"I think I know where you can get a fine cow for fifteen dollars. If you will give me the money I will call around by the place and have the man bring it to you the first thing in the morning. It is quite a piece from here, and maybe he wouldn't sell it to you for that price, but I know he would to me."

Peace sat lost in thought, a bit of bread poised half way to her mouth.

"Is it a good cow?" asked Allee, timidly.

"The very best."

"Gentle, like Bossy?" Cherry questioned.

"Gentle as a lamb."

"Does she give four gallons of milk a day?" Peace interrupted.

"More, sometimes."

"Is she pretty?"

"Handsome as a picture."

"Does she give good milk, with lots of cream? We make our own butter, you know."

"She's a splendid butter cow."

"Has she got brown eyes, like mine, and a curly tail, and two good horns—not too sharp? Will she eat sugar out of your hand and not drive folks out of the stall when they try to pet her?"

"She is the finest cow I ever saw—"

"Then it's funny the man will sell her for; fifteen dollars," declared Peace, with sudden suspicion, studying the old man opposite her, but seeing only a sandy, untrimmed beard, a strong, honest face, with square jaws, and a pair of the kindest eyes she had ever looked into.

"Not at all," said the man, chuckling to himself at the trap she had laid for him. "He wants to get rid of his herd, but doesn't need the money; though, of course, he wouldn't care to give the cows away."

"Well," hesitated the brown-eyed girl, "I guess—I will have you order the cow for us. Gail won't feel so bad about losing Bossy if we can get another just as good. Here is the money. Do you have to go so soon? I would like to have you stay until the girls get here. Now, don't you forget about the cow!"

"She will be here early tomorrow morning. Good-night, and many thanks for the supper." Out into the spring night walked the tramp, with the precious fifteen dollars in his pocket, and again the three children took up their vigil at the window, watching for the sisters from town.

When at last Gail and Faith reached home, expecting to be met by tears and reproaches from three hungry maids, they were surprised to find supper spread on the table awaiting their coming, and to hear a strange tale of mishap and adventure that would have done credit to the age of Mother Goose or Robinson Crusoe.

"Doesn't that sound like a fairy prince?" asked Peace, when the recital was ended. "But he says he isn't one."

"I should say it sounded like a plain robber story," said Faith bitterly, while Gail sat white-faced and silent with despair. "What did you give him that money for! It's the last we will ever see of it. You are worse than Jack and the Bean-Stalk. You haven't even a handful of bean blossoms to show."

"I've got a curl from Bossy's tail," said Peace indignantly, and then burst into tears, unable to bear the sight of Gail's drawn face any longer.

"Yes, and a robber on our trail. Supposing he comes tonight for the rest of the money you told him about. No, Cherry, I don't want any supper. Come and help me bolt the windows and fix things for the night. I wish Hope was here now."

The supper remained untouched, the dishes were cleared away in silence, and as soon as Hope arrived the unhappy little household climbed wearily, fearfully upstairs to bed, where Peace sobbed herself to sleep, with faithful Allee's arms about her neck. But no robber came to disturb the brown house and at length even Gail and Faith drifted away to slumberland, in spite of this added trouble.

In the dusk of early morning, while the world was still asleep, a heavy wagon drew up at the gate of the Greenfield cottage, unloaded its precious burden and drove rapidly away again; while Peace, in her restless tossing, dreamed that a gentle, brown-eyed cow stood in Bossy's stall, lowing for some breakfast. She awoke with a start, to hear a familiar, persistent mooing, and the tinkle of a bell in the barnyard, and, leaping out of bed, she rushed to the window with wildly beating heart. There in the yard, tied to the old watering-trough, stood a plump, pretty Jersey cow! Peace rubbed her eyes, pinched her arm to make sure she was not still dreaming, and then startled the whole house awake with a whoop of joy: "She has come, she has come! The cow has come! My tramp isn't a robber or a beanstalk at all!"



CHAPTER XI

GARDENS AND GOPHERS

"Have you got any more corn or potatoes to drop, or onion sets to cover, or radishes and beans and turnips to plant, or wheat or barley to scatter, or—or anything else to do?" Peace panted breathlessly one warm Saturday afternoon late in May.

"No," smiled Gail, looking tenderly down into the flushed, perspiring face. "You girls have worked faithfully all day, and now you can rest awhile. Mike is coming next week to finish the planting."

"Can—may we fix our own gardens, then? Mr. Kennedy gave me a whole lot of seed the gove'nment sent him to plant, but he can't, 'cause he's going to Alaska."

"Government seed! What kinds?"

"Cucumbers and beets, and parsley and carrots and—"

"But, child, we have all of those in our big garden now. I thought you wanted your little plot of ground for flowers?"

"I do. One of these packages is sweet peas."

"Oh, dearie, I guess you have made a mistake. Mr. Kennedy wouldn't have any use for sweet pea seed."

"Hope said that was the name on the package."

"Well, then I suppose they are, though I never heard tell of the Kennedys raising flowers before. Sweet peas ought to be planted along a fence. We will have Mike dig a little trench just inside the front yard fence, and plant the peas there."

Peace's face fell, but she offered no objections to the plan, and Gail straightway forgot all about it. Not so with the enthusiastic, youthful planter, however; and, while the older sister was bustling about the hot kitchen, the curly, brown head was bobbing energetically back and forth in the front yard, where she and Cherry were digging a trench as fast as they could turn the sod with an old broken spade and a discarded fire-shovel; while Allee followed in their wake, dropping the seed into the freshly-turned earth and carefully covering them again.

"Mercy, but this yard is big!" sighed weary Peace, as she began digging along the third and last side. "Have you got enough left to stick in here, Allee?"

"This is all," answered the blue-eyed toiler, displaying a handful of flat, black seed in her apron.

"Those don't look like peas," cried Cherry, pausing to examine the queer-looking things. "All I ever saw were round."

"Garden peas are round," answered Peace, with a knowing air, "but these are sweet peas, and they are flat."

"Did you ever see any before?" demanded Cherry suspiciously, nettled by her sister's manner.

"No—o, but doesn't the sack they were in say 'sweet peas?'"

It certainly did, there was no disputing that fact, so Cherry discreetly remained silent, and began her vigorous shoveling once more.

When the supper hour was announced the shallow, uneven trench was completed, the seeds all covered, and three dirty gardeners perched in a row on the fence, planning out the list of customers who would buy the sweet blossoms when the vines had matured.

"There's the horn for supper," said Cherry.

"And I know Mrs. Lacy will be glad to get them sometimes, 'cause she hasn't any flowers at all," continued Peace, ignoring the interruption. "That makes ten people."

"Well, hurry up! I am hungry, and we'll have to wash before Gail will give us anything to eat," cried the tallest girl impatiently. "I'll race you to the pump."

"You are late," Hope greeted them, when, after a noisy splashing and hasty wiping of faces, they entered the room. "Doesn't Allee's face look funny with that black streak around it where she didn't hit the dirt? What have you been doing to get so warm?"

"Planting sweet peas," answered Allee.

"Oh, Peace! After I said we would have Mike dig a trench by the fence!"

"You didn't say we couldn't plant them, Gail. We dug it so's to save Mike the trouble. Anyway, the seeds ought to be in the ground by this time if they are ever going to blossom this year, and Mike is so slow. We thought it was best not to wait. When do you s'pose they will come up?"

"Oh, in about two or three weeks, maybe," Gail answered. "You better rub your arms well with liniment before you go to bed tonight, or you will be so lame tomorrow you can't move."

The incident was closed, and the sweet peas forgotten until one day about three weeks later Hope called excitedly from the front yard, "Gail, Gail, come here! What ever are these plants coming up all along the fence? They are not sweet peas."

Gail came, examined the fat sprouts and looked at Hope in comical dismay. "They are pumpkins or cucumbers or melons, and the whole front fence is lined with them!"

"Poor Peace!" said Hope, when their laugh had ended. "She will be heartbroken. She made her fortune a dozen times over on the blossoms those vines are to bear."

"Yes," sighed Gail. "She has the happy faculty of trying to do one thing and getting some unexpected, unheard-of result. Poor little blunderbus! But what shall we do with these plants? There are enough to stock a ranch. We can't leave them here, and I don't think they will bear transplanting."

"And so they ain't sweet peas at all!" exclaimed a disappointed voice behind them, and there stood Peace herself, contemplating her treasures with solemn eyes.

"No, dear, they are pumpkins, I guess. What kind of seed did you plant?"

"I planted sweet pea seed," came the mournful reply. "Leastways the sack said so. Hope read it herself."

"Yes, the sack was labelled plainly, but I never thought to examine the seed. What did they look like?"

"They were black and flat."

"Melons," said Gail. "Well, I would rather have melons than pumpkins, for we already have planted a lot of them. Still, it will spoil these to transplant them, so they might just as well have been pumpkins. It is a shame to have to throw them all away, though."

Peace said nothing, but in bitterness of heart helped pull up all the green sprouts and throw them over the fence. Then she sat down beside the heap to mourn over her fallen aircastles.

"Seems 's if I can't do anything like other folks," she sighed dismally. "I plant sweet peas and get melons. I wonder if melons wouldn't sell better than peas. Gail says these won't grow, but I am going to try them anyway."

She filled her apron with the hapless plants and carried them away to her small garden plot behind the shed, where she patiently set out every one, regardless of the flower seeds already hid beneath the soil. And, strange to say, they grew,—at least many of them did, choking out the poppies and marigolds and balsams which finally climbed through the three inches of ground the zealous gardener had hid them under, and formed a thick tangle of promising vines.

Then the gophers began their destructive work, tunnelling the little farm into a perfect labyrinth of underground passages, much to the dismay of the little household, so dependent upon the success of their crops. Traps were set, the holes were flooded, cats by the score were let loose in the fields, but still the little pests continued to dig, as if laughing at the futile attempts made to get rid of them. At length Gail sighed, "I am afraid we will have to resort to poisoned grain. I hate to, because I am so afraid the children will get into it, or something dreadful happen on account of it."

"I don't see how either the youngsters or even the hens could get at it if it was put down the holes," said Faith. "Say nothing about it but fix up a mess and Hope and I will drop it some day when the children are away and the hens in their yard."

So Gail mixed up a huge bucket full of poisoned grain, and while the younger trio were gathering flowers in the woods one afternoon, the other sisters sallied forth with their deadly bait, bent on exterminating their small foes.

All might have gone well had not the smaller girls suddenly decided to play hare and hound, and it fell to Peace's lot to be the hare. With an apron full of gay dandelion blossoms for the trail, the active little body set out on a wide detour of the woods, across the bridge, up through the Hartman pasture land, reaching the barbed wire fence on their own little farm just in time to see Hope dropping a last handful of grain into a gopher hole before returning to the house with her empty pail.

"Now what has she been doing?" thought Peace, peering out from a thicket of hazel bushes. "Oh, I know! I bet she is trying to poison the gophers, like Mr. Hartman did. I wonder if they will come up after the corn right away. I am going to watch. I'd like to see how it kills them."

She carefully wriggled her way under the lower wire, and sat down in front of the nearest gopher mound, forgetting all about her dandelions, sisters, and play, in the prospect of witnessing the death of one of the enemy. But either Mr. Gopher was not at home, or else he suspected the presence of an unwelcome caller, for he did not come up in sight for even a nibble of the tempting corn; and at last, weary of her fruitless vigil, Peace cried aloud, "He prob'ly can get all he wants without letting me see him. I'm going to dig it all out on top, so he will have to come out in sight."

She quickly scratched the poisoned bait out of the runway, scattered it liberally about, and settled back in her former position, with her eyes glued on the mouth of the tunnel; but still Mr. Gopher did not come.

"You tiresome old thing!" she exclaimed impatiently, after what seemed hours of waiting. "I shan't watch for you another minute. I'll find another hole and see if they will do any better there." So from mound to mound she scurried, digging the grain up into view, and then watching for the appearance of the tenant—with no result.

"Well, of all provoking people!" cried an indignant voice behind her, and there were Cherry and Allee crawling under the fence. "How long have you been sitting there like a bump on a log? You didn't drop enough dandelions, and we had an awful time following you. What on earth are you doing here? Let's go up to the pump for a drink. I am nearly burned up." Without giving the weary Peace a chance to answer her questions, she raced away through the pasture toward the house, dragging Allee with her; and the third girl, after one last, hopeless glance at the gopher hole, followed more slowly.

Some time later Hope came tearing across the field, with hair flying, and her eyes filled with alarm, calling shrilly, "Gail, Faith, the hens have broken out of the yard and are eating the poisoned grain! There are more than a dozen down there now!"

"Oh, dear," cried Peace, with guilty conscience, "I scratched the corn out of the holes so's I could watch the gophers die. And I let the hens out, too, 'cause they looked so hot shut up in that mite of a yard after they have been running loose for so long."

With despairing eyes, Gail looked down at the dying fowls, and not daring to trust herself to speak, she hurried away to the house to sob out her grief alone.

Faith paused long enough to count the hapless hens, clutched the wretched culprit and shook her vigorously, then silently followed her older sister, leaving the heartbroken child alone with the victims of her curiosity.

"Did you ever see my equal?" she said aloud, addressing herself. "You are the worst child that ever lived! You wash the labels off the spice boxes so Faith gets ginger instead of mustard in her salad dressing; you try to milk cows and break their legs instead; you spoil cakes and steal eggs and bother Gail and Faith till they are nearly crazy; and now you've taken to killing hens just to see how gophers die. Peace Greenfield, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Yes, I am, but there's no use in wasting those perfectly good hens—twenty of them—we had only forty in all. It's a wonder the rest of them didn't get a dose, too. Hope has got them locked up at last. There comes Cherry; I'll make her help. Oh, Cherry, here's a job for you!"

"What is it? And why are the girls crying? They wouldn't tell me."

"I've killed a lot of hens for them, playing hare and hound. That's the very last time I will ever be hare, Charity Greenfield! Help me undress these chickens. We'll have some for supper, and the rest we'll peddle to the town folks."

"Oh, Peace, I can't pull feathers! It makes me shiver every time a bunch comes out in my hands."

"You will have to. You don't expect me to pick them all, do you? I guess the girls never thought of selling the hens, and I can't ask them to help now. We will get the ax and chop off their heads and then hang them in the crab-apple tree while we strip them. You really must help, Cherry. Gail says they pick better while they are warm."

She hunted up the ax, and one by one hacked off poor biddies' heads; but when it came to the picking process, they found it was slow work for small, inexperienced fingers, and gave up in despair when the third nude body lay in the grass at their feet.

"It is almost night, Peace, and we've picked three. What shall we do? 'Twill take us hours to finish that whole bunch."

"We'll sell them for as much as we can get, and see if the butcher won't take the rest with the feathers on. We can keep two or three for ourselves. Where is Allee's cart?"

All that remained of the poison victims were loaded into the small wagon, and their strange pilgrimage through the village streets began. The picked fowls were readily disposed of, and one neighbor bought the largest of the feathered birds, but no one else wanted to bother with them, and it was only after much persuasion that the butcher consented to take six, at the fancy price of twenty-five cents each.

"Well, that is better than nothing, though he wouldn't sell me one for that little last Christmas," sighed Peace, much disappointed at the result of their peddling. "Three dollars and fifty cents will buy quite a few chickens, and chickens make hens if you give them time. What do you s'pose Gail will say when we give her the money?"

They were not long in finding out. The two red-eyed girls were busy in the kitchen when the children returned with the unsold hens in the wagon; and with fear and trembling, Peace laid the coins on the table, saying humbly, "Mrs. Munson took one, and Mrs. Bainbridge, and Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Lacy, and the butcher bought six. That's all the hens we could sell. We left three here for supper and—"

"Peace Greenfield!" shrieked the horrified sisters in unison. "Did you sell those poisoned hens? You march straight upstairs to bed—and Cherry, too!" Then Gail flew one way and Faith the other, to collect the birds before the buyers had a chance to dish up the delicacy to adored families.

When they had seen the last fowl safely disposed of, and were home once more, Gail said despairingly, "I don't know what in the world to do with that child!"

"She needs a good, sound thrashing," answered Faith sharply. "She gets into more mischief in a day than a monkey would in a month."

"She doesn't mean to," pleaded Gail. "Mother never believed in whipping. If it were mischief for mischief's sake, I could punish her, but her intentions are good—"

"Good intentions don't amount to much in her case. A good trouncing might make her think a little more."

"I can't whip her, Faith, but I'll go up and lecture her good. I believe that will be more effective than harshness."

So the perplexed mother-sister mounted the stairs to the chamber above, from which sounded a low murmur of voices, and she paused in the hallway to assemble her thoughts, when Peace's words, evidently in supplication, floated out through the open door: "And, O Lord, don't blame Gail for getting mad. It's the first time I can remember. She is usu'ly very good. S'posing she was a stepmother, like lame Jennie Munn's, wouldn't we have a time living with her, though? And I am truly sorry about the hens. Hope says we can't get many eggs now, 'cause half of the flock is gone, and if we keep all our customers we will have to do without eggs here at home. I don't mind that at all myself, 'cause I've eaten eggs and eggs till it makes me sick to hunt them now; but what will Faith do for her cakes? That's what is worrying me. It was so we could buy more live hens that Cherry and me sold the dead ones. We didn't know they would make people sick, and p'r'aps kill them, too. I am sorry the money had to go back and that the hens are just wasted now, but I 'xpect they'll make an elegant funeral tomorrow. So forgive Gail and keep her from getting mad any more, and forgive me and keep me from being bad any more, and make us 'happy children in a happy home.' Amen."

Softly, silently, Gail stole down the stairs again, with her lecture unsaid.



CHAPTER XII

THE RASPBERRY PATCH

One hot, dusty afternoon in midsummer Faith trudged wearily up the road from the village, climbed the steps to the vine-covered piazza where Gail sat shelling peas, and dropped a handful of silver into her sister's lap, saying, "Three dollars clear from my cakes this week! Wish I could make that much every time. Mrs. Dunbar was perfectly delighted with my jelly roll, and has ordered another for next Saturday."

"Isn't that fine!" smiled Gail. "You will have a bakery of your own some day if you keep on. I thought she would like the roll; it was the best I ever tasted."

"I think I could find quite a few customers for them if I only had the jelly, but it costs so much to buy it, and all we have is that little bit of apple jelly you made last summer."

"The crab-apple trees are loaded with mites of green apples," volunteered Cherry from the lower step, where she was making cats-cradles with Allee.

"Yes, but they won't be ripe for weeks yet; and, besides, a sour jelly is best for jelly rolls."

"Do blackberries make sour jelly?" asked Peace, pausing in her occupation of fitting paper sails to the empty pods Gail had dropped. "Cause the creek road is just lined with bushes."

"They are better than crab-apples, but it will be days before they are ripe enough for use. I had thought of them, and investigated the bushes only yesterday. Mrs. Grinnell says raspberries are best for the purpose."

"Lots of people around here have raspberries," said Peace.

"And they want money for them, too."

"Mr. Hardman doesn't pay any 'tention to his down in the pasture. I've helped myself there lots of times."

"But his wife does. I saw her there this morning."

Peace said no more, but, waiting until she saw their neighbor bring up his cows to be milked, she slipped through the fence onto his land and accosted him with the abrupt question, "How much will you take for the rest of your raspberries?"

"What?"

She repeated her inquiry, and after scratching his head meditatively, he exclaimed, as if to himself, "Another money-making scheme! If she don't beat the Dutch!"

"This is a jelly-making scheme," returned Peace, with comical dignity. "There is no money in it."

"Oh! Well, don't you know that raspberries are expensive?"

"Most people's are, but you never paid any 'tention to yours, so I thought you would be glad to get rid of them for little or nothing."

"Oho!" he teased. "Begging again!"

"I'm not!" Peace denied hotly. "I'll pay for them if you don't charge too high."

"How much will you pay?"

"I haven't any money, but I'll pick on shares."

"Share and share alike?"

"Yes; I'll keep half for my trouble, and you will get half for no trouble."

Her method of figuring always amused him, and now he laughed outright, "Seems to me I am entitled to them all. They are my berries, you know."

"Well," stormed Peace, "if that's the way you look at it, you can pick 'em, too!"

"Aw, don't get mad," he said soothingly. "I was just teasing. Of course you can pick all the raspberries you want. My wife said just this morning that the bushes were loaded, and she couldn't begin to handle them all herself. But—say—that reminds me—I've rented the pasture to old Skinner, and he's put his bull in there. You will have to watch your chance when the old critter is out, to pick your berries."

"All right," cried Peace, expressing her elation by hopping about on one foot. "It's awfully nice of you to give us the berries you don't care to pick yourself, and we will see that the bull doesn't bother."

She was half way across the field by the time she had finished speaking, eager to tell the good news to the girls; and before the dew was dry on the grass the next morning, three sunbonneted figures scampered down the road to Mr. Hartman's lower pasture, armed with big pails and Allee's red wagon, intent on picking all the berries they could for Faith's jelly.

"We'll have to leave Allee's cart outside the fence," said Peace, climbing the high rails with astonishing agility and dropping nimbly down on the other side. "Do you see the Skinflint's bull anywhere?"

"No," answered Cherry, taking a careful survey of the field from her perch on the top rail. "There isn't a thing stirring."

"Then maybe we can pick all we want before the deacon brings him down. Hurry, and keep a sharp lookout for the old beast. My, but these bushes are stickery!"

"I should say they are," Cherry agreed, ruefully eyeing her bleeding hands. "I don't believe it is going to be any fun picking raspberries. They are lots worse than blackberries."

"S'posing we had been the prince who crawled through the hedge to wake Sleeping Beauty. I bet he got good and scratched up, but he kept right on and fin'ly kissed the princess awake."

"There ain't any princess in these bushes," grumbled Cherry, pausing to suck a wounded thumb.

"No, but there are berries, and they are more important than princesses. We couldn't make jelly out of a princess, but we can out—Mercy, what was that noise?"

"It's the bull! Run, run! There it comes down the hill!" shrieked Cherry, standing as if rooted to the spot, and staring with horror at the angry animal tearing across the pasture toward them.

"Run yourself, you ninny!" screamed Peace, giving the older girl a push, and then scrambling for the fence with Allee dragging by one arm behind her.

There was no time to climb over, and the lower rail was too close to the ground for them to crawl under, but Peace did not linger to discuss the question. Grabbing the frightened baby by the heels, she thrust her between the slats, and gave her a shove that pitched her head first into a stagnant mudhole just outside the fence. Then pausing only long enough to see that Cherry was safely through, she followed, still clutching her now empty pail, and landing beside Allee in the mud.

"Whew! What a smell!" she spluttered, righting herself and trying to dig her sister out of the pool. "And all on account of that miserable, cowardly bull! Why don't you take someone your own size to fight?" She shook her fist defiantly at the pawing, bellowing brute by the fence, and not satisfied with that method of expressing her anger, she flung the empty bucket at his head, crying in frenzy, "Take that, you old sinner! It b'longs to the berries you've already got."

Her aim was truer than she had anticipated, and the pail fell with a rattling clatter over the beast's ugly-looking horns, frightening him so that for a brief moment he stood perfectly still. Then, with a snort of fear and fury, he set off across the field at a mad gallop, with the bucket still tossing on his head.

Peace glared angrily after the retreating enemy, too indignant over her loss to think of their peril until Cherry quavered, "Hadn't we better run while we have a chance? Suppose he should batter the fence down."

"No danger," Peace muttered shortly; but she picked herself up from the ground, where she was trying to scrape the ill-smelling mud off her shoes, and marched majestically up the road, trundling the cart behind her.

"Where are you going?" cried Cherry, when they reached the first cross street. "Here's where we turn."

"Turn, then! I'm going on to old Skinflint's house and tell him to keep that ugly bull out of Hartman's pasture until we get those raspberries picked."

"With that nasty mud all over you?"

"Mud and all," was the stubborn answer, and from force of habit, Cherry fell into step beside her again, tramping along in silence until the Skinner place was reached.

It just happened that the old man himself was hurrying up the path from the barn as they approached, and Peace stopped him with an imperious wave of her hand, speaking straight to the point before he could even ask her what she wanted.

"Your bull won't let us pick raspberries in the lower pasture. Mr. Hartman said we might, but just when we got our pails 'most full, that old thing had to come along and bunt at us. We skipped, but he made us lose all our berries. We'd like to have you tie him up or take him out until we can get those berries picked."

The grouchy old fellow stood with open mouth, glaring at the mud-bespattered figures, as if he doubted his senses, and as Peace finished her speech, he laughed mirthlessly, screeching in his harsh, cracked, rasping voice, "I put that bull in pasture myself, and there he stays! I don't do any tying up, either. I rented that field and it's the same as mine for as long as I hire it. You can't have them berries at all. They are mine."

"Mr. Hartman said we could have them," Peace insisted; "and I guess he wouldn't give away what didn't b'long to him. He may have rented the pasture to you, but he never rented the berries."

Suddenly the old man changed tactics. "You can have all the berries you can get," he taunted, shaking a warning finger in their faces, "but that bull stays right there in that field!"

"All right, old Skinflint!" roared Peace, forgetting everything else in her furious passion, and shaking an emphatic finger back at him. "Just 'member that, will you? We'll get the berries in spite of your old animule!"

She stamped out of the yard and down the road toward home once more, nursing her wrath and trying to think of some way whereby she might get the disputed fruit, for she well knew that the deacon would do all he could to prevent her now.

Early the next morning she was at the pasture again, only to find the vicious enemy grazing close by, watching with wicked eyes every flirt of her dress, as if defying her to gather the luscious red berries hanging so temptingly near.

The second day it was the same, and the third. It looked as if the enemy had conquered; but Peace was not to be easily defeated. She had set her heart on picking that fruit, and she meant to have it at any cost.

The fourth morning, after reconnoitering and finding the bull still in undisputed possession of the field, an uncertain but daring thought dawned upon her busy brain, and when she returned home she casually asked Hope, "Didn't folks one time have bull fights in Africa?"

"In Spain, you mean," answered the other, always ready to share her small store of knowledge. "Yes, they still have them, though it is very wicked."

"How do they fight?"

"Oh, I don't know exactly, but I think a man rides around a big ring on horseback, flying a red flag until the bull is terribly mad, and then he has to kill it with his dagger or get killed himself. It is terribly cruel, teacher says."

"Why does the bull get mad at the flag?"

"Because it is red, and they can't stand that color. Neither can turkey gobblers. Don't you remember you had on a red coat when Mr. Hartman's gobbler chased you?"

"Oh," said Peace, much enlightened. She had received the information she sought, and was content.

"So the flag has to be red, does it?" she mused, as she stealthily climbed the stairs to the tiny, hot, cobwebby attic, where all the cast-off clothing was stored against a rainy day. "I thought it was something like that, but I didn't know for sure. There's an old red dress that b'longed to me, and here is my old flannel petticoat. I don't b'lieve we will ever use this mess of cheesecloth again, either; it is so dreadfully streaked. But there is enough red in it yet."

Gathering up an armful of worn-out garments, she crept down the stairway once more and slipped away to the lower pasture with her burden, where for the next half hour she might have been seen tying the scarlet strips to the fence rails in the corner farthest from the raspberry patch. When the last rag was fastened securely, she stepped back and viewed the result of her labor, sighing in deep satisfaction, "There are twenty-one hunks in all. It ought to take him a good long time to tear them all to pieces, and maybe if we work fast we can get most of the bushes stripped while he is banging his head down here."

Hurrying home, she quietly summoned Cherry and Allee, and the trio set out once more on their berry-picking excursion, finding their enemy too busy in the far end of the field to interfere with them, just as Peace had hoped.

"But he may come back here at any minute," argued Cherry, loth to enter the field. "I thought you said he was gone from the pasture."

"I said from the berries. Don't stop to talk. As long as he doesn't hear us, we are all right. We will pick close to the fence, so we can get out quick. There must be tons of berries right here in this clump. Mercy, what a racket he makes!"

Then how the nimble fingers flew, and how fast the deep-tinted fruit fell into the shining pails! But all the while the three pickers kept their eyes fastened on the grove of trees which hid the animal from sight, and three hearts pounded fearfully at every snort of the enraged brute.

"Are you sure he is tied?" whispered cautious Cherry, after an unusually loud bellow had made her jump almost out of her shoes.

"I didn't say he was tied. I said he wasn't apt to bother us this morning. Keep still and pick with all your might. One of the big pails in the wagon is full already."

"But how do you know he will stay there if he isn't tied?" persisted Cherry, glancing apprehensively toward the trees again.

"He is too busy to think of coming over here now," Peace assured her confidently, and that was all the satisfaction she could get, so she lapsed into silence, and worked like a beaver until the second big bucket was brimming over. Then the small taskmaster drew a deep breath of relief and said graciously, "Now we will go home. These ought to make quite a little jelly. We must have as much as twenty quarts. They don't take as long as strawberries."

Thankfully the sisters crawled through the fence and triumphantly bore their precious burden homeward, still hearing in the distance the angry mutterings of Deacon Skinner's bull.

"Just see the loads of berries we picked!" chorused three happy voices, as the rattling cart came to a standstill before the kitchen door.

"Faith can have all the jelly she wants, and you can make the leftover seeds up in jam, can't you?"

"Children!" cried Gail, white to the lips. "Have you been in that pasture with Mr. Skinner's ugly bull?"

"Yes," they confessed, "but he never came near us."

"I guess he didn't want to leave the grove," added Peace, marching complacently away to wash her berry-stained hands.

"Don't you ever go there again," commanded the oldest sister, still trembling with fright at what might have happened to the daring berry pickers, but she never thought to question them any further, and Peace's prank remained a secret for a short time longer.

The next day Deacon Skinner was early at the Hartman place, stalking angrily up to the low, green house, and, striding into the kitchen without the formality of knocking, demanded fiercely, "What do you mean by plastering your fence all over with red rags? Your pasture fence? I'll sue you for damages! My bull has lost one horn and is all battered to pieces, the rails are splintered, and it's a wonder he didn't get loose. Is that what you aimed at doing?"

Mr. Hartman faced his accuser unflinchingly, saying, with quiet emphasis, "I don't know anything about the matter. The fence was all right yesterday morning, for I was down there myself to see, before I left for town. You don't know what you are saying when you threaten to sue."

"But the fence is all tied up with red rags," blustered the angry fellow. "How comes that? You rented me the—"

"I rented you the pasture, but I didn't rent you watch dogs and dragons to guard it. That is your own lookout. I had nothing to do with it, and it's no affair of mine if the village boys are up to their pranks."

Mr. Hartman's air was convincing, and the deacon's wrath toward his neighbor cooled somewhat when he saw how groundless were his accusations. Nevertheless, his ire was thoroughly aroused, and he promised all sorts of punishment to the offenders when they were caught. "If 'twas the village boys, I'll warrant the Judge's youngster was at the head of it. I'll tan him till he can't stand when I get my hands on him," he muttered.

"You better make sure of the guilty one before you thrash him," suggested Mr. Hartman, dryly.

"That Abbott boy and the Greenfield girl are the ringleaders in all the mischief—by George, she's the one that did it! She vowed she'd get those berries, bull or no bull. If she has touched those bushes, I'll—"

"No, you won't," interrupted the other man, rising to his feet with an angry light in his eyes. "If that child went to you and asked about those bushes, you don't lay hands on her in any way."

"She didn't ask. She came and told me to tie up the animal so she could pick raspberries."

"And you refused."

"I rented that field, and you had no business to promise her the berries."

"If you wanted them, why didn't you say so? They were going to waste on the vines. You merely asked permission to put your animal in there for a month while you were repairing your corral."

"I didn't want the berries, but—"

"That is all I care to know. You can take your property out of my pasture at once. I won't rent to such a man as you. Sue if you like, and see what you will get in court."

"Very well, Hartman," fumed the fiery-tempered old fellow. "But I will settle even with you yet. Just remember that note of Lowe's, will you? It's apt to be called to your attention pretty soon in a way you won't like, I reckon, and you won't get a second's more time on it, either. You will find it ain't so funny to set up against me in this neighborhood!"

The irate man stormed out of the house, still shaking his fist threateningly, and Mr. Hartman, in a very disturbed state of mind, returned to his breakfast.



CHAPTER XIII

PEACE GETS EVEN

"Peace, come here, I want to talk with you," called Mr. Hartman, leaning over the fence and beckoning to the child at work in her melon patch, measuring the mottled green fruit thickly dotted through the vines.

"It's grown two inches since I measured it last," said the brown-eyed gardener to herself, leaving her task to see what the man wanted. "Here I am."

"Do you know what kind of a mess you have got me into now?"

Peace looked her surprise, and answered saucily, "You don't fool me any more, my friend. You've teased me so often that it is an old story now. I know just what to 'xpect when I meet you."

At any other time he would have been delighted with this reply, but under the circumstances—for he was really much disturbed over her latest prank—her jaunty, don't-care air nettled him, and he said sharply, "This is no joking matter, Miss Greenfield, I can tell you that! Why did you tie red rags all over my pasture fence?"

"So's to keep the deacon's bull busy. We couldn't get those berries any other way."

"Well, I guess you succeeded. He broke one horn off and pretty near skinned himself, I judge. The only wonder is that he didn't tear the fence down and get loose."

"As long as he didn't, I shouldn't care about his horns," answered Peace with provoking indifference. "The deacon said I could have all the berries I could get, and he didn't say how I was to get them, either. I thought and thought, and I couldn't see any way out but the red flags. It worked beau—ti—fully. We got two buckets chock-full!"

"Yes," groaned Mr. Hartman; "and got old Skinner red hot at me! I signed a note a year or two ago for a friend of mine, expecting by this time that he would be on his feet and able to take care of it, but he isn't, and I've got to settle. Where the money is coming from is more than I can tell. It took all my ready cash to build that new barn, and old Skinner is so blamed mad that he won't give me any more time. And all this fuss on account of those berries. Plague take the old bushes, and you, too, you little rascal!"

Peace drew herself up haughtily and with eyes flashing fire, demanded, "Do you mean that?"

"Every word. I'd just like the chance to give you a good trouncing."

He was not in earnest, but he looked so harsh and stern that Peace for a moment trembled in her shoes. Then all her natural childish passion was aroused, and stamping her foot, she declared wrathfully, "I'll not be friends with you any longer. You said I could have the berries, and the deacon said I could have all I could get. You aren't being square with me, and I won't have anything more to do with you." She turned on her heel and flung herself indignantly across the garden to the road, leaving Mr. Hartman still leaning against the fence, lost in thought.

The forest was her favorite retreat in times of trouble, but today the cool shadows and whispering trees did not soothe her, and after wandering about until the afternoon began to wane, she started for home, still wrathful and passionate, for she felt that Mr. Hartman had been very unfair in his treatment of her.

While she was still some distance from the little brown house, a carriage drove up to their gate, and stopped, but she did not recognize the rig, nor could she make out who had alighted; and for the time being, her rage was lost in her greater curiosity. "Wonder who it can be," she said to herself. "It isn't the doctor's horse, nor the Judge's buggy, and that woman is too little for Mrs. Lacy or Mrs. Edwards. She's got a big bundle. Maybe it's the Salvation Army bringing us some old duds like they did the German family last week. But s'posing it was some rich aunt or grandmother we didn't know we had. It's awfully hard not to have any relations like other folks. I am going through old Cross-Patch's cornfield, 'stead of running clear around by the road."

She crawled between the strands of barbed wire and ran swiftly down the rows of rustling, whispering, silken corn, thinking only of the unexpected visitors at home, until a big barn loomed up before her, shining in its newness. Then she stopped abruptly, having suddenly remembered her grievance.

"He isn't square!" she cried. "I'd like to fight him good. I'll get even with you some day, Mr. Hardman! Bet he's going to paint his old barn. Here is a whole ocean of red paint in this pail, and there is a stack of brushes. I—I'm going—to tell—him what I think of him in red paint. Yes, sir, I'm going to do it this very minute!"

All thought of the mysterious visitor at home had vanished, all thought of the consequences were stifled, and choosing the smallest brush in the heap beside the pail, she began daubing scrawly, tipsy letters across the new, white boards: Mister Hardman isnt square.

"There!" she breathed, as the last straggling "r" was finished. "I'll bet that makes him mad, but maybe next time he won't blame me for his old fusses. He said I could have those raspberries."

She dipped the brush into the paint once more, made a few little red spots below the printed letters, and labelled them raspberries for fear they might not otherwise be recognized. Then dropping the brush back where she had found it, she skipped off home, feeling an uncomfortable sense of guilt and shame in her heart for having wreaked her revenge in such a manner.

At the gate Allee met her, shouting, "Mrs. Strong is here with the baby, and she's going to stay for supper. Elva Munson brought her in their new buggy. Come see Glen. We've hunted all over for you, and even blew the horn."

The excited child danced up the path, and Peace followed, forgetting her mean prank in her pleasure at seeing her beloved friends. Nor did she remember any more about it until the next morning, when, seated on the shed-roof, under the overhanging boughs of a great elm, she saw Mr. Hartman striding angrily up the path to the kitchen door. Then her heart gave a great thump and seemed to sink clear to her toes, as she thought of her miserable method of getting even. Her passion had subsided during the night, and try as she would, she could now think of no justifiable excuse for her mean act.

Gail answered the imperative knock, and Peace heard him demand wrathfully, "Where is Peace?"

"Somewhere around the place. She was under the maple there at the corner a few moments ago. Is something wrong? Has she been annoying you again?"

"Annoying me? She has daubed letters all over the back of my new barn. I shall have to paint the whole building now, and it isn't very funny business. If I had got hold of her when I first saw her work, I'd have given her a thrashing she wouldn't have forgotten in one while. You will whip that child like she deserves, or pay for the damage she has done,—one or the other, and I mean it, too!" Without waiting for her reply, he started down the path again, leaving Gail white-faced and distressed in the kitchen door.

As soon as he was out of sight Peace slid from her perch to the ground below, deserting the corncob doll she had been dressing, and scurried away to the barn loft to face the new and undreamed-of situation. A licking or pay for the damage done! Why had she been so thoughtless and mean? She might have known that Gail would be the one to suffer. She hated herself, as she always did after her mischievous pranks, but that didn't help matters any. She must take her medicine. There was no money to settle for her wanton mischief; it would have to be the licking.

"I wonder whether she'll use a shingle or her shoe," she thought nervously, making ready to descend and brave Gail's displeasure, when Cherry's head appeared on the ladder, and the older girl announced excitedly, "Now you've done it, Peace Greenfield! Mr. Hartman is as mad as a hornet about your painting his barn, and he says Gail must either whip you hard, or pay for it. There isn't any money to pay—"

"Then I s'pose I'll have to take the licking," answered Peace with a great show of indifference, though the pounding of her heart nearly stifled her.

"But Gail says she can't lick you, and even Faith has backed out, though at first she said she would give it to you good."

Here was an unlooked-for state of affairs—no money, and no one willing to use the rod, though she undoubtedly deserved it.

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Cherry curiously.

"Lick myself likely," retorted Peace sarcastically. "You better lug those eggs up to the doctor's. I've d'livered my bunch."

Cherry vanished as quickly as she had come, and as the sound of her footsteps died away in the distance, Peace slid down the ladder. But instead of going to the house for an interview with Gail, she slipped through the garden, crawled under the fence, and presented herself at the door of the new barn where Mr. Hartman, still in a blaze of anger, was at work.

"What do you want here, you tormented rascal?" he yelled in fury, shaking a hazel switch threateningly at her.

"I came to get licked," she answered steadily, though quaking inwardly.

"Wh-at?" he gasped in unbelieving amazement.

"I heard what you said to Gail about paying or licking me, and she hasn't got any money to pay for my meanness, and she says—she says she can't whip me; so I've come to you for it."

She really did not expect him to punish her in that manner, for ordinarily he was not a hard-hearted man; but in view of Peace's misdemeanor, Gail's hesitation angered him only the more, and catching the child by her shoulder, he gave her a dozen sharp, stinging lashes with his switch, then released her, thoroughly ashamed of himself.

He expected her to cry and scream, but she bit her lips, blinked her brown eyes rapidly to keep the tears back, and stood like a statue until he dropped his stick. Then choking back the sobs in her throat, she faced him with the curt demand, "Give me a receipt, please."

"A—a what?"

"A receipt. Gail says we should never settle a bill without getting a receipt."

"What do you want of a receipt?"

"So's I can show Gail that this bill is settled."

"Aha!" he mocked. "You are afraid Gail will repent and give you another thrashing, are you?"

"No, I'm not! But I want to be sure you don't try to c'llect twice."

He stared at her open-mouthed, too hurt for words; and she, unaware that she had deeply offended him, urged impatiently, as she rubbed her smarting shoulders, "Hurry up! Write it on a piece of paper, so's I can have it to keep always. Haven't you got any in your pocket?"

Mechanically he searched his pockets, drew forth a scrap of an envelope, wrote the receipt she demanded, and handed it to her gravely. She accepted it as gravely, spelled it through, and turned to go, saying piously, "Thank you, Mr. Hardman. I hope you will get your reward in heaven." She meant this in all reverence, thinking only of the receipt he had given her, but he thought she was sarcastically referring to the whipping she had suffered at his hands; and with a queer tightening of his throat, he returned to his work, while she hurried homeward with her precious bit of paper.

"Here is Mr. Hardman's receipt, Gail," she announced, briefly, entering the kitchen where the two older girls were still discussing the new problem.

"Where did you get the money!" asked Faith severely.

"I took the licking," was the short answer.

"Took the licking! From whom!"

"Mr. Hardman."

"Do you mean to say that Mr. Hardman whipped you!"

"Yes, I do. I went over and told him to."

"Did it hurt?" whispered Allee, with eyes brimming full of sympathy.

"It might have been worse, s'posing he had used a piece of iron instead of a stick."

Profound silence reigned in the little room. Then Gail said abruptly, "Come upstairs with me. I want to see you alone."

Peace glanced apprehensively at the pale face, which looked unusually stern and severe, and said, "That is a sure-enough receipt, but if you don't b'lieve it, you can ask Mr. Hardman about it."

"I am not doubting your story in the least," answered the big sister, smiling in spite of herself, "but I want to talk to you, dear."

When Gail said "dear," she was never angry, so, without further hesitation, Peace followed her to the small room under the eaves, wondering what was coming next. Gail seated herself in the rickety chair by the window, and drawing the small girl down into her lap, she asked, "Now what is all this trouble about? Tell sister everything."

So Peace related the story of the raspberries and her anger at their neighbor, which had led to the painting of the barn.

"What did you write on the building?" questioned Gail when Peace paused at this point in her recital.

"Just the truth. I said, 'Mr. Hardman isn't square.' Then, so's he would know what he wasn't square about, I made a lot of raspberries under the printing."

"Peace! After Mr. Hartman has been so kind to us! What do you think of a little girl who will do a thing like that!"

"At first I thought she was all right," answered the candid maiden. "But now I've changed my mind, and I guess she was pretty bad when she did it. Though he needn't have said what he did to me. He told me we could have the berries."

"At the same time he warned you about Mr. Skinner's bull."

"Yes, and I warned Mr. Skinflint—I mean Mr. Skinner."

"Mr. Skinner is a hot-tempered man, and I am afraid if the Hartmans owe him money, as you say, he will make it very uncomfortable for them."

"Maybe I better go see old Skinflint—I mean Mr. Skinner—and tell him—"

"No, indeed!" cried Gail in alarm. "You have done damage enough already. Promise me that you won't say anything to him about it, Peace."

"I promise. I ain't anxious to see him anyway, only I thought if it would do any good I would go and tell him how it happened. I am awfully sorry now."

"Then don't you think you better apologize to Mr. Hartman?"

"Wasn't the licking a napology enough?"

"The whipping only settled your account. It didn't say you were sorry. And it was wrong to tell him that you hoped he would get his reward in heaven."

"Why?" cried Peace in genuine astonishment. "That's what the lame peddler woman always tells you when you buy a paper of needles or pins."

"That is different. She means what she says. The words are no idle mockery to her. Every penny she can earn, helps her that much, and she is truly grateful—"

"And I am truly grateful for my receipt, too! It isn't every man that would give me one. Old Skinner now—"

"Oh, Peace!"

"But, Gail, dear, I wasn't mocking him. I wanted him to know that I knew how much that receipt was worth. S'posing he hadn't written it, how would you have known that I had settled that fuss?"

Gail gave up in despair. She never could argue with this small sister, who so sadly needed a mother's wisdom to keep her sweet and good; so she abruptly ended her lecture by gently insisting, "Mr. Hartman deserves your apology. What if he had made us pay for the damage you did, or had had you arrested? He was good to let you off with just a licking, Peace, even if you do think it was hard punishment. If you are going to be a bad girl, you must expect whippings."

"I don't think he likes me any more. He may chase me home before I can apologize," suggested the unhappy culprit, with hanging head.

"I guess not," smiled Gail behind her hand. "Try it and see."

"Well," sighed miserable Peace, "I s'pose I must, then."

She reluctantly descended the stairs again, and disappeared down the path toward the Hartman house, wishing with all her heart that the ground would swallow her up before she had to meet the enemy. Suddenly a way out of the dilemma presented itself. She searched hastily through her pockets for paper and pencil, and folding both among the clutter, she wrote her apology on a ragged, dirty scrap, and carried it to the green house, intending to leave it on the doorstep and hurry away, but as she peered cautiously around the corner of the shed she saw Mrs. Hartman sitting on the porch, and retreated, murmuring, "Oh, dear, I s'pose I'll have to say it to him after all. I might pin it to the barn door, or—maybe 'twould be better if I fastened it beside the painting. That's what I'll do!"

She stole away to the barn, tacked the paper to the new boards, and was about to depart when her eyes chanced to fall upon her sprawling decorations of the previous day; and she halted, horrified at the glaring scarlet letters. "Mercy! How they look! No wonder Mr. Hartman gave me such a tre—men—jous switching. The paint is still here. I will cover it all up."

The big brush did the work this time, and in a brief period a wide, brilliant stripe of red hid the uneven letters from sight. But somehow Mr. Hartman did not think the barn had been improved very much when he found it, and was wrathfully; setting out in search of the artist when the fluttering paper caught his eye.

"She's a great one for notes," he muttered, jerking the scrawl down, half impatiently, half amused. "What does she say this time? Whew!" Involuntarily he whistled a long-drawn-out whistle, for this is what Peace had written:

"I ipolijize for painting your barn cause Gale says I otto and anyway I didn't know it was going to look so bad so Ive erased the letters with some more paint but I still feel the same way about the raspberries. Also I hope you don't get your reward in Heaven.

Peace Greenfield.

"P.s. Gale said I should come myself and say this but I thot it was safest to rite as long as youre still mad."



CHAPTER XIV

PEACE, THE GOOD SAMARITAN

Down the sloping hillside browned with the summer sun strolled Peace one afternoon late in August, gathering the purple foxgloves which waved invitingly in the breeze. It was one of those rare days of waning summer, clear, beautiful and cool, with just a hint of autumn haze in the air; and it cast its magic spell over the bare-headed, flower-laden maid, wandering dreamily through the crisp, crackling grass, with no particular destination in view, no particular thought in mind. She had set out an hour before with Cherry and Allee as her companions, but had wandered away from them without being aware of it, and was now some distance from home, still busy pulling the gorgeous stems of bloom, still unconscious of her loneness, still lost in her own realms of fancy.

This Peace was one few people knew. Allee was most familiar with the brown-eyed dream-child, the little family at the parsonage were quite well acquainted with her, and occasionally Gail caught a fleeting glimpse of that hidden spirit, but to the rest of the little world in which she lived she was a bright-eyed, gay-hearted little romp, whose efforts to lend assistance to others were always leading her into mischief, oftentimes with unhappy results.

So it is no wonder that busy Dr. Bainbridge was surprised when he discovered her in this strange mood as he came puffing and panting up the hill toward town, for she was so completely lost amid her dreams that she did not see him nor hear his brusque greeting until he stepped directly in her path and clutched her arm. Then she started as if suddenly awakened from a sleep, and exclaimed, "Why, Dr. Bainbridge, what do you mean by making me jump so? I nearly lost my skin! I never saw you at all. Where did you come from—the clouds?"

"No, miss. If I had been there you would have seen me before this, for if ever anyone was walking in the clouds, it was you just this minute. Come along, I want you, dreamer. Can you do me a favor, a big one?"

"'Pends upon what it is," answered Peace, thoroughly awake now.

He laughed at the judicious tone of voice and the familiar cant of the curly brown head, and answered promptly, "I want you to play Good Samaritan for a little while, be nurse for one of my patients—"

"Nurse?" She looked at him with wide-open eyes, secretly wondering whether he knew what he was talking about.

"Yes, ma'am, nurse!" he thundered. "Annette Fisher is sick, very sick, and I have told her mother time after time that she must not be left alone, yet in spite of all my cautions, that red-headed ignoramus has taken the rest of the caboodle and gone off to town, leaving Annette all alone in the house until the father gets home tonight. The child's fever has been soaring sky-high for days, and I was just beginning to think I had it in control and could pull her through when that old termagant-gossip of a mother, who doesn't deserve to have chick or child, hikes off to spend the afternoon with relatives in the city for a chance to look up bargains at The Martindale. What are embroideries and dress goods compared with the life of a child? Won't she get a piece of my mind the next time I lay eyes on her?" So angry and indignant was the old doctor that he had wholly forgotten himself, and spoke as he would never have thought of doing under different circumstances.

Peace brought him to the earth by agreeing heartily, "Well, I would 'f I was you, and I'd give her a good big piece, too. I'll nurse Annette if you want me to. Shall I give her a bath and dose her with medicine every few minutes, like we did mother? Does she need to be wrapped up in wet rags or painted with irondye? Or do you want me to feed her grool and broth?"

"You don't have to do a single thing but stay with her and keep her from fretting until I can get someone from the village to go down there. I gave her a bath just now myself, and she has taken her medicine—all I want her to have for the present. She isn't to eat a thing, but she can drink all the milk she wants, and occasionally have a little water if she asks for it. Now remember, Peace. She is too sick to pay attention to much of anything, but sometimes she is fretful and talks a good deal. Try to be as quiet as possible yourself,—don't say things to excite her—don't speak at all unless she wants you to. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"I'll send someone down to relieve you the minute I can get anyone. Hurry along now, and don't forget what I have said."

"All right," was the cheery response; and Peace, with a curious thrill of awe in her heart, sped down the hill as fast as her nimble feet could carry her.

The door of the Fisher house stood open, so, without knocking to make her presence known, she stepped softly inside the hall, and crept up the stairs to the little, hot chamber, where thin-faced Annette lay burning with fever. The invalid was awake, tossing fretfully among her pillows, but the instant she saw Peace in the doorway her eyes brightened, and she called in a shrill, weak voice, "Is it really you, Peace, or has my head turned 'round again?"

"It's really me. Dr. Bainbridge sent me up."

"That's funny. He wouldn't let you or any of the other girls come when I asked for you before. Did you bring all those flowers for me?"

"Yes," Peace answered readily, glancing down at the huge bouquet in her arms, which she had entirely forgotten. "Where shall I put them? No, don't try to tell me; I'll find a dish myself."

"Would you please bring me a drink, too?" Annette asked hesitatingly.

"Sure!"

"Fresh from the well?"

"Yes."

Peace disappeared down the creaking stairs again, returning quickly with a dripping dipper full of sparkling, ice-cold water from the well, and the sick child drank feverishly, sighing as she relinquished the cup, "That's awful good. If only it would stay cold all the time! But the next time I want a drink it is warm and horrid, and ma says she can't be always chasing to the well just to get me some water. Harry won't, either. Pa ain't here but a little while night and morning, and Isabel is too little to fetch it. Set the flowers here on the chair where I can see them good. When ma comes home she'll likely throw them out. She says she can't see the good of cluttering up the house with dishes of weeds like that."

"Your mother is an old turnacrank,—Doctor says so," muttered Peace indignantly, as she tugged at the heavy jar of foxgloves she had arranged with artistic care.

"What did you say?" asked Annette, querulously.

Peace suddenly remembered the doctor's instructions. "I say I know how to keep water cold. Gail used to do it for mother on hot days. I'll wet a rag and wrap the dipper in that and set it in the window where the wind will blow on it."

"Will that make it keep cool?"

"Yes, as long as the rag is wet. There is quite a little wind today, too, and that helps."

"Is it cool out-doors?"

"Yes."

"Oh, dear! I wish I could go out under the trees. It is so hot in here cooped up like I am."

Peace bit her tongue. How easy it was to forget the doctor's directions! Twice already she had said things which excited the poor, sick prisoner, whom she had been told to keep quiet. A happy inspiration leaped into her thought, and moving the jar of delicate blossoms closer to the bed, she slipped a spray into Annette's hand, saying, "S'pose we minagine these flowers are trees. They would make a lovely forest, wouldn't they? I often wish the trees had pretty flowers."

"Apple trees have," said Annette thoughtfully.

"That's so!" was the surprised ejaculation. "I forgot all about the fruit trees. All of them have flowers, but I like the apple-blossoms best, don't you?"

"Yes, they are so cool looking and so sweet and smelly."

"That's what I like about them most. When I go to the moon I wear a dress made of apple-blossoms and—"

"When you go to the moon?" repeated Annette, looking bewildered and wondering if the queer thoughts which the doctor called delirium were coming back to haunt her again.

"Oh, of course, I really don't go, but I like to s'pose what it would be like if I could go there. After Allee and me go to bed at night, sometimes the moon comes and shines in at our window and we talk to it. I don't care about the man-in-the-moon very much, though Allee likes him. She says he must be so lonely up there by himself all the time that she doesn't see how he can keep on smiling so. But I love the lady in the moon."

"The lady in the moon?"

"Well, we call her the moon lady. We like to think she is a beautiful, beau-ti-ful lady, with long, pale yellow hair that pretty nearly drags when she walks. It would drag if she didn't wear such big tails on her skirts. That's the kind of hair I wish I had instead of kinky, woolly curls. Hers isn't a bit curly, but just falls back from her face like Jennie Munn's after she has had it braided for a long time. And it trails out behind her like a—a cloud. Her dress is white stuff, and she never has it starched; it's just soft and shiny and swishy, and seems to b'long just to her. Oh, she is the prettiest lady, Annette!"

"What color are her eyes?" asked the invalid, much interested in the picture Peace was drawing.

"Blue, just like Hope's, only you don't think of them being blue when you look at the moon lady—they 'mind you of stars. I think they are stars, and she wears a star in her hair."

"Does she have a house to live in?"

"Not a house, but a palace, made of soft-looking, sparkly stones that flash like diamond dust, and inside it is white and still,—the kind of a still that makes you feel dreamy and nice. And there are fountains everywhere, with cool water splashing out of the top of them. They are made of white marble—the fountains are, I mean—and so are the pillows of the palace on the outside, where the moon lady walks in her garden."

"Is there a garden in the moon?"

"In my moon there is, and—"

"Ma says the moon is made of green cheese, and is full of maggots."

"I heard that story, too, and I look for them first thing every time I go there, but I haven't found any yet. Big, white Easter lilies grow along the paths, and lilies-of-the-valley blossom the whole year round, and water lilies make the lake almost white sometimes."

"Oh, a lake, too! How nice!"

"The moon lady's lake is the prettiest I ever saw. The water is always silv'ry, just like our lakes look when the moon shines down on them. You know, Annette, don't you?"

"Yes, the moon was shining one time when I went to Lake Marion with pa to hear the band, and we rowed around in a little boat and listened to the music."

"That's just what the moon lady does when we go to see her, only her boats are green-pea pods, and the sails are apple-blossom petals. We don't have to row; the boats just float of themselves, and we pick water lilies or listen to the music—"

"What kind of music?"

"Oh, sometimes the moon lady sings by-low songs, and sometimes it's just the frogs singing in the bottom of the lake."

"Oh, do you like frogs' croaking?"

"If I have been good I like it awfully well, but if I've made Gail or anyone sorry, I don't want to listen to the frogs, for they keep saying, 'Don't do it again, don't do it again,' till it makes me mis'rable. The frogs in the moon never say such things, though, and I like to listen to them. Sometimes we call across the water to hear the echoes answer; and sometimes we let the moonbeams light on our hands and hair and dresses, and talk to them."

"Talk to the moonbeams? How funny!"

"Why, our moonbeams are lovely little fairies, with wings like dragon-flies, and shiny, silv'ry gowns; and whenever they get tired of flying about they settle down and glow like fireflies. They b'long to the moon lady and are nice fairies. They make sugar stars and moon-ice for us to eat."

Peace clapped her hand abruptly over her mouth. Suppose Annette should ask for something to eat! But the sick child merely held the spray of foxgloves nearer her face and inquired, "What is that? Ice-cream?"

"No; it's shaped like icicles and has kind of a sourish taste, either lemon or strawberry, and it doesn't melt until you get tired of it. Then it's all gone. And it's the same way with moonbeamade. Allee made up that name from lemonade. It is just a heap of foam that tastes like the north-west wind and is cool and nice."

"S'posing things is a queer game, ain't it?" murmured Annette, drowsily.

"It's lots of fun, and sometimes when we go to sleep we dream about them,—the places we visit in the moon and the—"

"The water and lilies and fountains and cool things?"

"Yes, or the mountains, where the fairies and goblins live, or the forests, which belong to the brownies and elves, or the valleys, where the sunbeams play, or the caves, where the wind-voices hide, or—I do b'lieve she's asleep. Yes, sir! Both eyes are tight shut, and she has dropped the foxglove she was holding so hard."

Softly Peace dropped back into her former position upon the floor, hardly daring to breathe for fear of waking the little slumberer, for had not the doctor said she was a very sick child, and that she must be kept as quiet as possible?

At thought of the doctor she began to wonder why he had not sent the woman from the village as he had promised to do. Already the sun was sinking low in the west, and no one had come to watch over the invalid. Perhaps he had forgotten, perhaps someone was dreadfully sick and he had been called away before he could find a nurse for Annette. Perhaps—the brown head nodded gently, the long, dark lashes fluttered slowly over the somber brown eyes, and Peace, too, was fast asleep, curled up against the narrow bed, where the sick child lay in a dreamless, refreshing slumber. The sunset faded from the sky, twilight deepened into dusk, and the stars came out in their pale glory, but both the Good Samaritan and her patient were unconscious of it all.

In the little brown house among the maple trees great anxiety brooded. Peace had not come home with her sisters from their flower-gathering expedition, and no one in town had seen her. The whole neighborhood was aroused, and a search party was just being organized when the doctor's carriage drove up to the gate, and the physician, angry, dismayed and alarmed, hurried up the path as fast as his avoirdupois would permit, flung open the screen and called imperiously, "Miss Gail, girls, any of you! It's all my fault! Peace is down at the Fisher house watching over Annette. I sent her there this afternoon while I went after a woman to stay with the child, and have just this minute heard that Grandma Cole sprained her ankle on the way there and had to crawl back home again. Mrs. Fisher, the big idiot, is moseying up the road now, well satisfied with her bargains. I passed her and her tribe a piece back and stopped long enough to tell her what I thought of her. Now pile in and I'll take you back with me for that little sister of yours."

He had caught up a little shawl from the hat-rack as he talked, and throwing this over Gail's shoulders, he bundled her out of the house and into his buggy before she had recovered from her astonishment at his outburst; and after a moment of furious riding behind the lively bay horse, she found herself stumbling up the dark stairs in the unlighted Fisher house, at the heels of the panting, puffing, wrathy doctor. From somewhere he produced a lamp, and soon the dim rays of light dispelled the gloom of the place, and she stood beside him, looking down into the pale face of Annette asleep among her pillows, and the rosy one of smiling Peace, huddled in an uncomfortable bunch on the floor.

"What a picture!" murmured the doctor huskily, leaning over to touch the damp forehead and feel the pulse of his little patient. "This is the first natural sleep she has had for days. Bully for Peace! I confess I was worried about leaving her here in the first place. I was afraid she would fret Annette into a worse fever than she already had. I'd have gone crazy if I'd had any notion that the child must stay here all the afternoon, with only Peace to look after her. Excuse me if I seem more concerned about Annette's welfare than over Peace's long absence and your fright, Gail. I've had a big battle to pull her through, and I was wild when I found that fool mother had gone off and left her alone. Didn't expect to be gone long, and here it is hours! There, I won't storm any more, but we'll wake Peace up and take her home."

He shook the child gently by the shoulder, and as the sleepy eyes fluttered open they saw only Gail bending over her. "It's all right, Gail," the child said softly, still remembering her charge. "Dr. Bainbridge asked me to be a good sanatarium over Annette while that negrogrampus of a mother was hunting bargains of embroid'ries and he was hunting a sure-enough nurse. Oh, there is the doctor himself! Is Annette all right? She talked a lot at first, but I told her about my moon lady, and pretty soon she went fast asleep."

"Annette is doing splendidly, Dr. Peace, and I am tickled to death at the good work you've done. Run along with Gail now. I'll be down in a minute to drive you home."



CHAPTER XV

PEACE COLLECTS DAMAGES

The hot summer was drawing to a close. Two weeks more and September would be ushered in, bringing with it the State Fair, always an event in the lives of the busy farmers of the State, and particularly of those around Martindale and Pendennis, as the fairgrounds were located midway between the two big cities.

Peace had never attended a State Fair in all her short life, but she had heard it talked about so much by the residents of Parker that she was wildly excited when Faith decided to enter a cake in the cooking exhibit, and immediately she determined to visit the Fair in person and see her sister's handiwork fitly rewarded. However, when she made known this decision to the rest of the family Gail said quietly, "I am afraid you can't, dear. It costs fifty cents to enter the grounds, and even if they admit children at half price, that would mean twenty-five cents for each of you three youngest, and Hope would have to pay the full amount, as she is now in her 'teens. We can't afford to go this year."

This was an item that Peace had not considered. Of course, if she went, the rest of the family were entitled to the same pleasure, and that would mean three half dollars and three quarters. She found her slate and laboriously added up the column of figures. "Two dollars and twenty-five cents! Mercy, that is a lot to spend just to go to the Fair for one day, isn't it? Oh, dear, why is it we always have to stop and think about the money? I wish dollars grew on trees, and all we had to do when we wanted any would be to go out and pick them. What fun we'd have! I do want to go to the Fair so much, though. If only there was some way to earn the money!"

She wandered down to the melon patch, the pride of her childish heart, and sat down on one of the green balls to meditate on the subject.

"I never saw the beat how your melons do grow," exclaimed a voice behind her, as Mrs. Grinnell, on her way to the brown house, paused to admire the tempting fruit. "If there was just some way of getting them into the city, you might make a pretty penny off them. Now, mine don't begin to be as big as yours, and there aren't half so many on the vines. That's a whopper you are sitting on. You ought to take it to the Fair—"

"Why, Mrs. Grinnell, do folks take melons to the Fair?"

"Yes, indeed, every year. Why, I've seen lots there that weren't as big as yours. Of course it's the biggest that win the ribbons, and you might not stand a show, but there would be no harm trying. I am intending to enter my two mammoth pumpkins and that Hubbard squash, along with my corn."

"Do you s'pose Gail would let me?"

"Yes, I think so. I'll take it in with mine if you like. I am to lug Faith's cake."

"Oh, then I'll do it! These two whollipers. That one is almost as big as the one I play is my armchair. The rest are too little to have a chance, aren't they? Maybe they will be big enough by Fair time, though. They have two weeks more to grow in."

"No telling what they will do in that time," laughed Mrs. Grinnell, moving briskly away up the path, leaving Peace still perched on top of the largest melon busily making her fortune from her small garden patch.

"If only we hadn't sold Black Prince," she mourned, "we could just cart these melons into Martindale and make a whole lot on them. There, why didn't I think of that before? Mike peddles garden truck in the city, 'most every day. I'll just have him tote these along. I've got—let me see—twelve, sixteen, seventeen, twenty-one good ones, besides my big fellows. I wonder if that will be enough. I'm going right over and see Mike now. He is at home today; I saw him."

She skipped away through the garden to the O'Hara place, some distance below them, and finding the red-haired boy grinding an ax in the dooryard, she startled him by her breathless demand, "How much do watermelons sell for in the city?"

"Shure an' it depinds on the size."

"Mine are great big ones. Mrs. Grinnell says they ought to bring a pretty penny in Martindale."

"Well, thin, I think maybe they'd be bringing a quarter."

"Each one?"

"Shure!"

"And how much would that make if twenty-one were sold?"

"Five dollars and a quarter," promptly answered Mike, who was quick at figures and proud of the accomplishment.

"That would be enough," cried Peace in great glee. "All I need is two dollars and a quarter. Come on over to my house and pick them right away."

"What?" yelled Mike, wondering if the child had gone crazy.

"Oh, I forgot! I haven't told you yet, have I? You can sell my melons in the city for me if you like and save me the trouble."

The boy stared at her, transfixed by her complacent self-assurance.

"Has the cat got your tongue?" Peace asked, when he did not speak.

"No, but you have your nerve," he stuttered. "What d'ye take me for,—a dray horse?"

"You've got a mule team, haven't you?" flared Peace, seeing no occasion for his anger. "And you peddle truck nearly every day. Then I don't see why you can't take my melons and sell them. Black Prince is gone, and we can't drive about any more ourselves."

"Well, where do I come in? Melons take up a sight of wagon room, nothing said of the time it will take to sell them. And then you expict me to do it all for nothing!"

"I—I hadn't thought about that," faltered Peace; and, sitting down on the windmill platform, she pulled a pencil stub from her pocket and began to do some figuring on the sole of her shoe.

Mike watched her serious face in amusement, and grinned broadly when, after five minutes of vigorous scratching and hard thinking, she released her foot and said in her most business-like tones, "I'll tell you what I will do. If you can sell all those twenty-one melons at twenty-five cents each, you can have half the money for your trouble. That will still leave me enough to get our family inside the Fair. Will you do it?"

Mike scratched his head thoughtfully and then replied, "I'll take a look at thim melons first."

So she led him to the small patch and proudly displayed her treasures. "You see there are more than twenty-one melons on the vines. Those two big ones Mrs. Grinnell is going to tote along with her pumpkins to the Fair, and the little ones and the crooked fellers we'll eat at home; but there are twenty-one nice ones to sell."

Mike expressed his admiration by the boyish exclamation, "Gee, ain't them bouncers? How 'd ye do it? Our'n don't amount to shucks this year."

"That's what Mrs. Grinnell said about hers. I guess it's 'cause I know how to grow watermelons," answered Peace, with charming frankness. "Mr. Strong says that must be the reason. You see, I planted sweet-peas and these came up. Maybe it's a sweet-pea melon. Do you s'pose it is?"

"I niver heard tell of such a thing," Mike soberly replied, "but maybe that's what's the matter."

"Will you sell them for me?"

Mike was busy thumping the green balls with his knuckles, and feeling of the stems, and when he had tested each in turn, he answered, "Yis, I'll sell thim for you, but ye'd better wait a week or two. They aren't ripe enough yit."

"Oh, dear," mourned the child, plainly disappointed. "The Fair begins in two weeks, and that is what I wanted the money for. Don't you think they will be ripe enough before that?"

"Don't look as if they would," Mike replied firmly. "And green melons won't sell well. Besides, the longer they grow, the bigger they will be."

"Then I suppose I must wait; but don't you tell the girls. I want to s'prise them if we can go, for they don't think we can."

So, with many promises of secrecy, Mike departed, and Peace from that moment became a devoted slave of the melon patch.

As soon as she was out of bed in the morning she flew down to the garden to exult over her treasures, and with the last gleam of the dying day she might be seen bending over the mottled fruit whispering encouraging messages to them, coaxing them to grow. Bucket after bucket of water she tugged from the well to pour on their thirsty roots, and load after load of fertilizer she dragged in Allee's little cart to spread over the ground in her eager desire to increase their size. But when Gail found her with soap and scrub-brush polishing off each precious ball, she was forced to curb her zealous gardening. However, the vines throve through all this heroic treatment, and it seemed to Peace that she could almost see the fruit grow in circumference. Each night she consulted Mike, convinced that they had ripened sufficiently during the day to be picked, but the boy steadfastly shook his head.

At length, as the second week of anxious waiting was drawing to a close, Peace could endure the suspense no longer, and one warm afternoon, while her sisters were occupied with their various duties, she snatched the sharp bread-knife from the pantry shelf, and with Allee in tow, stole down to her garden plot.

"What are you going to do?" whispered the blue-eyed tot, as if still fearful that she might be overheard at the house.

"Try one of my melons and see if it isn't ripe. This feller will do, I guess. It is big, but not too big." She plunged the shining blade deep into the green rind, and as the two halves fell apart, disclosing the bright red heart thickly dotted with black and white seeds, she cried triumphantly, "There, I knew I was right! Just taste it, Allee. Ain't it sweet and nice? Let's lug it down to the hedge and eat it up."

"That's a piggy," answered the smaller girl, smacking her lips over the delicious morsel.

"We can 'ford to be pigs this once, I guess," Peace retorted. "If we take it up to the house they will want to know why we cut it, and we'll have to tell them about Mike and the Fair. You don't want them to know that, do you?"

"No, but we are too little to eat it all ourselves."

"Half a melon each ain't much. Why, Len Abbott must have eaten two whole ones at the church sociable the other night. Can you carry your half?"

"Yes," panted the younger lass, bravely tugging at her heavy load.

So, with much puffing, and many stops for breath, they dragged the fruit through the cornfield to the creek road, scrambled in behind the dense brush and blackberry vines, and began to dispose of the sweet, juicy center.

"Let's eat one-half all up 'fore we begin the other," proposed Allee, who seemed to have some doubts as to the capacity of her stomach.

"All right," Peace agreed. "The melon does look pretty big, and maybe we can't hold it all at one sitting. I'll push the other half under the bushes and cover my handkerchief over it to keep off the flies. What a lot of seed this one has! Let's save some for planting next year. S'posing each of these seeds was a ticket to the State Fairgrounds, we could all of us go every day and invite everyone else in town, pretty near. Hush! There's a team coming up the road. Let's peek and see if it's anyone we know."

She drew aside the branches as she spoke, and two inquisitive, fruit-stained faces peered out of the opening just as a two-seated carryall drew up by the roadside, and a woman's voice said imperatively, "There is a cluster, Henry,—lovely berries. I thought they were all gone by this time."

Henry leaped over the wheel to the ground, gathered a handful of dust-covered blackberries, and passed them up to the other three occupants of the rig, remarking, "It's a shame we can't find watermelons growing wild along the roadside. I am afraid if we have a melon social at the church tomorrow night we must patronize the groceryman for the fruit."

"I am sorry to have caused you this wild-goose chase," said a meek voice from the back seat. "But last year we drove through this town when watermelon vines were the only things in sight."

"That is everything in sight today," laughed Henry teasingly. "The trouble is, they don't bear any decent fruit. I'd give five dollars if anyone would show me twenty good, fair-sized watermelons—"

"All right, sir!" exclaimed an eager voice at his feet. "Give me the five dollars, and I'll show you twenty-two!"

The man jumped as if shot, the three ladies screamed, and even the horses started at the unexpected sound, or perhaps it was at sight of a tousled brown head wriggling excitedly through the thicket, followed by an equally tousled golden head.

"Well, who are you?" stammered the startled young man, as the children gained their feet and stood shyly eyeing the city folks.

"Two of the Greenfield kids," answered Peace. "We were just trying one of my melons when we heard what you said. We've got some fine ones in our garden, and I'll sell them cheap. They b'long to me. I planted sweet-pea seeds and they came up."

The man roared, the young ladies giggled, and then one of them said sweetly, "Have you some of your melon left so we can see what it is like?"

"Yes," responded Peace, diving into the brush and dragging forth the untouched half, covered with her dirty handkerchief. "Here it is. You can eat it. Allee and me are 'most full now. Oh, it's black with ants! Never mind, just brush them off; they won't change the taste any."

But though the ladies admired the ripe red fruit, they seemed to have no appetite for it, and Henry was the only one of the party who sampled it.

"It's lickum good," he announced, after the first mouthful. "Better have some, girls. No? Well, I shall lug this piece back with us for refreshments. Say, Curly-locks, are all your melons as big as that?"

"Bigger—that is, most of them are. Mrs. Grinnell is going to take two in to the Fair, but there are twenty-one big ones besides. I mean twenty. This is the twenty-oneth."

They laughed again, and Henry proposed, "Let's go over and see them anyway. If we can't find the melons, we can have a good time today at least."

"Just as you say," chorused the girls; and bundling the soiled, sticky children into the carriage with them, they drove on to the little brown house.

As the team drew up in front of the gate the group of workers on the porch started to their feet in surprise, but Peace called, "Go on with your sewing! This is my company! They are going to look at my twenty watermelons to see if they are any good; and then I am going to charge them five dollars for them."

The laughing young people came up the walk to meet the embarrassed mistress of the house, and the situation was briefly explained. "Our League is planning for a lawn social tomorrow night," said one young lady.