"Sarah," the small girl whispered, "Sarah Willis."

"Oh, yes—then you're a sister of Doctor Willis," said the principal. "And I know Rosemary, too. Isn't there another sister—a little light-haired girl in one of the grades?"

"That's Shirley," answered Sarah, forgetting her errand for an instant and looking Mr. Oliver in the face for the first time. "She's in the first grade."

"Well, Sarah, what have you to tell me?" said the principal quietly. "Why did Miss Ames send you to me?"

"I don't know where to begin," complained Sarah forlornly.

"Don't be afraid—there is nothing to be afraid of," said Mr. Oliver. "Just tell me everything that has happened and I promise to listen to you and believe you."

Sarah, as Doctor Hugh had discovered, was morally not very brave. She was afraid of people and though the Willis will was as strong in her as in any of the others, she would not come out openly and demand her way. Rather Sarah would do as she pleased and shirk the consequences wherever possible. The doctor had had several little talks with her on this subject of fear and he was gradually teaching her to acknowledge her mistakes and wrong doings and patiently explaining at every opportunity the rules of fair play.

"It is both cowardly and contemptible to let someone else be blamed for what you have done," he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah—you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. You'll find that is so."

So this morning, in the principal's office, Sarah remembered what Doctor Hugh had said. She wanted dreadfully to retreat into one of her obstinate, sulky silences, and refuse to answer questions. She was afraid—afraid of a severe scolding and the disgrace of a public expulsion. Her knees were wobbling, but she slipped to her feet and stood facing Mr. Oliver bravely.

"If you're going to expel me," she said clearly, "tell Hilda French I wanted her to have my pencil box."

And then the tears came.

She cried and cried and as she wept she told the story and though drawings of leaves and paint boxes and middy blouse pockets and snakes and paper weights seemed to be hopelessly mixed in her sobbing conversation, Mr. Oliver, in some miraculous fashion, pieced together the disconnected bits and declared that he understood perfectly. He loaned Sarah his extra clean handkerchief on which to dry her eyes, her own handkerchief being obviously employed, for she had laid the pathetic remains of the dead snake on his desk, and when she was more quiet he told her kindly that there was no question of expulsion.

"I don't know where you ever got such an idea," he said, smiling a little, and he looked so friendly and not at all angry, that Sarah even managed a faint, watery smile in response. "Boys and girls are never expelled from school except for very serious reasons. You've made a little mistake, that's all and I'll show you where you were wrong in just a minute. Sometimes we want our own way so much, we can't see how we can be wrong."

Sarah blushed a little, but nodded honestly.

"Well, you see, as soon as you found out that Miss Ames didn't like snakes in her class room, you should have stopped right there," said Mr. Oliver decidedly. "You disobeyed Miss Ames and all this trouble came from that. If she said her class room was no place for snakes and mice—you brought mice one day, didn't you?—that should have settled the question for you."

"But how will the children ever learn about snakes?" asked Sarah earnestly.

"They'll learn, if they are interested," answered Mr. Oliver. "You can't force anyone to adopt your likes and dislikes, you know, Sarah. Rosemary may like to sew and you may say you 'hate' to touch a needle, but do you make yourself into an ardent needlewoman, simply because Rosemary enjoys sewing? Don't you see? I'm afraid you'll have to give Miss Ames and me your promise that you will not bring any more snakes, alive or dead, or any other animal to school."

Sarah promised slowly, her eyes on the dead snake.

"He was such a lovely specimen," she mourned. "I s'pose maybe he was valuable."

"I tell you what to do, Sarah," said Mr. Oliver quickly. "You don't know Mr. Martin, do you? He teaches biology in the high school and I must take you up to his room some day and let you see the 'specimens' he has. He has a menagerie that fills one side of a large room. Whenever you find something you can't resist, you bring it here to me in the office and I'll turn it over to Mr. Martin. In that way your class room won't be upset and Mr. Martin will likely gain some valuable additions to his collection. Don't you think that is a good plan?"

Sarah said she thought it was, and then, as the noon bell rang throughout the building, Mr. Oliver shook hands with her and told her that if she ever needed advice or help to come directly to him. He promised, too, to speak to Miss Ames and tell her that no more snakes or other lively "specimens" would be brought into her room by Sarah. He opened the door for her and she was free.

She sped along the corridors, her snake in her hand again, but it was a far happier Sarah than the little girl who had walked slowly through them an hour and a half ago. Up to the lunch room dashed this Sarah, and startled Rosemary who was opening the lunch box at their corner table by her demand, "I have to bury a snake—will you come help me?"

Of course she had to tell what had happened that morning, and Rosemary and Shirley agreed that Mr. Oliver was "just as nice as nice could be."

"Though I do hope, Sarah, this will teach you to let snakes alone," said Rosemary in the elder-sister tone she rarely used. "You frightened Aunt Trudy into fits and now you've upset a whole class. No, don't show me that ugly little snake—I'm sorry he is dead because you are, but I don't want to see him; I couldn't eat a bit of lunch. Come on, and eat your sandwiches and then we will go down and bury him somewhere on the play-ground."

That night at dinner Rosemary had an announcement to make. Her eyes shining like stars and her face glowing, she declared that she had been appointed to plan and serve the dinner to be given by the grammar school teachers for the Institute visitors.

"Institute is the second week in November," bubbled Rosemary, "and there will be about ten visiting teachers from the towns within twenty-five miles. Miss Parsons says I'm the best cook in the class though Bessie Kent is older than I am and Fannie Mears had cooking last year."

"But can you cook a dinner?" asked Doctor Hugh. "Seems to me that's a pretty large order for a class of young girls and with visitors expected, too."

"Oh, we know just what to do," said Rosemary confidently. "I have to make out the menu and submit it to Miss Parsons by Friday of this week. And then I have to choose the girls I want to help me cook, and those to set and wait on the tables—this year we're going to have small tables instead of one large one. And we girls are to do every bit of the work ourselves!"

Aunt Trudy and Winnie beamed on Rosemary, sure that she would do well whatever she undertook, while Sarah demanded to know who the waitresses were to be.

"Well, Nina Edmonds for one," said Rosemary and the doctor frowned involuntarily. Although Nina seldom came to the house and he knew that Rosemary saw little of her outside of school, he could not help but see that her influence continued to be remarkably strong.

"Nina's an awful chump," declared Sarah who cordially disliked her and was in turn, disliked by Nina.

"She is not!" flared Rosemary. "And, Aunt Trudy she has the loveliest blue velvet dress. She says she can wear it under her apron and then, after dinner when we take our aprons off, she will look all right. Couldn't I wear my new brown velvet that night?"

"Why I don't know," replied Aunt Trudy uncertainly. "I don't think it would be very suitable, dear. What do you think, Hugh?"

"Don't know anything about clothes," he said shortly.

"You only want to wear it because Nina Edmonds is going to wear a velvet dress," commented Sarah shrewdly.

"It will be awfully hot," said Shirley with unexpected wisdom.

"Well, I'm going to wear it, if Aunt Trudy doesn't say not to," announced Rosemary, her chin in the air. "Though I'd give anything if I had some high heeled pumps to make me look taller. Honestly, Hugh, I'm about the only girl in our class who doesn't wear 'em."

He smiled at her pleasantly, but there was no yielding in his voice.

"When you're sixteen, if you still want them, I'll have nothing to say," he said. "Mother has said you are not to wear them until then, you know, and if I had my way no woman, sixteen or sixty, should teeter about in silly anguish. I can't help it if the girls are skipping five years, Rosemary; as I've often reminded you, the calendar says you are still a little girl."

Rosemary pouted a little, but she did not dare argue, the subject of high heeled shoes having been long one of her secret sorrows. She knew from experience that her brother would never consent to the purchase of a pair and though she mentioned them from time to time, it was without hope of converting him to her opinion.

She was in her room that night, collecting her cooking notes and recipes, in preparation for making out the important menu, when Winnie peeped in. The brown velvet dress lay on Rosemary's bed where she had spread it, the better to admire its charms. It was a new frock and so far she had worn it only twice. Simply made, with a square neck and a touch of ivory colored lace in the form of a vestee and at the bottom of the sleeves, it was the most becoming dress Rosemary had ever had. She knew it, too.

"There's just one thing I want to say to you, Rosemary," announced Winnie earnestly, "and that's this: you have got to make up your mind which is the more important—this dinner or your dress. Because cooking a good dinner takes all the brains a cook has—I ought to know. You can't be thinking about whether you're going to get a spot on your frock or whether the last hook is caught or left open. And if you're too warm, as you will be in a velvet dress in that hot kitchen and you all excited anyway, or if your feet hurt you, you're not going to be able to give your attention to what you are cooking. And I may not know much about teachers, but I imagine they're like anybody else—when they're hungry, a brown velvet dress won't make up to them for soggy potatoes and underdone meat. Miss Parsons is banking on you—likely as not she's told the teachers you're the best cook in the class, and if you serve up a poor dinner, do you suppose looking at your velvet dress is going to make her glad she trusted you? Of course you can suit yourself, and I'm not trying to influence you, because you're old enough to—"

Rosemary rushed at her and hugged her warmly.

"You're a dear, darling Winnie!" she cried affectionately. "I'll stop thinking about what I'm going to wear this minute, and go to work on what I'm going to cook. Miss Parsons hates fussy clothes, anyway, and I'll wear my white linen under my apron and be comfortable. Hugh thinks I'm silly to wear the velvet, I know he does."

"The velvet will keep," said Winnie tersely, "and I'll do up your white linen for you so that it will look like new."

But, left alone, Rosemary could not resist trying on the brown frock. She pinned her hair high, pushing it into a tower-effect with the aid of combs, and added a long string of red beads that almost touched the floor.

"I look so nice this way," she told the reflection in the glass, naively. "Why isn't it ever sensible to wear your best clothes when you expect to be busy?"

And that is a question older folk than Rosemary have asked, but, unlike her, they have learned the answer.



CHAPTER XVII

THE INSTITUTE DINNER

Rosemary early encountered the usual difficulties that beset the leader of any enterprise. The girls she selected to act as cooks wept because they were not appointed waitresses and those tolled off to serve at the tables were affronted because they had not been elected to cook.

"You're the general, Rosemary," said Miss Parsons, when rumors of dissatisfaction reached her. "Give your orders and see that they are obeyed. You are in absolute charge of this dinner and no one is to be allowed to dictate to you."

The Willis will and the Willis chin were good possessions to have in this crisis and gradually Rosemary managed to achieve something approaching harmony among her staff. Only Fannie Mears resolutely refused to be won over.

"I'm just as good a cook as you are," she said to Rosemary one afternoon, "and anyway, if I'm not, cooking isn't the most important thing in school." (Fannie, you see, wasn't exactly logical.) "I'll serve as a waitress," she went on "because I have a good deal of class feeling and I don't want the other grades to say we made a failure of our dinner. But I want you to know that I don't like it one single bit and I think you are anything but fair."

Despite such small troubles, Rosemary enjoyed her responsibility and as she was free from nervousness and had faith in her skill and ability, the prospective dinner, under her planning, took shape nicely and gave every evidence of being a success. Nina Edmonds was in charge of the tables and waitresses and as she really knew how to lay the service correctly and had clever ideas for decorating, Rosemary was sure the dining room would present an attractive appearance.

She went home early the day the dinner was to be given, to dress, and found everything carefully arranged on her bed by Winnie who had devoted half a day to the laundering of the white frock and cleaning the white shoes. There was no school Institute Day, but Rosemary, of course, had been busy all day, preparing for the dinner to follow the close of the meetings.

"You look like my girl," said Doctor Hugh, kissing her when she came down to the hall and found him waiting. "I thought I'd run you over to the school—you don't want to get tired out before the evening has begun, you know. And what time do you think the fireworks will be over? Do you have to stay after dinner is safely eaten?"

"No, Miss Parsons has three women who are coming in to clear up for us," answered Rosemary. "Usually we have to wash our own dishes, that is, after every cooking lesson; but Miss Parsons said as soon as the dining room was cleared, we might go, unless we want to attend the reception in the gym. Jack said he might come and if he does he'll bring me home."

"There'll be no if about it," announced the doctor decidedly. "I'll drop in around half-past nine and bring you home in the car. If I'm a bit later, you wait for me in the gym and then I'll know where to find you."

Aunt Trudy and Winnie and Shirley and Sarah crowded to the door to watch Rosemary off, in the dear way of loving families who would send those they love off on always successful expeditions, and as the doctor helped her into the roadster, Jack Welles came up, still in football togs, for he had been practising.

"To-night's the big night, isn't it?" he asked, smiling. "You're going to stay for the reception, aren't you, Rosemary? And we can walk home together."

"Hugh's coming for me in the car," said Rosemary. "I wasn't sure you were going, Jack."

"Well I told you I was," retorted Jack. "I thought, living next door to you, I could save Hugh an extra trip."

"You come home with us, and we'll save you a walk," suggested the doctor, touching the starter, and Jack shouted after them that he would.

"What made you say that?" demanded Rosemary, flushing with vexation.

"Why not?" countered her brother. "Jack's a good friend, Rosemary, isn't he?"

"Of course he is," said Rosemary warmly, "But, oh, well, you wouldn't understand, because you're not a girl. He did say he was going to the reception, but I would much rather ride home with you; and now he'll know I know he said he was going, and if you hadn't asked him he might think I wasn't sure he had said so."

"You may know what you are talking about, but I don't," declared her bewildered brother. "However, as you wisely observe, I am not a girl and perhaps that accounts for my dullness. Here we are at the school, and whatever you do, Rosemary, don't fail to give them enough. Anything but a sliver of chicken and a cube of potato for a hungry man, remember."

Rosemary laughed, and ran up the path to the lighted door. The corridors were deserted, though the sound of music came from the auditorium, where the teachers were meeting. Upstairs the kitchen and the lunch room, which was to serve as dining room, were ablaze with light and girls in white caps and aprons were rushing about, giggling excitedly and getting in each other's way.

"Oh, Rosemary!" Nina Edmonds pounced upon her at once. "Come and see if the tables don't look pretty. Did you wear your brown velvet?" she added in a lower tone.

Rosemary shook her head.

"White linen," she stated briefly. "I can't bother about clothes to-night, Nina. I want to put the soup on to re-heat right away."

Nina insisted that she must see the tables first and they did look pretty, with a vase of yellow "button" chrysanthemums in the center of each and yellow ribbons running from the bouquet to the place cards.

"Rosemary," Miss Parsons beckoned to her, "I just tasted the soup and it is delicious, but I think a grain more of salt will improve it. Just a dash, dear, and if you're afraid of getting too much in, don't touch it. Everything going all right?"

"All right," nodded Rosemary, forbearing to mention that Fannie Mears refused to speak to her and was evidently cherishing a smoldering resentment that might burst into flame at an awkward moment. Two of the girls were limping about in high heeled shoes and these must be shielded from the critical eye and caustic tongue of the cooking teacher, lest they become temperamental and refuse to "wait" at all. Assuredly Rosemary had her hands full.

She went into the kitchen, tasted the soup and salted it carefully. It was rich and smooth and Rosemary felt that when the time came to ladle it into the cups she would have every right to be proud of her ability, for she alone had made the soup, the other girls fearing the mysterious "curdling" that sometimes spoiled their product.

Just before serving time, Miss Parsons called her for a whispered consultation as to the seating of a special guest and when Rosemary returned to the kitchen, she found the trays of soup cups ready on the table. While she and two other girls filled them, the teachers were coming into the dining room and finding their places by means of the prettily lettered cards. By the time all were seated, seven young waitresses were filing into the room, bearing in their hands the trays of steaming soup.

They made a pretty picture and the guests smiled graciously as the cups of thick cream soup, each with four delicately browned croutons swimming on the top, were placed before them. The girls returned to the kitchen as soon as all were served, for Miss Parsons had instructed Rosemary to have them help her with the dishes for the next course instead of waiting around the room for the guests to finish.

Rosemary had decided to have a simple, hearty dinner, since the weather was cold and many of the teachers would have a long ride to reach their homes that night. So individual chicken pies, baked potatoes and a corn pudding were to follow the soup, the young cook having wisely determined to omit any extra frills that would add to the difficulties of serving.

"Nobody's touched the soup!" reported Nina Edmonds, who was the first to return with her tray, when the buzzer under Miss Parson's chair sounded the signal in the kitchen that it was time to remove the first course.

"Nobody touched it!" echoed Rosemary in alarm. "Let me see!"

She hurried around the table to inspect Nina's tray. Sure enough, six little cups, still filled with soup, were there.

"Say, something's the matter with the soup," said Bessie Kent in a shrill whisper as she came in with her tray. "They didn't eat it—see, all the cups are full."

"Did Miss Parsons say anything?" asked Rosemary, staring at the trays which now surrounded her. "How does she look?"

"Kind of queer," answered Fannie Mears, breaking her silence. "She must feel funny, with all those folks sitting and looking at their soup and not eating it."

"You hush up!" said Bessie Kent rudely. "There's the buzzer. Come on, girls, we'd better hustle."

In a daze Rosemary saw to it that the trays were filled again, but she took no pride in the beautifully browned pies, the fragrant corn pudding or the glistening potatoes wrapped in snowy napkins. Her dinner, she was sure, was ruined. She wanted to run home and cry where no one would see her, but instead she saw to it that each girl had what she needed on her tray. Then, when her two assistants were arranging the forks and plates for the salads, Rosemary slipped over to the table where she had put the soup kettle and tasted the contents.

Salt! The soup was so thick with salt that she choked. Rich and thick and smooth, what did it matter the texture or flavor, since only one overpowering taste was present—that of salt.

"How could it get like that!" puzzled Rosemary as she drank a glass of water. "I tasted it just before we served it and it was fine. What on earth must Miss Parsons be thinking of me!"

Empty plates were carried back to the kitchen next time, and word reached the young cooks that the pies were "wonderful" or "simply great"—this last the expressed opinion of Mr. Oliver—and the fruit salad met with an equally hearty reception. But not even the evident enthusiastic approval which greeted the delicious ice-cream and cake and perfect coffee which concluded the dinner, could compensate Rosemary for her earlier mortification. When the meal was over and the guests had gone down to the gymnasium for the reception and the other girls had shed their aprons and followed, Nina too eager to display the blue velvet frock to wait for Rosemary who insisted there were several things she had to attend to, then she felt she might cry a little for the first time in that long evening.

"Rosemary, my dear child, what is the matter?" Miss Parsons bustled in, followed by the three elderly women who were to wash the dishes. "Are you tired out? Was the dinner too much work?"

"The soup!" choked Rosemary. "Nobody could eat it. And I took such pains with it."

"Well, I was sorry afterward that I told you to salt it again," said Miss Parsons regretfully. "I suppose you were nervous and added too much. But don't let that grieve you dear. The rest of the dinner was perfectly delicious and you should hear what people are saying about you. I want you to come down to the gymnasium now and meet some of the teachers."

"Miss Parsons, I didn't over-salt the soup," protested Rosemary earnestly. "I tasted it before and added just a dash as you told me; and then I tasted it again, and it was all right. I know I didn't put in too much salt."

"Oh, nonsense, Rosemary, you were excited, that's all," said Miss Parsons briskly. "Any one is likely to make a mistake when she has a good deal on her mind. Don't give it another thought, and if you do, just remember it is a warning against the next time. I like to think that every mistake we make keeps us from running into danger some other time when the results might be more serious."

Rosemary followed her teacher down to the gymnasium, but she only half heard the introductions that followed and the kind comments on her skill in cooking. She was wondering how she could convince Miss Parsons that she had never put all that salt into her soup.

"Why it tasted as though a whole box of salt had just been thrown into it," said Rosemary to herself, standing near a window to watch for Doctor Hugh and the car. "I don't care how much any one has on her mind, no one puts a whole box of salt into a soup kettle!"

And the voices of a group of girls, going home early, floated up to her.

"She says she didn't do it," said one of them, and Rosemary could not identify the speaker though the tone sounded familiar. "But if it had been good I'll bet she would have taken all the credit. They say it was fairly briny, it was so salty!"

Rosemary flushed scarlet. It wasn't fair!

"For I didn't, I didn't, I know I didn't!" she declared, sitting between Doctor Hugh and Jack that night as they sped home in the car. "I'm just as sure as I can be that I didn't make a mistake—why I tasted it afterward and it was delicious."

"Well, if you didn't over-salt it, who did?" asked Jack practically.

"I don't know," admitted Rosemary. "I could cry when I think of it."

"I wouldn't do that," said her brother, turning in at their driveway. "How about making us a chicken pie for Sunday dinner, Rosemary, and asking Jack over to sample it?"

"I'll make it," agreed Rosemary, "but just the same I want to know who salted my soup."



CHAPTER XVIII

SHIRLEY IN MISCHIEF

The chicken pie was a wonderful success, so Doctor Hugh and Jack assured Rosemary at the Sunday dinner, but the mystery of the over-salted soup seemed destined to remain unsolved. Miss Parsons never mentioned it again and Rosemary herself might have forgotten it more readily except for several ill-natured references by Fannie Mears whenever the Institute dinner was spoken of. Fannie and Rosemary did not get along very well together and this was, in one way, odd, because Fannie and Nina Edmonds were apparently most congenial. They usually ate their lunches together, but Rosemary chose to be with Sarah and Shirley and their corner table was usually crowded with younger girls who adored Rosemary openly.

The brief Thanksgiving holidays—with no school from Thursday to Monday—brought the Willis family a more sincere appreciation of their blessings than ever before. A short note from the little mother lay beside each plate on Thanksgiving Day morning, and Winnie kept one hand on hers tucked in her apron pocket even when she served the golden brown waffles. When Aunt Trudy asked who would go to church with her, Doctor Hugh answered for them all.

"We'll please Mother," he said simply, and after the service he packed the three girls into the little roadster and carried them off for a long cold ride that gave them famous appetites for Winnie's dinner.

Doctor Hugh's practice was growing to include a wide radius of countryside and the "young doctor" was gaining a name as one never "too busy" to answer a country call. Doctor Jordan had prolonged his vacation till late in October and then had returned to Eastshore just long enough to sell his practice, office and instruments to his young colleague and set off on a leisurely trip to California, a luxury well earned after years of sacrificing service. Doctor Hugh still retained the Jordan office, while seeing an increasing number of patients at his home within fixed hours.

His office had a great attraction for Shirley, and Rosemary had discovered her one afternoon standing on a chair and calmly smelling the rows of bottles that stood on the cabinet shelf, one after the other. The shining instruments, in their glass racks, had a fascination all their own for the small girl and she declared that she intended to be a doctor when she grew up.

"All right, and I'll take you into practice with me," Doctor Hugh promised, having surprised her in a hurried investigation of his medicine case. "But leave all these things alone, until you are ready to study medicine. Don't come in the office when I'm not here, Shirley; you'll hurt yourself some day, if you are not careful."

But Shirley was possessed with the idea that she would like to be a doctor. She begged and carefully treasured all the empty bottles and pill boxes she could gather; she demanded a knife for "operations" and was highly indignant when Winnie gave her a pair of blunt scissors and told her they would have to do; usually tender-hearted, she drew the wrath of Sarah by declaring that she would like to cut off a rabbit's leg, "just like a doctor."

"I think you're a cruel, cold-blooded girl!" stormed Sarah. "Cut off a rabbit's foot indeed! Why don't you cut off your own foot and see how it feels?"

"Oh, Shirley just says that," Rosemary tried to soothe her outraged sister. "She wouldn't hurt a rabbit any more than you would, Sarah. You know that. But you've gone without dessert twice for meddling with Hugh's things, Shirley, and you did promise to remember after the last time, you know."

Shirley, deprived of pudding and charlotte, was grieved and penitent, but her memory was resilient and the day after Thanksgiving temptation assailed her again. Winnie had gone to carry a pie to an old neighbor several blocks away, Sarah was out playing with a school chum and Rosemary and Aunt Trudy were deep in the discussion of new curtains for the former's room. Shirley was left to amuse herself and her small feet carried her to the empty office.

"Jennie needs an operation," whispered Shirley, her dancing eyes roving toward the desk.

As luck would have it, a curved scalpel lay there in plain view. Ordinarily it would have been locked up safely, but Doctor Hugh, hurriedly selecting his choice of instruments that morning, had not bothered to replace it in the rack. Shirley went over to the desk, picked up the shining silver thing and carefully put it down.

"I'll go get Jennie," she said to herself. "She's very, very bad this morning, and I ought to 'tend to her right away."

Upstairs she trotted, past Aunt Trudy's room and on to her room and Sarah's where she rescued Jennie from under the bed.

"What are you doing, honey?" called Rosemary, as Shirley passed the door again on her way down stairs.

"Playing with Jennie," was the wholly satisfactory answer.

"I think she plays better by herself than with Sarah," announced Aunt Trudy. "Sarah is so apt to lead her into mischief. Would you rather have a hem-stitched hem or ruffles, Rosemary?"

Back in the office, Shirley wasted no time in planning what to do. She knew exactly how to proceed. Jennie was placed on the desk and Shirley climbed into the swivel chair and grasped the scalpel. The "operation" was to be performed on Jennie's arm, she, as a celluloid doll, possessing an odd ridge in her anatomy that had always puzzled Shirley. What made the ridge and what the inside of Jennie looked like, were two questions that young doctor was determined to have settled.

Jennie proved unexpectedly difficult to cut. Shirley stuck out her tongue in her anxiety and breathed hard as she tried to drive the scalpel in. It slipped suddenly, the chair tilted and the curved shining blade cut a cruel gash in the little hand holding it so tightly.

Pain, fright and a guilty conscience were blended in Shirley's scream. Rosemary came rushing down, followed by Aunt Trudy who added her cries to the child's when she saw her doubled up on the floor, rocking back and forth and calling for Rosemary.

"Are you hurt, darling? What's the matter? Tell Auntie," begged Aunt Trudy bending over the little girl.

"I cut my hand!" Shirley straightened up and Aunt Trudy caught a glimpse of the bleeding hand and the front of the child's blouse all stained where she had held it.

The sight of blood always unnerved Aunt Trudy. She shrieked now and covered her eyes with her hands.

"I can't look at it—I'll faint, I know I shall!" she cried. "Shirley will bleed to death, Rosemary. She has an awful cut. What shall we do! What shall we do!"

The terrified Shirley began to scream more loudly and Aunt Trudy walked up and down the floor moaning that it was awful!

"I'll get Hugh!" Rosemary flew to the desk 'phone.

She had heard him say where he meant to make a call and she hoped desperately that he might be at that house or that she might be able to leave a message for him if he had not yet arrived. But the doctor had "come and gone" Mrs. Jackson said. He was going to stop at the Winters, he said. Yes, they had a telephone.

Three more numbers Rosemary called, before she gained a ray of comfort. At the fourth farmhouse the farmer's wife said that the doctor was expected back in twenty minutes with a new brace he had wanted them to try for their son's foot. He had offered to bring it to them from the post-office because her husband was sick himself with a cold—

Rosemary managed to check the good woman's flow of conversation and to ask her to tell Doctor Hugh that he was wanted at home, when he came. Shirley, tell him, had cut her hand.

Shirley's cries, subdued while Rosemary talked over the 'phone, burst out again as the receiver clicked in place.

"Oh, dearest, hush!" implored Rosemary. "It doesn't hurt you so very much, does it? Can't you be quiet till Hugh comes and makes you all well?"

"It bleeds and bleeds," screamed Shirley, and Aunt Trudy groaned that the child would bleed to death before their eyes.

"I'll wash it and bind it up myself," declared Rosemary, distracted by the noise and confusion. "I don't know anything about such things, but I think I can make it stop bleeding."

"I can't help you," said Aunt Trudy hastily. "I faint the minute I see blood. My knees are weak now. Don't ask me to hold her, will you, Rosemary?"

"I won't," promised Rosemary, biting her lower lip to keep it from trembling. "I can take care of her, I know I can. Hugh keeps bandages in this lower drawer and Winnie always has hot water in the tea-kettle."

Aunt Trudy frankly ran from the room when Rosemary returned from the kitchen with a basin of warm water and arranged a package of gauze and the scissors on the glass topped table between the windows.

"I can't stay—I simply can not stay," she stammered and ran upstairs to lie on her bed with her fingers in her ears.

Her going was rather a relief to Rosemary who was sure she would be less nervous and shaky herself with her aunt out of the room. But before she had finished with Shirley she was ready to admit that the mere presence of a third person would have been some comfort, however cold.

For Shirley shrieked protestingly when Rosemary approached her to carry her over to the table. She fought off all attempts to look at her hand. And when Rosemary forced her to yield and gently plunged the poor little hand into the basin of water which was promptly stained deep scarlet, Shirley, sure she was bleeding to death, pulled away and ran for the door.

"Oh, darling, don't act this way," begged Rosemary, catching her and holding her close. "Be a brave little girl and let sister wrap the hand for you; it isn't such a bad cut, dear, and after we have washed off the blood, there'll be nothing to be afraid of."

But Shirley continued to sob and squirm all the while Rosemary cut and wound the gauze about her hand. As nearly as the inexperienced Rosemary could tell, the cut was not serious though it was ugly to see. Just as she fastened the tiny safety pin in place and was ready to pronounce her bandaging done, the familiar two honks of the car sounded outside.

"Oh, Hugh, I never was so glad to see you in my life!" exclaimed Rosemary, as the doctor appeared in the doorway. "Shirley cut her hand and she screamed and screamed and Aunt Trudy cried and it was awful."

"Must have been," said Doctor Hugh briefly. "Let's see the cut."

Shirley, exhausted from crying and struggling, made a feeble attempt to put her hand behind her, but the doctor held her firmly between his knees and inspected the bandage.

"Pretty neat job," he said approvingly.

Shirley began to cry again as he unwound the gauze and when he asked Rosemary to hand him a certain bottle and pour some of its contents on the cut, the little girl's shrieks of pain were heart-rending. Rosemary watched in amazement as her brother calmly dressed the cut with fresh gauze and then, when he had finished, gathered Shirley up in his arms to soothe her gently.

"She'll go to sleep in a minute," he said quietly. "She's worn out with crying. How did it happen?"

Shirley heard him and half raised herself in his arms.

"I was going to operate on Jennie," she sobbed. "And the nasty knife cut me. But I won't ever touch anything again, Hugh. Honest, I won't."

In a few minutes she was sound asleep, and the doctor placed her on the couch in one corner of the room and covered her with a light blanket.

"Had a tough time, didn't you, Rosemary?" he said understandingly, glancing from the basin on the table to Rosemary's tired face. "Nobody home to help you and Aunt Trudy screaming louder than Shirley I'll bet. I remember Aunt Trudy in hysterics when I came home from school with a black eye one day."

"Well, I felt like screaming, too," admitted Rosemary, "the blood did make me a little sick. But then there would have been no one to look after Shirley. I did the best I could, but I'm a poor nurse, Hugh."

"You never lose your head and that's the first rule for a good nurse," said her brother. "Many a girl would never have thought of trying to follow me up on the 'phone. And that was a mighty neat bandage you did, child. You ought to learn first-aid, Rosemary. Every girl should know what to do in an emergency or accident. I'll teach you, if you like."

Rosemary was wise enough to accept his offer and her first-aid lessons began that week, for Doctor Hugh did not believe in postponement. He was determined, though he did not say to his sister, to "make hysterics difficult" under any circumstances and especially in a household emergency.



CHAPTER XIX

BUCKING THE STUDENT COUNCIL

Early December brought cold weather in its train and unusually heavy snows. Householders were kept busy shoveling walks clean and the boys and girls reveled in plenty of coasting. Sarah was invariably late for supper these days and no amount of scolding from Winnie, or pleading from Aunt Trudy, could induce her to desert the hill as long as a single coaster remained to keep her company. Finally Doctor Hugh devised a plan of going around that way before he came home and, if Sarah were there, picking her and the sled up bodily and bestowing them in the car.

"I'll bet I know something you don't," said Fannie Mears one noon, coming over with Nina Edmonds to sit at the corner table with Rosemary in bland indifference to scowls from Sarah and sighs from Shirley.

Fannie Mears and Rosemary were not close friends at all, and the latter was surprised at the overture. But she hospitably swept part of the lunch aside to make room for the visitors and offered them a couple of Winnie's delicious egg sandwiches.

"Thanks, we have enough," said Fannie. "Have you heard what the boys are going to do?"

"Boys" with Fannie, meant the high school lads as Rosemary immediately understood. The boys in the seventh grade failed to interest either Fannie or Nina.

"No, what?" answered Sarah bluntly, in blissful ignorance that she was not supposed to be included in the conversation.

"The Common Council has asked 'em to clean off the streets," announced Fannie, addressing herself to Rosemary, "and Jack Welles is going to make himself awfully unpopular, if he isn't careful."

"Clean off the streets?" repeated Rosemary. "Why what do you mean?"

"There's been so many storms, they haven't been able to keep some of the streets clear of snow," explained Nina, biting into a cup cake, for Nina lunched almost exclusively on cake. "They've had gangs of men working, but before they get one snow carted away, another falls. And now the Common Council has decided to ask the high school boys to work after school. My father is a Councilman, and he told us all about the last meeting. They'll pay the boys and it will be a regular lark."

"Yes, if Jack Welles doesn't go and spoil everything," said Fannie darkly.

"How can he spoil everything?" Rosemary demanded.

She had not seen Jack so often once the school year was well under way. Football practice had absorbed him during the early fall and later came basketball. Other school and class activities, too, claimed his attention, for Jack was popular and a good student as well. He was president of his class, the Sophomores, and had that year been appointed Student Advisor to the grammar school boys.

"How can Jack spoil things?" repeated Rosemary.

Fannie leaned across the table—she dearly loved to be important and now she had something to tell.

"It's like this," she began. "My brother told me. The Student Council had a letter from the Eastshore Common Council, saying they wanted volunteer snow workers among the high school boys. And the S. C. called the presidents of the four classes together and told them to go ahead and get the workers, twelve from each class."

Fannie stopped and looked at Rosemary expectantly. Sarah's mouth was wide open and she was listening eagerly. Shirley had wandered away to play.

"Well?" said Rosemary sharply.

"Well," echoed Fannie disagreeably. "The boys made out their lists and when Jack read his he had asked the two Gordon boys, Jerry and Fred, and Eustice Gray and Norman Cox and Ben Kelsey. And Will says the president of the Student Council was simply furious."

Rosemary began to fold up the napkins and put them back in the box. Will Mears was Fannie's brother and the other boys she knew only by sight.

"Why was Frank Fenton furious?" asked Sarah, delighting in the sound of the three F's, though quite unconscious she had used them.

"Oh, do be still!" Fannie tried to squelch the younger girl. "Frank was mad, of course, because the S. C. counted on having all the snow money for the dramatic fund. They want to put on a play this spring and Will says they haven't a cent in the treasury. And now Jack Welles goes and spoils a perfectly splendid chance to earn a lot of money."

"That's the third or fourth time you've said that about Jack," cried Rosemary, stung into speech at last. "What has he done to spoil anything? I don't see."

"Why I should think you would," said Fannie, while Nina nodded sagely. "The Gordon boys and Eustice and Norman and Ben are as poor as can be; they want the money for themselves, and Will says they jumped at the chance to earn it. Don't you see, it will keep that much out of the dramatic fund, and Jack could just as well have appointed boys who could have been glad to turn over the money to the school. Will calls it a disgusting lack of class spirit."

Rosemary's blue eyes snapped and fire burned in her cheeks.

"There's nothing the matter with Jack Welles' class spirit, Fannie Mears!" she cried. "I should think you would be ashamed to repeat anything like that, I don't care who said it."

"Well I'm not the only one who said it, or Will, either," declared Fannie, rising as the warning bell sounded. "The president of the Student Council told him what he thought of him, all right."

Inwardly seething, Rosemary managed to get away to her class room without further argument. She had never liked Fannie Mears, she told herself and now she almost hated her. As for Will Mears, president of the High School Juniors, well he wasn't a bit better. What a disagreeable family the Mears must be!

It was cooking class day, and Rosemary stayed almost an hour after school that night, "puttering" as Miss Parsons called it, about the school kitchen. Sarah and Shirley went home without her, and she was walking briskly along alone, tramping hardily through the snow late that afternoon, when Jack Welles overtook her.

"How's the soup?" he asked cheerfully, that being a stock question of his ever since the fateful Institute dinner.

"How's the Student Council?" asked Rosemary.

Jack's open face changed.

"What do you know about the Student Council?" he said gruffly.

"Oh, I heard—something," replied Rosemary. "Was Frank Fenton unfair, Jack?"

"Well, he doesn't think so," said Jack, "I suppose you girls have been gossiping and you might as well get the story straight," he added.

Rosemary nodded eagerly.

"I hope the Gray boys and the others will shovel snow," she cried impulsively. "I don't give a fig for the old dramatic fund, Jack."

"I do," said Jack. "It's all right to turn the snow money into the fund and I've nothing to say against that. But when the Student Council kicks because five boys out of forty-eight want to keep what they earn, and they know they are putting themselves through school, I think it shows a contemptible, small spirit and I told Frank so to-night. You see, Rosemary," he went on a little more calmly, "there aren't a whole lot of ways a boy can earn money and go to school in a small town like this—nearly everyone tends to his own fires and sweeps off his own walks and runs his own errands. If we hadn't had one snow storm after another, there wouldn't have been this chance. And I purposely appointed these five boys because I know what they are up against. And by gum," he said forcibly if inelegantly, "on my squad they stay!"

"But can't the Student Council make you back down and appoint others?" asked Rosemary, glowing with excitement. "I thought the S. C. could do anything in high school, Jack."

"They are pretty powerful," her companion admitted, "but they don't dare carry this to the faculty, because they'll look so small and Eustice Gray is in the direct line for one of the college scholarships. Every teacher on the faculty staff will stand by the boys—they're all fine students and making a stiff fight to get through school. You don't suppose Mr. Hamlin is going to think the dramatic fund is more important than shoes for Norman Cox, do you?"

Mr. Hamlin was the principal of the high school.

"But it can't be very pleasant for the boys," urged Rosemary, troubled.

"You've said it," confessed Jack gloomily. "I had a second fight there, for after the fellows heard the Student Council was raising a rumpus, they said they would get off my team and let others take their places. Norman said he guessed they could get independent jobs shoveling snow after school hours."

"Could they?" asked Rosemary.

"I suppose they could, but they won't if I have anything to say about it," declared Jack with what Doctor Hugh called his "bull-dog" expression. "I was told to appoint a snow cleaning team and I've done it, and by gum my nominations stand. If the Student Council doesn't like 'em, they can appeal to the faculty—and they'll get what's coming to them! The town Council doesn't give a hoot where the money goes, all they want is to have the snow cleaned away. I told the fellows if they walked out, they made me just five short, for I wouldn't appoint anyone in their places. If they want to see the Sophomore class fall down on the job, all right. You watch my twelve names go through!"

Rosemary watched. So did all the high and half the grammar school, for word of the dispute, variously colored to suit different informants, had been noised around and the only persons in actual ignorance of the state of affairs were the high school faculty. The Student Council was desperately anxious that they should remain in that state, for there had been one or two previous clashes over the relative importance of the dramatic fund, and the members of the council had no wish to be accused of "forcing" any unfair demands. So, as Jack had foreseen, his nominations were allowed to stand and the next afternoon, forty-eight laughing, shouting boys reported to Bill McCormack, bluff and kindly member of the Eastshore Common Council who would, in a larger municipality, have been called "Streets and Highways Commissioner" or by similar sonorous title.

But before the boys met "Bill" in front of the town hall, the president of the Student Council, Frank Fenton, and Will Mears, president of the Junior class, had held a conference with Mr. Edmonds, the most influential member, some said, next to the president, Cameron Jordan, a cousin of the old and respected physician. The result of this conference was that Bill McCormack held in his fat, red hands a sheaf of papers which allotted the streets to the four classes and took the decision quite away from him.

"I was told to give these papers to the heads of the gangs," said Mr. McCormack, smiling expansively. "Here ye are—Senior, Junior, Sophomore, Freshman—them's your working papers, me lads, and now off with ye; the shovels ye'll be finding in the basement of the hall."

Jack Welles glanced at the slip of paper handed him, folded it up and stuffed it in his pocket. As soon as his "gang" was fitted out with snow shovels, he marched them away in the wake of one of the lumbering wagons that was to carry the snow off to a vacant field on the outskirts of the town.

"What did we draw, Jack?" asked Norman Cox curiously.

"Plummers Lane," said Jack laconically.

Plummers Lane, was the nearest approach to a "slumming section" that Eastshore possessed. The idle, the shiftless and the vicious congregated there, living in tumbled down shacks in the winter and the middle of the streets, in summer. There were two factories, one a novelty works, the other a canning and candy factory and the "dump lot" bounded the Lane on the north and the jail on the south. Altogether it was not the choicest portion which could fall to the lot of the young snow cleaners.

"It's enough to make you want to resign from the dramatic club!" exclaimed Kenneth Vail, who, in common with the other boys, labored under no delusion that chance fortune had sent them to Plummers Lane.

"If you had only put some one else in my place—" began Eustice Gray uncomfortably, but seven voices immediately shouted to him, in friendly chorus to "dry up."

"We'll make Plummers Lane look sick," declared Jack. "From the looks of it, I don't think there's been a shovel down here since the first snow. If the S. C. thinks they have marked more off for us than we can clean up, we'll show them! Here goes for the first shovel—out of the way, Mike!"

The grinning driver reined in his team and dodged as Jack hurled a heavy shovelful over the side of the cart. The other boys followed suit and twelve strong, sturdy backs bent to their task. The population of Plummers Lane, that part of it visible by day, draped itself along the curb to watch operations and hand out advice, but any more practical help was not offered or expected.



CHAPTER XX

DRESSMAKER ROSEMARY

"I'm an old man," announced Jack Welles that night, dropping into a chair in Doctor Hugh's office, while he waited for the latter to prepare a bottle of medicine for his father's cough.

"Back broken, I suppose?" suggested the doctor cheerfully. "The first ten years are always the hardest, my boy."

Jack groaned and Rosemary, patiently holding a bleary-eyed cat for Sarah, looked at him anxiously.

"Ten years!" complained Jack. "Another afternoon like this and I won't live to see ten years. Ye gods, who would have thought a little snow shoveling could break me up like this!"

"You're out of practice," replied the doctor, busily writing a label. "Don't try to clean all the streets in one day, Jack; I came through Main street to-night and I must say the boys have made a good job of it, though, of course, it was fairly well tramped down. It's the side streets that are blocked. Where are you working?"

"Plummers Lane," said Jack dryly. "The Juniors have uptown and Main street. We're providing a side show for the unemployed and if we don't get any fun out of our job, they at least can laugh their heads off."

"I told Hugh about the Student Council and the way they acted," said Rosemary hotly. "Don't you think they are too hateful for anything, Hugh?"

The doctor looked at Jack who managed a grin.

"Jack isn't hurt yet," said Doctor Hugh, smiling, "and I don't know but digging out Plummers Lane is a man-sized job and one to be proud of. Certainly if you get the streets in passable condition so that we don't have to carry a sick woman through snow drifts to get her to the ambulance—which happened last week—you'll have the thanks of the doctors if not of the Student Council."

"We're going to stick," declared Jack, taking the bottle the doctor held out to him. "If there should ever be a fire down there, with the snow piled over the hydrants and kerosene oil cans mixed up with packing boxes and kindling wood in the front yards, after the happy-go-lucky housekeeping methods followed by Plummers Lane housekeepers, I should say three blocks would go like tinder. Bill McCormack was down to see us, just as we were knocking off, and he was pleased as Punch at what we'd done."

"I'm coming down to see you," announced Rosemary.

"So 'm I," cried Sarah. "I can shovel snow, too."

"Come on, if you want to," said Jack, "but don't expect us to have much time to talk to you. We're being paid by the hour and business is business."

He went off whistling, leaving Rosemary with an odd expression on her face. It was the first time Jack had ever hinted he could possibly be too busy to talk to her.

"Hugh," she said seriously, when the doctor had prescribed for Sarah's sick pussy cat and the anxious mistress had gone off to tuck the patient in bed down cellar. "Hugh, couldn't I take hot coffee and doughnuts to the boys while they are working in the snow afternoons? I know they must get hungry and it is so cold and windy down Plummers Lane—the wind comes across the marsh."

"Go ahead," her brother encouraged her. "Get Sarah to help you. I imagine Jack is having a tough time and he'll appreciate a little unspoken sympathy. I'll give you a testimonial for your coffee, Rosemary, if you think you need one; where are the doughnuts coming from?"

"They're all made, a stone crock full," dimpled Rosemary. "That was what made me think of doing it. We'll come home from school and get the big tin pail with the lid and a pan of doughnuts. But I can't carry twelve cups."

"Paper ones will do," the doctor assured her. "The boys will gulp the coffee before it can possibly seep through. Make Sarah do her share, and don't stay late, either one of you."

The next afternoon, as Jack straightened his aching back to answer the questions of Frank Fenton, who was serving as time-keeper for the four squads, he looked across the street and saw two little figures who waved gloved hands at him and beckoned in a mysterious manner.

"Isn't that Rosemary Willis?" asked Frank, "stunning kid, isn't she?"

Rosemary, rosy from the cold and with her eyes dark and starry, left Sarah on the curb and crossed over.

"Oh, Jack," she began before she reached him, "Sarah and I have brought you some hot coffee and doughnuts. There's enough for everyone."

Frank had his data, but he still lingered, and the other boys at Jack's shout, crowded around. Rosemary knew most of them and Jack hurriedly performed the few necessary introductions leaving Frank till the last. Norman Cox and Eustice Gray had hastened across the street and returned with Sarah and the supplies just as Jack said, "Rosemary, this is Frank Fenton."

"He can't have any," said Sarah with blunt distinctness.

Rosemary flushed scarlet and then, with the quickness characteristic of her, jerked the lid from the coffee can and filled one of the paper cups with the steamy, fragrant, liquid.

"Please," she said gravely, holding it out to the astonished president of the Student Council. "The sugar and cream are already in. And these are fresh doughnuts."

Mechanically Frank drank the hot coffee and ate a doughnut, while Rosemary poured out the remainder of the coffee and Jack passed the cups around, Sarah serving the doughnuts.

"That is the best coffee I ever drank," declared Frank, when he had finished. "And now, couldn't I take you home? I have my car down the street a ways and I go right past your house."

Jack choked over his coffee, but Rosemary thanked the senior politely and said that she and Sarah had planned to stay and watch the shovelers a while.

"This isn't a very nice neighborhood, especially after dark you know," said Frank.

"We're not going to stay long," Rosemary was beginning, but Jack cut her short.

"I live next door to Rosemary, and I'll see that she and Sarah get home all right," he said brusquely. "I know all about Plummers Lane, too, Frank."

The Student Council president lifted his cap and went back to his car.

"I don't like him," said Sarah decidedly.

"I shouldn't wonder if he was faintly aware of your dislike," grinned Jack. "Any more coffee left, Rosemary? You certainly had a bright idea when you thought of this."

Rosemary and Sarah were more than repaid for their long, cold walk, by the evident pleasure the boys took in their warm drink and the two fat doughnuts apiece they had brought them. They knocked off work fifteen or twenty minutes earlier in order to see the girls home before dark, but the next afternoon the doctor's car came and picked up the sisters and the empty coffee can so that the workers lost no time.

For nearly a week, the boys shoveled steadily after school hours, sticking to the job long after the first novelty had worn away. Bill McCormack declared that they were the best "gang" he had ever hired and the Plummers Lane residents ceased to regard them as a joke and began to exchange sociable comments and quips with them, though never descending to the plane of familiarity that included a shovel. Rosemary and Sarah, and now and then Shirley, carried coffee and doughnuts, or hot cocoa and cakes, each afternoon and Doctor Hugh willingly stopped for them in his car. Even the weather ceased to consent to co-operate for after one heavy snow, it cleared and the streets made passable, remained that way till after Christmas.

The most important subject of discussion in the Willis household, along the lines of Christmas preparations, was the box to be sent the little mother in the sanatorium.

"I think we ought to make her something!" announced Rosemary.

"Well, what?" asked Sarah. "I most know she'd love to have one of Tootles' kittens, but I don't suppose we could mail that, could we?"

"Praise be, you can't," said Winnie who had overheard. "Those kittens will be the death of me yet, and what they'd do to sick folks in a sanatorium, I'm sure I don't know and don't want to."

"What'll we make Mother?" urged Shirley, pulling Rosemary's belt.

"I know—a kimona," said Rosemary triumphantly. "That won't be hard, because we'll have only two seams. Mother will love to have something we made her, instead of a gift we just went down town and bought. What color do you think would be pretty, Sarah?"

"Red," said Sarah promptly.

"Pink," begged Shirley. "Make it pink, Rosemary."

"I like blue," said Rosemary wistfully.

"Let's ask Aunt Trudy," suggested Sarah.

"I think you're awfully foolish to try to make anything," pronounced Aunt Trudy when they consulted her. "But I suppose, if you have set your hearts on it, why nothing will dissuade you. Why don't you make your mother a white kimona, and bind it with pink ribbon? White was always her favorite."

So it was decided the kimona should be white eiderdown and bound with pink satin ribbon and Rosemary and Sarah and Shirley went shopping one afternoon after school and bought the materials. Their purchase included a pattern, the first in their joint experience and when they had spread it out on Rosemary's bed the three girls looked at it helplessly.

"We'll put it on paper, till we learn how to cut it," said Rosemary, secretly wondering how anyone ever learned to understand such complicated directions as were printed on the pattern envelope.

They had decided that neither Aunt Trudy nor Winnie could be allowed to help them and since Rosemary had a working knowledge of the sewing machine's mysteries and could sew neatly by hand, they had not anticipated any trouble.

"But how could we know a pattern was such a silly thing?" wailed Rosemary, tired and cross when the dinner gong sounded and they had made no progress. The floor of the room was littered with paper and the top of the bed resembled a pincushion for Shirley had amused herself by sticking the contents of the entire paper of pins in orderly rows on the counterpane.

"Aren't you coming down to dinner?" asked Sarah, moving toward the door.

"No, I'm not," retorted Rosemary. "I'm not hungry and I don't want anything to eat. Don't let Winnie come up here making a fuss; you tell Aunt Trudy I don't want any dinner to-night. I'm not going to do a thing till I get this kimona cut out."

"Hugh will be mad," said Sarah, half way down the hall.

"Let him," called Rosemary recklessly, shutting the door of her room with a bang.

She was deep in the pattern directions for the tenth time, when someone rapped on her door.

"I'm not hungry—don't bother me," she called, frowning.

The door knob turned and Doctor Hugh smiled in at her.

"Heard you were having trouble with the dressmaking," he announced. "Can't I help? I'm not Winnie or Aunt Trudy, you know. I'd like to have a finger in this, if I could."

Rosemary drew a long breath.

"You do understand, don't you?" she said, standing on the foot that had not gone to sleep and trying to rouse the circulation in the other one. "We didn't want anyone to touch our present for Mother, except us; but you're us, too, aren't you?"

"Surest thing," agreed the doctor, approaching the terrible pattern with grave interest. "What's the matter with this—aren't you sure how it should be cut?"

Rosemary shook her head hopelessly.

"I'm afraid to cut it before I know and I've tried it every way I can think of," she confessed.

"Well, if this is wrong, I'll buy you some more goods to-morrow," promised the doctor, twitching the pattern to his liking.

He took up the scissors and cut around the outline with what seemed to Rosemary, reckless abandon. But when he had finished and she took up the two pieces, they fitted together like parts of a picture puzzle.

"It's right!" she cried in delight. "Hugh, you darling, it's all right! And I can baste it to-night and sew it on the machine to-morrow and put the ribbon on by hand. Won't Mother love it!"

"No more sewing to-night," said her brother firmly. "Dressmakers always make mistakes when they're tired. Come down and eat your dinner now, and then put this truck away till after school to-morrow afternoon."

Rosemary followed him downstairs meekly, though her fingers itched to get at the basting. Sarah looked up at them in surprise as they entered the dining-room.

"I thought Rosemary was going to be cross!" she said frankly.

"You were mistaken," retorted Doctor Hugh, smiling so infectiously at Rosemary that she could do no less than twinkle back at him.



CHAPTER XXI

MR. JORDAN LEARNS SOMETHING

The kimona was finished without further mishap and packed away in the Christmas box.

"And no one was more surprised than I when the thing proved to be cut right," Doctor Hugh confided to Winnie. "I never looked at a pattern before, but I took a chance. I could see Rosemary was just on the edge of 'nerves' and I figured out that if I did make a mess of it, she might not find it out till the next day, and by that time she might be able to see the humor in the situation."

"You're a wise lad, Hughie, and I'm proud of you," said Winnie fondly. She had guessed something of the cost of the fur lined coat that the doctor had proudly displayed as his Christmas gift for the little mother, now well enough to take short tramps through the pine woods daily. Winnie did not know that a set of sorely needed medical books had gone into the coat, but she suspected something of the kind.

The box was packed and sent and the Willis family settled down to the first Christmas they had known without the gentle spirit who had tirelessly planned for every holiday. But they had the dear knowledge that she was coming home again to them, well and strong, and they hung the wreaths in the windows and wound greens about the lights and trimmed a tree for Shirley with thankful and merry hearts. Doctor Hugh had missed so many home Christmas Days that he in particular, enjoyed the preparations and his attempts at secrets and his insistence on tasting all of Winnie's dishes drove the girls into fits of laughter. A pile of packages surrounded every place on Christmas morning and there was something pretty and practical and purely nonsensical for each one from the doctor. He, in turn, declared that for once in his life he had everything he wanted. Aunt Trudy's gift to her nephew and each of her nieces was a cheque and the announcements that followed were characteristic.

"What are you going to get, Hugh?" asked Sarah curiously, when the nature of her slip of paper had been explained to her.

"Books," said Doctor Hugh, promptly, smiling at his aunt.

"Music and a new music case, a leather one," declared Rosemary, her eyes shining.

"I'd like to buy a dog," said Sarah, and grinned good-naturedly at the groan which greeted her modest wish.

"You'd better buy an electric heater for the cats," suggested Winnie. "I'm forever taking 'em out of the oven; some day I'll forget to look, and there will be baked cats when you come down."

Shirley was distressed at this dismal prediction, but Sarah did not take it to heart.

"I think, after all," she said meditatively, "I'll buy a hen and keep chickens."

"What are you going to buy with your money, Shirley lamb?" asked Rosemary, as Sarah fell to planning a chicken yard.

"A doll I guess," said Shirley who had had three that morning.

When Sarah reminded her of that fact, Aunt Trudy protested.

"No one is to attempt to dictate in any way," she said with unaccustomed firmness. "When I was a child I was never allowed to spend a cent as I wanted to and I gave you each this money to do with exactly as you please. If you spend it foolishly, all right, I don't care. But I want each one of you to get what you want, whether or not it pleases some one else. I could have bought you what I thought you ought to have, but that's the kind of presents I had as a child and the only kind. And my goodness, didn't I hate 'em!"

The girls stared a little at this outburst and then the doctor laughed.

"Well all I can say," he remarked drolly as he pushed back his chair in answer to the summons of the telephone, "is that it is lucky Christmas comes only once a year. Otherwise, Aunt Trudy, you'd have us completely demoralized."

Spending their Christmas money gave the three girls a good deal of pleasure during holiday week and a letter from their mother was another pleasant incident. Mrs. Willis wrote that the fur coat and the kimona had made her the envy of the whole sanatorium and she was so proud of them both that she cried whenever she looked at them!

"—But, of course, I know you don't want me to do that, so I have stopped, really I have," ran one paragraph of her letter. "I am so proud of you all, my darlings and it seems such a short time ago that you were all babies. How could I look ahead and see that my son would grow up so soon and buy his mother a fur-lined coat, or that my three girl babies for whom I sewed so happily would make me a kimona and such a beautiful garment? I am wearing it now...."

The clear cold weather came to an end during holiday week and a heavy storm set in a few days before New Year's. For two days and a night it snowed steadily and Sarah was almost beside herself to think that now she could play in the snow as long as she liked with no school to interfere. Shirley suffered from cold and did not like to play out long at a time, but Rosemary was not too old to enjoy snow ball fights and coasting and she joined Sarah on the hill as often as she felt she could leave her beloved practising. Nina Edmonds did not care for coasting, but Fannie Mears and several of the girls in the grade above the seventh liked to coast on Fred Mears' bob-sled.

Late in the afternoon of the second day, when the snow had almost stopped, except for a few large flakes, Rosemary set out to find Sarah and bring her in in time for dinner. She was ploughing along through the snow when Jack Welles hailed her.

"'Lo, Rosemary!" he called. "Where you going—home?"

"I'm going to the hill to get Sarah," Rosemary explained. "Hugh says she'd coast till breakfast time if no one stopped her and I believe she would. Where's your sled? Haven't you been out to-day? They say the coasting is fine."

"I know it is, but I haven't had time to try it, worse luck!" growled Jack, falling into step beside Rosemary as they walked on. "The Common Council has sent out a call for the snow cleaning gangs again and I've been trying to round the fellows up."

"Yes, I suppose the streets are piled up," agreed Rosemary. "When are you expected to start work—not to-night?"

"To-morrow morning," the boy replied. "But there won't be more than six of us."

"Six!" repeated Rosemary in astonishment. "Why I thought there were twelve in each gang."

"There were," said Jack briefly. "But, you see, it is holiday week, and no one wants to work. The only five I can get are Norman Cox, Eustice Gray, Jerry and Fred Gordon and Ben Kelsey. I'm the sixth. Two of the others are away and the rest are going on a sleighing trip up to the woods."

"Where's Frank Fenton?" demanded Rosemary. "Can't he make 'em work?"

"Oh, he's going on the ride, too," explained Jack. "A bunch are going, girls and boys and three of the teachers will chaperone. They go up to a camp, you know, and build a big fire and dance and have a good time. Frank says it won't hurt to wait a day or two. I think he's hoping the snow will melt."

"What about the dramatic fund?" inquired, Rosemary, not intentionally sarcastic. "I thought they wanted the money."

"Too soon after Christmas," grinned Jack. "No, I guess the six of us will have to represent the school. Is that Sarah over there with the red hat?"

"Yes, it is," answered Rosemary, beckoning to her sister. "Didn't you want to go on the ride, Jack? Or the other boys?"

"Well I don't care so much," replied Jack slowly. "Of course I'd have a good time, but I can live without a sleigh ride. I'm sorry on the fellows' account though—they wanted to go with some girls and they don't have much fun. I hated like time to ask them to come and shovel snow to-morrow morning. As Eustice says most of the school fun costs too much for him, but this wasn't going to be expensive."

"Couldn't you wait just one day?" suggested Rosemary.

Jack shook his head.

"It's understood that we stand ready to help the Council out," he said in a business-like manner. "They depend on us, and it isn't their fault the snow came during the holidays. We were glad enough to get the chance before and I think it looks mighty cheap to try to beg off now just because it isn't convenient to work. I'm going to be on deck to-morrow morning if I'm the only one who turns up."

Six boys, however, reported the next morning to Bill McCormack and at their own suggestion, were set to work clearing the Plummers Lane section of the accumulated snow.

"My father is always talking about the fire risk down here," said Jack to Jerry Gordon as they shoveled side by side. "Eastshore has a nifty little fire department I'm ready to admit, but it can't climb a snow bank even with the new chemical engine."

The boys found the day unexpectedly long. Hitherto they had worked three or four hours after school and the one Saturday they had shoveled had been at the end of their task so that they had been able to quit at noon. But, although they were genuinely tired long before night—and the noon rest had never been so appreciated!—not one of them suggested giving in or knocking off an hour or two earlier. They worked so steadily and to such good purpose that by half-past four, when Rosemary and Sarah appeared with hot coffee and sandwiches, the most congested area in Plummers Lane was comparatively clear.

"Gee, Rosemary, you certainly are all right!" approved Jack as he held the can for her while she ladled out coffee. "I never was so hungry in my life."

"They're chicken sandwiches and turkey, too," said Rosemary, smiling. "Winnie said if you couldn't go on the sleigh ride she'd see to it that you had something extra good to eat."

The hungry boys fell upon Winnie's sandwiches with a vigor that would have done her heart good, and the coffee disappeared magically. When the last drop was gone and the last crumb vanished, Jack insisted that the girls start for home.

"It's getting dark now," he said, "and Hugh won't like it if you are out late down here. I'd walk home with you, but we want to finish; we're not going to quit till we get to the end of the street. There's a fire hydrant there."

Rosemary and Sarah, carrying the empty coffee can and the basket that had been packed with sandwiches, walked slowly toward home, Sarah audibly regretting that they had left the sled at the house.

"We could have a good coast, before dinner," she argued, walking backward, an accomplishment of which she was exceedingly proud.

Pride, as often happens, went before a fall, in this instance, a collision. Sarah, heedless of Rosemary's cry of warning, walked into a stout, silver-haired gentleman in a fur-collared coat.

"Bless my soul, what's this?" he asked in astonishment, looking down at the small girl who had bumped into his knees.

"How do you do Mr. Jordan?" said Rosemary respectfully, recognizing the president of the Common Council.

"Why it's Rosemary Willis!" beamed Mr. Jordan. "And Sarah, as I live. Where are you going my dears?"

"We're going home," explained Rosemary. "We took the boys some coffee and sandwiches. They are shoveling snow, you know."

"Oh, the high school lads, yes, I recollect," said Mr. Jordan. "I meant to go around and see them at work, but I've spent the afternoon in the library. Pretty faithful lads, aren't they, to stick to their job in holiday week?"

Rosemary held an instant's swift debate with herself. Jack, she knew, would hold his tongue. But Jack was not within hearing distance and his scruples did not honestly affect her. She put down the coffee can and began to speak. She told Mr. Jordan the whole story, from the beginning when the Student Council had objected to Jack's list of workers. She told about the streets assigned to the boys. She mentioned the sleigh ride and told who had gone. She named the six boys who had spent the day shoveling. The faster she talked, the prettier and more earnest she looked and the more interested Mr. Jordan seemed. Sarah listened dumbly, fascinated by her sister's eloquence.

Mr. Jordan walked with them to their front steps and shook hands with them both.

"I am extremely obliged to you," he told Rosemary as he lifted his hat to go. "I find that I have been a little out of things and you have set me right."

"Goodness knows what I've done," said Rosemary to Sarah as they brushed their hair and made ready for the table. "Don't you say a word to Jack—he will be furious. But I don't care what happens, I'm glad I said what I did; this 'silence is golden' is a silly saying, I think."

Late that night, when every one had gone to bed, the fire whistle sounded. Rosemary raised up in bed, shivering with excitement. She counted the strokes. One-two—one-two—one-two-three-four. Reaching for her dressing gown at the foot of the bed, she seized it and rushed for the door. Sarah's door opened at the same moment and the two little figures met in the hall. They shouted together, rousing the household.

"Plummers Lane!" they shrieked. "The fire's in Plummers Lane!"



CHAPTER XXII

SHOPPING WITH NINA

Shirley, half-awake and crying, came pattering out into the hall and Winnie dashed from her room. On the second floor, Aunt Trudy scuttled back and forth demanding where the fire was.

"Go to bed girls," ordered Doctor Hugh, who had just come in and was fully dressed. "Go back to bed, and I'll tell you all about the fire in the morning."

"Oh, Hugh, are you going? Wait for me, please?" cried Rosemary. "I won't be a minute."

"Me, too," shouted Sarah. "Wait for me, Hugh."

He was already in the lower hall, struggling into his overcoat.

"Go back to bed, and don't be silly," was his parting injunction as he opened the door. "You'll catch cold, running through the halls. Send 'em to bed, Winnie."

The door banged behind him and they heard a familiar whistle.

"Hugh!" some one called. "Hugh, it's down Plummers Lane. Going to get the car out? I'll help you."

"That's Jack," cried Rosemary, trying to see through the white curtains without being seen. "Oh, dear, men have all the fun!"

In spite of Winnie's remonstrances and Aunt Trudy's worry that they would have pneumonia, the three girls tried to stay up till their brother came back. After half an hour they gave up and went sleepily to bed. The next morning they heard that the fire had been in one of the novelty factories and that several houses had also been destroyed.

"If the hydrants hadn't been open and the street clear, they say the whole block would have gone," the doctor reported. "In some way it's got over town that Jack and his gang were the only high school boys on the job yesterday and that they voluntarily cleaned the snow out of Wycliffe street. The Common Council is talking of doing something handsome to show their appreciation."

Rosemary beamed, but Sarah who never could keep still blurted out the truth.

"Rosemary told Mr. Jordan last night," she said matter-of-factly.

When Doctor Hugh had heard the details, he declared that while Jack might not approve at once, he was sure he would later be glad.

"You're a loyal friend, Rosemary," said the doctor patting the gold-red hair now long enough to tie back in a thick bunch of curls again, "and there are few finer qualities to possess than that."

The Common Council, through Mr. Jordan passed a resolution thanking the boys, by name, for their faithful "and valuable" services, and the resolution was printed in the Eastshore "Chronicle" much to the confusion of the lads and the delight and pride of their admiring families. The Council also voted each boy the sum of $25, not, Mr. Jordan explained, as an attempt to pay them, but in recognition of "the devotion to duty which is able to ignore personal pleasure and the initiative which is directed by common sense."

"Incidentally," he added, "the property, saved because the street was clear and the fire apparatus could get through, totals considerable more than the sum we are voting you."

Jack learned, of course, of the part Rosemary had played in this train of events and though he made several cutting remarks about the inability of girls to hold their tongues, he gradually, if grudgingly, admitted that "it might have been worse."

"Norman Cox and Eustice Gray and the others are tickled pink with the $25," he confided. "They think you are great. And I suppose you couldn't help spilling the beans to Mr. Jordan."

But Rosemary was content to do without paeans of praise.

The famous "January thaw" filled the streets with slush a few weeks later and made indoors a pleasant place to stay. Fannie Mears caught a heavy cold and was out of school a week and Nina Edmonds began to seek the society of Rosemary, whom she had rather neglected.

"You never come to my house any more," said Nina, one noon period. "Come home with me this afternoon, won't you, dear?"

Rosemary was acutely conscious of her brother's wishes concerning Nina, and she knew that he preferred she did not go often to the Edmonds' handsome home.

"Well at least come shopping with me," suggested Nina, noticing the younger girl's hesitation. "Go uptown after school this afternoon, please, Rosemary?"

"Aunt Trudy expects me home," said Rosemary doubtfully.

"For goodness sake, do you have to go straight home from school every day?" demanded Nina fretfully. "Why any one would think you were Shirley's age! Can't Sarah tell your aunt you won't be home?"

"I suppose she could," admitted Rosemary. "All right, Nina, I'll go with you."

Sarah accepted the message reluctantly after school that afternoon and she and Shirley went home while Nina and Rosemary hurried off up town. Nina's shopping manners were remarkably like her mother's and she was respectfully treated in all the shops. Eastshore had no very large stores, but the merchandise was of the better grade in even the tiny places, the lack of variety, as in many small towns, being balanced by uniform quality.

"Charge it," said Nina airily, flitting from shop to shop and counter to counter.

It was dark, almost before they knew it and though Nina was insistent that Rosemary come home to dinner with her, Rosemary refused. No, she must go home.

"Well, here's your parcel," said Nina good-naturedly. "You'll love 'em when you get used to them and you look perfectly stunning in them, you know you do."

Rosemary tucked the brown paper package under her arm and fled up the street, dashing up the front steps behind a tall figure just putting a key in the Willis front door.

"Well, honey, why this haste?" demanded the doctor, stepping back to let her go in first. "You didn't smell Winnie's apple pudding a block away, did you?"

"Where have you been, Rosemary?" asked Aunt Trudy, coming into the hall. "Sarah said you said you would be home by half-past four."

"What you got?" inquired Sarah, eyeing the parcel under Rosemary's arm with frank curiosity.

"Let me open it, Rosemary?" begged Shirley, standing on tip-toe to pinch the package, her usual method of guessing the contents.

"There isn't a speck of privacy in the house!" flared Rosemary. "I think I might buy something once in a while that the whole family didn't have to see. And no one has to come straight home from school, except me. If I'm an hour late, Aunt Trudy always wants to know where I've been."

"I told her you went shopping with Nina Edmonds," remarked Sarah sweetly, "And you're always cross when you go anywhere with her."

"Sarah!" said Doctor Hugh, warningly, but Rosemary dashed past them and up the stairs to her own room.

She thrust the package down deep in her cedar chest and there it stayed till the next Saturday afternoon. Then Rosemary deliberately locked her door and proceeded to array herself in gray silk stockings and patent leather pumps with narrow, high heels, the results of Nina Edmonds' persuasive arguments and Rosemary's deep longing to possess these accessories.

Walking in the pumps proved to be unexpectedly difficult, but Rosemary practised while she dressed and by the time she had put on her best hat and coat and was ready to go down stairs she was able to manage them better. Sarah and Shirley had gone to the library, Winnie was busy in the kitchen and Aunt Trudy was sewing in her room. Rosemary counted on leaving the house unobserved. She teetered to the door of her aunt's room and carefully keeping out of her range of vision announced that she was going up town for a little walk.

"All right, dearie, have a nice time," answered Aunt Trudy, rocking placidly. "Tell Winnie to answer the telephone if it rings, because I don't want to have to go down stairs."

Rosemary experimented cautiously with the top step and then discretion prompted her to abandon valor. In her best coat and hat and gorgeously arrayed as to her pretty feet, she, who considered herself quite grown up this afternoon, quietly slid down the banister! Just as she reached the newel post the door opened. There stood Doctor Hugh!

"Haven't forgotten how, have you?" he said, laughing. "That was neatly done, dear. I saw you through the glass before I opened the door."

Rosemary was painfully conscious of her shoes. Against her will, her glance strayed down and the doctor's eyes followed hers.

"Why how fine we are!" he said.

Rosemary sat down on the last step and tried to pull her skirt down over her feet.

"I know you don't like them, Hugh," she answered resentfully, "but I don't see why I can't wear high heels when I'm dressed up. All the girls do."

"They are very pretty shoes," said the doctor gravely. "And very unsuitable for a walk on a cold, slushy winter day," he added.

Rosemary said nothing.

"I suppose you wheedled Aunt Trudy into letting you buy them," commented her brother presently. "Well, dear, there are some things we won't learn except through experience. I'm disappointed that Mother's wishes didn't have more weight with you."

Rosemary half expected him to forbid her to leave the house wearing the new shoes, but he went on to his office without another word. She opened the front door noiselessly and hastened uptown to meet Nina Edmonds.

Walking was not the unconscious, easy swing that Rosemary was accustomed to, in the patent leather footgear and it was simply impossible for her to forget her feet for one instant. Nina was bent on more shopping and Rosemary found it very tiresome to stand before the counters and look at things she knew Nina did not mean to buy. Finally the latter suggested that they go to the little tea room recently opened and have tea. The prospect of being able to sit down delighted poor Rosemary.

They had to cross the street and the tracks of the Interurban trolley to reach the tea room and in crossing one of Rosemary's high heels caught in the trolley rail.

"I can't get it out!" she cried, snatching off her glove and working frantically at the shoe.

"Work your foot back and forth," advised Nina. "Oh, goodness, people are stopping to look at you."

Sure enough, the Saturday afternoon shoppers, a larger crowd than usual for many farmers drove in on the last day of the week to make their purchases, were beginning to be attracted by the sight of the two girls on the trolley tracks.

"How could you be so silly!" cried Nina in vexation. "Look at all the rubes—if there is anything I detest, it is to be made conspicuous."

Rosemary flushed angrily, but a sudden shout drowned her reply.

"Car coming!" cried a man on the curb. "Somebody flag the trolley!"

The Interurban cars operated at a high rate of speed, even through the town, and as the wires started their humming, Rosemary and Nina glanced up and saw a car bearing down on them.

"You'll be killed!" shrieked Nina, taking a flying leap that landed her safely across the tracks.

A man shot out of the crowd toward Rosemary and another dashed up the street in the direction of the trolley, waving his cap. The motorman put on the brakes, there was an ear-splitting noise as the wheels locked and slid and the car stopped a good ten feet from the frightened girl. Meanwhile the man who had come to her rescue had unbuttoned the straps of the pump and pulled Rosemary free from her shoe.

"Fool heels!" he commented, while a crowd of the curious surged out from the curb. "If I had my way no girl should ever own a pair. Here, I'll get it out for you—"

He tugged at the obstinate pump, the heel gave way and the man fell back, the shoe in his hand, the heel neatly ripped off.

"Oh, say, I'm sorry!" he stammered. "I didn't mean to tear it off—here's the heel; I guess a shoemaker can put it on again for you."

He handed her the pump and the heel and the motorman and conductor went back to their trolley.

"Thank you very much—it doesn't matter about the heel, it really doesn't matter at all," said Rosemary incoherently, her one wish being to get away from this awful crowd.

"If you're looking for the girl who was with you, she's gone," volunteered a freckle faced boy. "I saw her streaking it up the street as soon as the trolley stopped."

Getting home with one heel off and one heel on, was not an easy matter, but Rosemary managed it. Half an hour later, Doctor Hugh reading at his desk, was astonished to have two patent leather pumps flung down on the book before him and to see Rosemary, crimson-cheeked and stormy-eyed confronting him.



CHAPTER XXIII

SARAH LOSES A MENAGERIE

"You may burn them up or give them away or sell them!" Rosemary cried. "I never want to see a pair of high-heeled shoes again as long as I live. I despise them!"

The doctor picked up the offending little shoes and eyed them critically.

"Wait," said Rosemary as he seemed about to speak. "I have something to tell you, Hugh. I've been as bad as I could be, and I've done everything you didn't like. But you'll be glad, because I never want to see Nina Edmonds again. I never want any one to mention her name to me."

Her voice was hard and unnatural.

"Hadn't you better sit down, dear?" Doctor Hugh suggested. "I'm sorry if you and Nina have quarreled."

"Oh, we haven't quarreled," said Rosemary bitterly. "I can't tell you about it, Hugh, but she isn't the kind of girl I thought she was. And I did like her so! I won't cry," she added doggedly. "I haven't told you the worst yet. Hugh, you thought I persuaded Aunt Trudy to buy me the pumps, but she didn't know anything about it; I had them charged on Nina's account at the Quality shoe store. And I owe Nina $12.98 this minute and I have to pay her right away. I can't owe it to her another day. Will you lend me the money? I don't care what you do to me, or how you punish me, but don't make me stay in debt. I can't stand it."

Doctor Hugh put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He counted out several bills and gave them to Rosemary.

"Don't you want to tell me about it, dear?" he said quietly. "I can not bear to see you hurt and not to know the reason. Perhaps I can set it right for you."

Rosemary shook her head.

"Nobody can help," she said despondently. "There's nothing to help." Her lips quivered. "I thought Nina was different," she said, and then the tears overflowed.

The doctor had seen Rosemary cry before, but never like this. As he held her in his arms and she sobbed out the hurt and humiliation of the afternoon against his shoulder, he wondered what had happened to shake her so. He did not know that she had had her first experience with disloyalty or that her first broken friendship was teaching her a hard lesson. By and by the passion of weeping grew quieter and Rosemary fumbled for her handkerchief.

"I didn't know I was going to be so silly," she said, sitting up and trying to smile as the doctor tucked his own clean handkerchief into her hand.

"You won't tell me what is troubling you?" he said persuasively.

"I can't, Hugh," Rosemary answered, her tear drenched eyes meeting his gaze squarely. "I can't talk about it, not even to you."

"All right, dear, if that's the way you feel," he said instantly. "Only remember, any time you want to confide, I'm always ready. Don't be afraid of me, Rosemary; that is one thing I can not stand. If I thought any of you girls were afraid to come to me and tell me your troubles—"

Rosemary threw her arms around his neck.

"I'm not afraid of you, I'm only ashamed of myself," she whispered. "And I love you more than any one in the world, next to Mother!"

The doctor heard of the shoe incident the next morning, indeed the story was known about Eastshore within a few hours, and he was able to piece together from what he heard a fair understanding of Nina Edmonds' part in the incident. He succeeded in impressing on Sarah and Shirley, and even Winnie and Aunt Trudy, that they were not to mention Nina's name, or anything they might hear about that unfortunate afternoon, to Rosemary, on pain of his severest displeasure. Nina nodded, rather shamefacedly, to Rosemary in school the next Monday morning and Rosemary spoke pleasantly; but she never voluntarily sought the society of the other girl again and there was something about her that effectually discouraged Nina from attempting any overtures.

A week or two later, Winnie walked into Doctor Hugh's office one night a few minutes before ten o'clock, ostensibly to bring him a glass of milk and a sponge cake before he went to bed.

"Out with it, Winnie," he said good-naturedly. "I can see that you are fairly bristling with the necessity of making an important communication."

"It's Sarah, then," announced Winnie, putting down the glass of milk. "Something has got to be done about her, Hughie."

"Sarah?" inquired the doctor meditatively. "Why I thought she was conducting herself in an exemplary manner these last few weeks."

Winnie sniffed.

"I'm always the one that has to tell you," she complained. "I'm after asking Miss Trudy these three nights running to speak to you, but does she? She does not. She speaks to Sarah who minds her about as well as the wind does. And Rosemary won't be doing her duty, either; she says 'twould be telling tales and she's got Shirley around to the same way of thinking."

"A conspiracy, eh?" smiled Doctor Hugh.

"Well, Winnie, what should I know that I don't know about my small sister Sarah?"

Winnie was not to be hurried. She dearly loved a chat with her idol, the doctor, and she had the born story-teller's art of prolonging the climax.

"I'm not one to be going out of my way to find something to babble," she declared now. "There's plenty of things goes on I could be running to you with every day in the week, did I so mind; but I believe in letting folks have their own heads, as long as they don't go too far."

The doctor sampled the cake appreciatively.

"Sarah, I take it, has gone too far?" he suggested.

"I don't know as you'd call it that," said Winnie with a faint suspicion of sarcasm. "I may be too finicky and if I am, may I be forgiven for troubling you. But when it comes to sleeping in the same room with six sore-eyed kittens and in the same bed with a mangy street dog, I think something should be done about it. 'Tisn't Christian-like."

"Do you mean to tell me Sarah has got a mess like that up in her room?" demanded Doctor Hugh.

"She has that," said Winnie firmly. "That and worse. She has rabbits in her clothes closet and this morning I had to carry out two dead chickens. She lugs them all up every night to keep 'em warm, she says."

"Is everyone in the house crazy?" asked the bewildered doctor. "What's the matter with you, Winnie? Ordinarily you can make the world take orders from you—couldn't you put a stop to this?"

"I've argued and I've scolded and I've threatened to chloroform every animal on the place," said Winnie impressively, "but Sarah is like cement. Where the Willis will is going to lead her, I'm sure I don't know; but she's too much for me."

"Nonsense!" the doctor pushed back his chair sharply. "At least you could have come to me and told me the first night she tried to keep an animal in her room."

"I'm as weak as the rest of 'em," admitted Winnie. "Miss Trudy cried and Shirley grumbled because she had to go in and sleep with Rosemary; but none of us liked to say a word to you. I don't suppose I'd be after telling you now if I wasn't afraid Sarah would catch something from that dog she brought home to-night."

"I'll go up and read the riot act to her, even if it is late," said Doctor Hugh, frowning. "Such a state of affairs is beyond belief. Shirley is sleeping with Rosemary, you say, and Sarah has the menagerie in the bed with her?"

"Well, she has the dog—I saw him under the blanket. But you're not going to bother her to-night, are you?" asked Winnie anxiously.

"Do you suppose I'm going to have her sleeping with a dog that came from Heaven alone knows where?" was the impatient answer. "If I can get the animals out of her room without waking her, well and good; but in any case, out they come."

Sarah woke up the moment the light was switched on. So did the touseled little yellow dog who thrust his head out from under the covers, close to Sarah's face, and barked sharply at the tall figure standing in the center of the room. The rabbits could be heard scampering about behind the closet door and the kittens set up a hungry mewing from their basket under the bed. A faint scratching came from beneath the inverted waste-basket where a dejected-looking rooster drooped in lonely melancholy.

"Go away!" said Sarah.

"Give me that dog, Sarah," said Doctor Hugh sternly, hoping that he would not laugh. "What do you mean by this kind of performance?"

"He's a nice dog and he hasn't any home, he followed me all the way from the grocery store," said Sarah, her dark eyes regarding her brother suspiciously. "Leave him alone."

For answer the doctor, with a quick movement, lifted the dog clear of the bed clothes.

"You'll hurt him!" cried Sarah in anguish. "You don't know how to be nice to animals. Give him back to me, Hugh."

"Look here, Sarah, this is no time for argument," said Doctor Hugh crisply. "It is out of the question for you to sleep with your barnyard friends. Everyone of them must go down cellar for the rest of the night and we'll talk about what is to be done with them in the morning."

Sarah wept and protested and even tried to fight for her pets, but Winnie and the doctor were deaf to her pleas. Between them, they carried down every forlorn animal—Sarah's tastes ran to the lame and the halt and the blind,—and then Doctor Hugh opened the window wide (Sarah had insisted on keeping both windows closed lest a draft strike the sick kittens), kissed the back of his small sister's head, for she persistently refused to turn her face toward him, and snapped off the light, leaving Sarah to cry herself to sleep. Rosemary and Shirley, in the next room, had slept peacefully through the racket.