to get hold of you, too, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is. You ought to know, Dolly, after the way he tried to get us both to go off with himin his automobile that day, and the way he set those gypsies on to kidnapping us. And that’s the strangest thing of all.”

“Perhaps he wants to know something about Zara, and thinks you can tell him, or perhaps he’s afraid you’ll tell someone else something he doesn’t want them to know.”

“Yes, it may be that. But that lawyer of his, Isaac Brack, who is so mean and crooked that no one in the city will have anything to do with him except the criminals, Mr. Jamieson says, told me once that unless I went with him I’d never find out the truth about my father and mother and what became of them.”

“Oh, Bessie, how exciting! You never told me that before. Have you told Mr. Jamieson?”

“Yes, and he just looked at me queerly, and said nothing more about it.”

“Bessie, do you know what I think?”

“No. I’m not a mind reader, Dolly!”

“Well, I believe Mr. Jamieson knows more than he has told you yet, or that he guesses something,anyway. And he won’t tell you what it is because he’s afraid he may be wrong, and doesn’t want to raise your hopes unless he’s sure that you won’t be disappointed.”

“I think that would be just like him, Dolly. He’s been awfully good to me. I suppose it’s because he thinks it will please Miss Eleanor, and he knows that she likes us, and wants to do things for us.”

“Oh, I know he likes you, too, Bessie. He certainly ought to, after the way you brought him help back there in Hamilton, when we were there for the trial of those gypsies who kidnapped us. If it hadn’t been for you, there’s no telling what that thief might have done to him.”

“Oh, anyone would have done the same thing, Dolly. It was for my sake that he was in trouble, and when I had a chance to help him, it was certainly the least that I could do. Don’t you think so?”

“Well, maybe that’s so, but there aren’t many girls who would have known how to do what youdid or who would have had the pluck to do it, even if they did. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t, and yet I’d have wanted to, just as much as anyone.”

“I wish I did know something about my father and mother, Dolly. You’ve no idea how much that worries me. Sometimes I feel as if I never would find out anything.”

“Oh, you mustn’t get discouraged, Bessie. Try to be as cheerful as you are when it’s someone else who is in trouble. You’re the best little cheerer-up I know when I feel blue.”

“Oh, Dolly, I do try to be cheerful, but it’s such a long time since they left me with the Hoovers!”

“Well, there must be some perfectly good reason for it all, Bessie, I feel perfectly sure of that. They would never have gone off that way unless they had to.”

“Oh, it isn’t that that bothers me. It’s feeling that unless something dreadful had happened to them, I’d have heard of them long ago. And then, Maw Hoover and Jake Hoover were always pickingat me about them. When I did something Maw Hoover didn’t like, she’d say she didn’t wonder, that she couldn’t expect me to be any good, being the child of parents who’d gone off and left me on her hands that way.”

“That’s all right for her to talk that way, but she didn’t have you on her hands. She made you work like a slave, and never paid you for it at all. You certainly earned whatever they spent for keeping you, Miss Eleanor says so, and I’ll take her word any time against Maw Hoover or anyone else.”

“I’ve sometimes thought it was pretty mean for me to run off the way I did, Dolly. If it hadn’t been for Zara, I don’t believe I’d have done it.”

“It’s a good thing for Zara that you did. Poor Zara! They’d taken her father to jail, and she was going to have to stay with Farmer Weeks. She’d never have been able to get along without you, you know.”

“Well, that’s one thing that makes me feel thatperhaps it was right for me to go, Dolly. That, and the way Miss Eleanor spoke of it. She seemed to think it was the right thing for me to do, and she knows better than I do, I’m sure.”

“Certainly she does. And look here, Bessie! It’s all coming out right, sometime, I know. I’m just sure of that! You’ll find out all about your father and mother, and you’ll see that there was some good reason for their not turning up before.”

“Oh, Dolly dear, I’m sure of that now! And it’s just that that makes me feel so bad, sometimes. If something dreadful hadn’t happened to them, they would have come for me long ago. At least they would have kept on sending the money for my board.”

“How do you know they didn’t, Bessie? Didn’t Maw Hoover get most of the letters on the farm?”

“Yes, she did, Dolly. Paw Hoover couldn’t read, so they all went to her, no matter to whom they were addressed.”

“Why, then,” said Dolly, triumphantly, “maybeyour father and mother were writing and sending the money all the time!”

“But wouldn’t she have told me so, Dolly?”

“Suppose she just kept the money, and pretended she never got it at all, Bessie? I’ve heard of people doing even worse things than that when they wanted money. It’s possible, isn’t it, now? Come on, own up!”

“I suppose it is,” said Bessie, doubtfully. “Only it doesn’t seem very probable. Maw Hoover was pretty mean to me, but I don’t think she’d ever have done anything like that.”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it above her! She treated you badly enough about other things, heaven knows!”

“I’d hate to think she had done anything quite as mean as that, though, Dolly. I do think she had a pretty hard time herself, and I’m quite sure that if it hadn’t been for Jake she wouldn’t have been so mean to me.”

“Oh, I know just the sort he is. I’ve seen him, remember, Bessie! He’s a regular spoiledmother’s boy. I don’t know why it is, but the boys whose mothers coddle them and act as if they were the best boys on earth always seem to be the meanest.”

“Yes, you did see him, Dolly. Still, Jake’s very young, and he wouldn’t be so bad, either, if he’d been punished for the things he did at home. As long as I was there, you see, they could blame everything that was done onto me. He did, at least, and Maw believed him.”

“Didn’t his father ever see what a worthless scamp he was?”

“Oh, how could he, Dolly? He was his own son, you see, and then there was Maw Hoover. She wouldn’t let him believe anything against Jake, any more than she would believe it herself.”

“I’m sorry for Paw Hoover, Bessie. He seemed like a very nice old man.”

“He certainly was. Do you remember how he found me with you girls the day after Zara and I ran away? He could have told them where wewere then, but he didn’t do it. Instead of that, he was mighty nice to me, and he gave me ten dollars.”

“He said you’d earned it, Bessie, and he was certainly right about that. Why, in the city they can’t get servants to do all the things you did, even when they’re well paid, and you never were paid at all!”

“Well, that doesn’t make what he did any the less nice of him, Dolly. And I’ll be grateful to him, because he might have made an awful lot of trouble.”

“Oh, I’ll always like him for that, too. And I guess from what I saw of him, and all I’ve heard about his wife, that he doesn’t have a very happy time at home, either. Maw Hoover must make him do just about what she wants, whether he thinks she’s right or not.”

“She certainly does, Dolly, unless she’s changed an awful lot since I was there.”

“Well, I suppose the point is that there really must be more people like him in the country thanlike his wife and Farmer Weeks. These people around here are certainly being as nice as they can be to the poor Pratts. Just think of their coming here to-morrow to build a new house for them!”

“There are more nice, good-hearted people than bad ones all over, Dolly. That’s true of every place, city or country.”

“But it seems to me we always hear more of the bad ones, and those who do nasty things, than we do of the others, in the newspapers.”

“I think that’s because the things that the bad people do are more likely to be exciting and interesting, Dolly. You see, when people do nice things, it’s just taken as a matter of course, because that’s what they ought to do. And when they do something wicked, it gets everyone excited and makes a lot of talk. That’s the reason for that.”

“Still, this work that the men from Cranford are going to do for the Pratts is interesting, Bessie. I think a whole lot of people would liketo know about that, if there was any way of telling them.”

“Yes, that’s so. This isn’t an ordinary case, by any means. And I guess you’ll find that we’ll do plenty of talking about it. Miss Eleanor will, I know, because she thinks they ought to get credit for doing it.”

“So will Mrs. Pratt and the children, too. Oh, yes, I was wrong about it, Bessie. Lots of people will know about this, because the Pratts will always have the house to remind them of it, and people who go by, if they’ve heard of it, will remember the story when they see the place. I do wonder what sort of a house they will put up?”

“It’ll have to be very plain, of course. And it will look rough at first, because it won’t be painted, and there won’t be any plaster on the ceilings and there won’t be any wall paper, either.”

“Oh, but that will be easy to fix later. They’ll have a comfortable house for the winter, anyhow, I’m sure. And if they can make as much moneyout of selling butter and eggs as Miss Eleanor thinks, they’ll soon be able to pay to have it fixed up nicely.”

“Dolly, I believe we’ll be able to help, too. If those girls at Camp Halsted could go around and get so many orders just in an hour or so, why shouldn’t we be able to do a lot of it when we get back to the city?”

“Why, that’s so, Bessie! I hadn’t thought of that. My aunt would buy her butter and eggs there, I know. She’s always saying that she can’t get really fresh eggs in the city. And they are delicious. That was one of the things I liked best at Miss Eleanor’s farm. The eggs there were delicious; not a bit like the musty ones we get at home, no matter how much we pay for them.”

“I think it’s time we were going to bed ourselves, Dolly. This is going to be like camping out, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and we’ll be just as comfortable as we would be in tents, too. The Boy Scouts use theselean-tos very often when they are in the woods, you know. They just build them up against the side of a tree.”

“I never saw one before, but they certainly are splendid, and they’re awfully easy to make.”

“We’ll have to get up very early in the morning, Bessie. I heard Miss Eleanor say so. So I guess it’s a good idea to go to bed, just as you say.”

“Yes. The others are all going. We certainly are going to have a busy day to-morrow.”

“I don’t see that we can do much, Bessie. I know I wouldn’t be any good at building a house. I’d be more trouble than help, I’m afraid.”

“That’s all you know about it! There are ever so many things we can do.”

“What, for instance?”

“Well, we’ll have to get the meals for the men, and you haven’t any idea what a lot of men can eat when they’re working hard! They have appetites just like wolves.”

“Well, I’ll certainly do my best to see thatthey get enough. They’ll have earned it. What else?”

“They’ll want people to hand them their tools, and run little errands for them. And if the weather is very hot, they’ll be terribly thirsty, too, and we’ll be able to keep busy seeing that they have plenty of cooling drinks. Oh, we’ll be busy, all right! Come on, let’s go to bed.”

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