Unfortunately the next morning a call came for the doctor before eight o'clock and snatching a hasty breakfast, he was out of the house before the girls came down. He had no opportunity for the talk with Sarah that day for although he came home to lunch, she was, of course in school, and he did not get home in time for dinner. In fact, it was nearly nine o'clock before his car rolled into the drive.

Aunt Trudy and Rosemary, Winnie told him, had gone to the movies as a Friday night treat, and Sarah and Shirley had gone to bed promptly at eight o'clock.

"I was setting bread, and didn't see 'em go," Winnie added significantly.

Doctor Hugh went upstairs to the third floor. A light shone under Sarah's door. He knocked, then tried the knob. It was locked.

"Open the door, Sarah," he said quietly.

"Go away!" quavered Sarah, tears in her voice.

Doctor Hugh remembered the communicating door and strode through Rosemary's room. Shirley was fast asleep in her older sister's bed. Sarah had not thought to fasten the door between the rooms and she looked up startled, as her brother came in. She had not undressed, and she sat on the floor, the kittens in her lap. The dog and the rabbits and the rooster were all back in their places.

"This settles it!" said the doctor adamantly. "There's only one way to deal with you, Sarah, and that is to come down like a ton of bricks. You can't keep any pets for two months—that's final."

"Any more pets?" suggested Sarah.

"I said any pets," was the reply. "If you can find homes for these, well and good; if you can't, I'll try to dispose of them for you. But to-morrow morning, they go away. And now you'll have to help me get them down cellar."

When Sarah finally understood that she was to be deprived of all her pets at once, she wept miserably. No amount of tears or storming or wheedling or pleading, however, could alter Doctor Hugh's decision. Even Winnie suggested that one kitten be kept, but to no avail.

"Sarah must learn she can not do as she pleases and escape the consequences," he said to Rosemary, who came to him on Sarah's behalf. "Half way measures don't go with her, I find, so I've had to be drastic. I'm sorry, too, Rosemary, but I believe I am making the future easier for one strong-willed little girl."

He found homes among his farm patients for all the animals and saw to it that Sarah went with him to carry the pets to their new abodes. She felt much better when she saw that they were to be well cared for, but it was a long time before she would go near the empty rabbit hutch in the side yard. Jack, who discovered that she avoided it, chopped it up at last for kindling wood for Winnie and Sarah was silently grateful. She missed her pets inexpressibly, but the rest of the household, it must be confessed, enjoyed their absence thoroughly. Sarah and her animals had absorbed the foreground for many hectic weeks.



CHAPTER XXIV

A MYSTERY SOLVED

The brief month of February was starred for the Willis family by the little mother's birthday. She was steadily improving, according to her own letters and the reports from the doctors, and Doctor Hugh, who spent at least one week-end each month with her, brought back glowing accounts of her progress along the road to health. He managed to get away to spend her birthday with her and personally carried her the gifts and notes and loving wishes of the three girls, Aunt Trudy, Winnie and close friends who also remembered.

Almost before the snow had gone, talk of the March fair began to engage the attention of the Eastshore school pupils. This was an annual event and there was much rivalry between the three schools as to which should turn in the most money. The proceeds of the fair went to the Memorial Hospital in Bennington, rather had gone into the building fund until this year for the hospital had recently been completed. The high and grammar and primary schools, each had tables and exhibits and there was always a large attendance during the Friday afternoon and Saturday the fair was under way.

"The high school is going to have a cafeteria," reported Rosemary at dinner one night. "I wish we'd thought of that. The boys are going to wear white aprons and caps and stand behind the tables and serve the food, while the girls act as waitresses and carry out the dishes and look after the silver. They want every one to eat their supper there Friday and Saturday night."

"All right, we'll come," promised Aunt Trudy. "Hugh can meet us there, can't you, Hugh?"

"Of course," he agreed. "But I'm saving my money for the grammar and primary school tables—I want that understood. I'll treat you all to supper, and please Jack Welles at the same time, but the real expenditures of this family must be where they'll count for the lower grades."

The three girls beamed upon him approvingly.

"I'm going to have charge of the cake table," said Rosemary. "Tell Winnie to buy our Sunday cake from me, won't you, Aunt Trudy? I have ten different kinds of icings to make—every one of the girls has asked me to ice her cake, because they say I always have good luck."

"I hope you'll use sugar and not salt," murmured the doctor wickedly.

"Oh, Hugh, wasn't that soup too dreadful!" said Rosemary, shuddering at the recollection. "I know perfectly well I didn't put in too much salt and yet no one else seasoned it—I wish I knew how it happened."

"Let it go as a mystery," advised her brother. "What are you going to do in the fair line, Sarah?" he added, turning to her.

"Sell gold fish," she answered placidly. "What are you laughing at?" she asked them in surprise. "I have a great big bowl with gold fish in it and a lot of little bowls; and people buy the little bowls for fifteen cents and I dip out two gold fish with a soup ladle for twenty-five cents, and they take them home."

"I'm going to sell little baby bouquets," announced Shirley, who looked like a "baby bouquet" herself in a pink challis frock. "I have 'em on a tray and I walk around and people buy them for their buttonholes."

"I'll be your first customer, sweetheart," Doctor Hugh assured her.

Preparations for the fair absorbed most of the after-school time of the next two weeks. There were committee meetings and inter-class conferences, and difficulties that required to be straightened out and sensitive feelings that needed careful handling.

"We could get along so much faster, if every one was pleasant," sighed Rosemary to her brother. "Fannie Mears has a dozen pin-cushions to make and she made twelve of us promise to take one and finish it for the fancy-work table; and then she wouldn't help iron the napkins for the cake plates. She said it wasn't her table and she didn't intend to waste her time. Harriet Reed heard her and she was so mad she ripped up the pincushion she had just sewed and the sewing teacher found it in the waste-basket and she says Harriet has to buy material to replace the stuff she tore and she can't go home after school to-morrow until she has made another pincushion."

"Well, I don't think Harriet helped her cause much," said the doctor pacifically.

"Well Fannie Mears is too mean," said Rosemary. "It isn't a very nice thing to say, Hugh—"

"Then don't say it, dear," he countered promptly. "Don't gossip, Rosemary. I know of nothing harder on the nerves and temper than a fair, and if you can keep cheerful and serene and not quarrel with your friends and above all, don't talk about them in their absence, you will have done better than most fair workers twice your age."

Rosemary remembered this bit of advice often in the turbulent days that followed. Fannie Mears was one of those girls who manage to sow discord and dissension wherever they go. She had a tireless industry that commended her to her teachers and she was always ready to accept additional tasks and duties. What they did not see was that she distributed these tasks among her friends and the girls in the lower grades and then was unwilling to help them in turn.

"I suppose you've heard what Fannie Mears and Nina Edmonds have done now?" remarked Sarah one noon period when the fair was a scant week off.

"No, what?" asked Rosemary who avoided Nina's name whenever possible.

"Why they've taken three dozen needle-books that have to have the flannel leaves tied in them with ribbon," explained Sarah. "See, Shirley has four to do. Fannie and Nina promised Miss Carlson they'd do them, and now they've handed them all out in the primary grades. They wanted me to do six, but I wouldn't."

Sarah was engrossed with the gold fish which had already arrived and were housed in the natural history room in the high school building. She visited them several times daily and in his heart Mr. Martin, the biology teacher feared she would kill them with kindness before the fair opened.

"Shirley doesn't mind tying the leaves in, do you dear?" asked Rosemary cheerfully.

"Not much," replied Shirley, "only I wanted to cut the ribbons for my flower bouquets yesterday afternoon, and Fannie wouldn't lend me the scissors."

"I'll help you do it this afternoon," promised Rosemary, who had planned to assemble the recipes for her cake icings and see what supplies were lacking that she would need.

"If that fancy-work table ever gets enough things, the rest of us may be able to pay a little attention to our own tables," she said to herself.

But that afternoon Shirley came crying to Rosemary to say that she had lost the four little needle-books.

"I've looked everywhere," the child insisted. "All over everywhere, Rosemary. And they're all gone."

"That means I'll have to make four," said poor Rosemary. "Don't cry, Shirley, Sister will see that you have four needle-books to turn in. Though I don't see how you could lose them," she added wearily.

"I'll bet Fannie Mears took those books," declared Sarah when she heard of the loss. "It would be just like her. She thinks it's smart to get four extra books."

Rosemary protested weakly at this idea. In her heart of hearts, she thought Fannie quite capable of such an act, but she had loyally resolved to try and follow Hugh's advice.

"But I can't help wishing he knew Fannie," said Rosemary to herself.

She made the needle-books and helped Shirley measure and cut the ribbon for her bouquets. Sarah's "soup ladle" proved to be a net and that small girl "experimented" with the netting so earnestly that she required a new net to be inserted practically every day. Of course Rosemary was called on for this and as a result her own work was left quite to the last.

"But I couldn't ice the cakes till the day before the fair, anyway," she said philosophically to Miss Parsons, "though I did want to have time to see that the plates and napkins were matched; last year we ran short of napkins."

The morning of the fair, Rosemary hurried upstairs to ice her cakes. They were all arranged on the kitchen table, thirty of them, each one a triumph of culinary art. Rosemary was excused from school for the day, but the cakes had been baked late the previous afternoon for it was a school rule that the fair was not to interfere with class attendance.

"And I don't see why Rosemary Willis should be excused," muttered Fannie Mears indignantly.

"I suppose you think she can ice thirty cakes in half an hour," Sarah flung back. "And set the table and go home and get dressed, too."

Humming happily, Rosemary tied on her white apron and went about her mixing. As she had said, there were ten different icings to be made, the same flavor being allowed only three cakes. Some were loaves and some were layers and one or two had been scorched. These Rosemary carefully grated and planned to ice thickly.

In the midst of her work she made a distressing discovery. The linen cloth for the table was soiled!

"I'm just as sure as I can be that it was clean in the drawer last night," Rosemary confided to Miss Parsons. "I looked the last thing."

She had found it rolled up in a wad and stuffed at the furtherest end of the table drawer. Not only was it rumpled, but it showed several stains.

"I'll go home this noon and get one of ours," said Rosemary. "I think I'll be glad when this fair is over."

"I think we'll all be glad," replied Miss Parsons, frowning a little, for the cloth incident annoyed her. She, too, had been certain it was clean the afternoon before.

Rosemary went home at noon, leaving half the cakes to do on her return. A large bowl of chocolate icing stood on the table, covered with a muslin cloth.

There was no one to see the kitchen door open slyly fifteen minutes later, no one to see a figure dart in and make for the table. One hand lifted the muslin cloth, the other reached for the large tin salt shaker.

"Drop that!" said a voice peremptorily.

The shaker dropped to the floor with a clatter, and Fannie Mears turned to face Mr. Oliver.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked sternly. "Did Miss Parsons ask you to do anything to that bowl?"

At that moment Miss Parsons herself came into the kitchen.

"I was looking for you," Mr. Oliver explained, "and I saw Fannie Mears about to shake something into that large bowl on the table. I thought Rosemary Willis was working here this morning."

"She was—" Miss Parsons stooped to recover the shaker. "Salt!" she ejaculated as she saw what it was. "Fannie Mears, I do believe you were going to salt Rosemary's icing!"

Fannie began to cry.

"Did you salt the soup last fall?" asked the teacher sternly. "Did you? Answer me, Fannie."

"Yes, I did," sobbed Fannie. "I got so sick and tired of hearing about Rosemary and her cooking. I put in the salt while she was looking at the tables in the dining-room with you. It makes me sick to hear all the fuss people make about her being such a good cook."

Rosemary, breathless from running, burst in at that juncture, the clean tablecloth under her arm.

"Rosemary," said Mr. Oliver gravely, "Fannie has just told us that it was she who over-salted the soup at the Institute dinner—you remember?"

"You did?" cried Rosemary, turning to the other girl. "Did you take the needle-books you gave Shirley, too?"

Fannie nodded.

"Did you wad up the clean tablecloth for the cake table?" chorused Rosemary and Miss Parsons together. "And spill tomato soup on it, too?"

"Catsup," corrected Fannie.

"How can you be so horrid!" cried Rosemary in a burst of frankness.

"Well, it's your own fault," declared Fannie resentfully. "You've got a swelled head over your cooking and I just wanted to make you see you weren't so much, after all."

"But there were teachers from all over the State at the Institute dinner," protested Rosemary. "If the dinner was spoiled, they would blame the school because we were not better taught. And the fair is for the hospital and if it doesn't go off right, the whole school loses credit. Don't you see, Fannie, you weren't just hurting me, but you were making the whole school fall down."

"You come down to the office with me, Fannie," said Mr. Oliver sternly. "I think you and I will have a little talk and perhaps you will see things in a clearer light afterward. Certainly your ideas need to be set right, if you are to continue in school."

"Oh, dear, I hope he won't scold her," sighed Rosemary, beginning to stir the chocolate mixture. "As long as she didn't get the salt into this, I don't care, and I don't think Mr. Oliver should."

"He may think differently," said Miss Parsons briefly.



CHAPTER XXV

GARDEN DAYS

Mr. Oliver did think differently. He talked very seriously to Fannie for nearly an hour and then Rosemary was sent for to come to the office.

"Rosemary," said the principal, when she appeared, "I know you have a great many last things to do for the fair, but I had to speak to you before the three o'clock dismissal bell. Fannie is ready to apologize to you before your class is dismissed this afternoon."

He had explained to Fannie that she must either publicly apologize to Rosemary or be indefinitely suspended.

"I quite understand," went on Mr. Oliver, "that a belated apology like this can not make up to you for the humiliation you suffered on the night of the dinner, but at least the cooking class will know that you were not at fault. I'm afraid you've had to endure a good deal of teasing on the score of the salty soup."

"Oh, I didn't mind, really I didn't!" cried Rosemary quickly. "I'd rather Fannie didn't say anything, Mr. Oliver. Honestly I would."

"I think it will be good for her," said the principal whimsically. "Any girl who can be guilty of a series of such mean little acts as Fannie has confessed to, can not help but benefit by open confession."

"But Mr. Oliver!" Rosemary spoke involuntarily and the color deepened in her face.

"Yes?" he encouraged.

"Nothing—only, if you make Fannie apologize, you are punishing me," brought out Rosemary desperately. "I can't stand it to sit there in class and listen to her. I don't care about the salty soup—at least I don't now; but I know how I should feel to have to get up before the whole class. Please don't make Fannie do it."

The principal tapped his desk thoughtfully with his pencil.

"All right," he said presently. "I certainly have no right to make you uncomfortable, Rosemary, and even less desire. Apologize here and now, Fannie, and I'll excuse you from a class acknowledgment. But only on Rosemary's account, mind you. I think you deserve all the punishment I can give you."

Fannie made a faltering and shame-faced apology and then Rosemary was allowed to go back to the kitchen and, as the three o'clock bell sounded, Fannie to go home. She did not come to the fair and her class mates did not see her again till next Monday.

True to his promise, Doctor Hugh took his family to the high school cafeteria for supper and Jack Welles, who was one of the carvers, served them in fine style. Frank Fenton was manager and he insisted on securing the most desirable table for them, much to Doctor Hugh's amusement and Sarah's ill-concealed disgust.

"Why do you smile and say 'How do you do' to him, Rosemary?" she demanded of her sister hotly. "I think it's untruthful to pretend to like people you don't."

"Well it isn't!" flung back Rosemary, who was tired from standing behind the cake table that afternoon. "It's impolite to stick out your tongue at them the way you do!"

"Let me catch you doing that!" Doctor Hugh warned Sarah. "However, children, let's not have any quarrels on a fair night. How late are they going to keep this up, Rosemary?"

"Only till eight o'clock," Rosemary answered. "We have to go back, now, Hugh, and serve at the tables. Are you and Aunt Trudy coming up?"

"Right away," he assured her. "And we'll bring our pocketbooks."

The fair was an unquestionable success. Shirley's bouquets sold swiftly and her tray was replenished again and again that evening and during the next Saturday afternoon. Sarah convulsed her customers by her business-like manner and she did a thriving trade in gold fish.

Winnie came Saturday afternoon and bought a large cake and another for Mrs. Welles who was kept home by a bad cold. The coveted state of bare tables was attained an hour before the fair was scheduled to close Saturday afternoon, and the Eastshore pupils had the pleasant knowledge that they would have more money to turn over to the hospital than in any previous year.

Spring came to Eastshore with fascinating suddenness. One night it was blustery and cold and householders stoked their furnaces with a sigh for the nearly empty coal bins, and the following morning a South wind blew gently, robins chirped on the lawns that showed a faint green tinge and children appeared in school with huge bundles of pussy willows.

"What do you say to fixing up the garden, Rosemary?" Doctor Hugh suggested, tumbling a sheaf of seed catalogues on the living-room table early in April. "If Mother comes home in June, she'd like to find plenty of flowers growing, wouldn't she?"

"Oh, yes!" Rosemary's response was enthusiastic. "Do let's plan a garden, Hugh, and if it doesn't cost too much, we could have Peter Cooper fix up the lawn. It's rather thin in spots."

The gardening fever seized upon the Willis family and the girls sped home from school to dig and plant and rake and hoe. They recklessly promised Winnie a vegetable garden back of the garage and risked a late frost to jab onion and radish and lettuce seeds into the patch, Peter Cooper, the handy man, spaded up for them. Rosemary acquired a line of golden freckles across her nose and Sarah "got a shade darker every day," according to Winnie.

"I don't care!" the object of her solicitation retorted. "I won't wear a hat—they're hot and stuffy and make my head ache."

"But your mother won't know you," urged Aunt Trudy, who was sewing on the porch in the warm sunshine. "She'll take you for an Indian."

"Oh, I guess my mother'll know me," said Sarah, but all her determination could not keep out a note of doubt in her voice.

The next morning she was late for breakfast. Rosemary called her twice and Winnie went up to see what was the matter.

"She says she's all dressed and she's coming right away," she reported, but no Sarah appeared.

Doctor Hugh went to the foot of the stairs.

"Sarah!" he called in a tone that seldom failed to produce results.

"I'm coming," answered Sarah, and they heard her feet beginning the descent of the stairs.

She came into the dining-room so quietly, that Aunt Trudy glanced at her in surprise.

"Why Sarah!" she gasped, "What in the world have you done to your face?"

"What's the matter with it?" demanded Sarah hardily.

"It looks skinned," said Shirley critically. "You can't go to school looking like that, can she Hugh?"

Rosemary seemed to understand.

"So that's what you were doing last night!" she said. "I wondered what you were fussing around so for; your light was burning long after I went to bed."

"You've skinned your face, child," insisted Aunt Trudy. "I never saw a worse looking complexion, never. What have you done to yourself?"

Winnie, bringing in the later-comer's oatmeal, took one hasty glance.

"My land, Sarah, have you been walking in your sleep?" she asked in alarm. "You look as though you'd fallen out of a window and landed on your face."

Sarah's eyes filled with tears and two splashed down into her lap. She looked at Doctor Hugh, who nodded to her encouragingly. He had not said a word since her entrance.

"Never mind what they say, Sarah," he told her cheerily, "just tell your old brother about it; looks are not the most important thing in this world, are they?"

"Aunt Trudy said my mother wouldn't know me," explained Sarah, winking back the tears for her poor sore face smarted at the touch of salt. "And I bleached all the brown off, Hugh; only it is so sore."

"My dear child!" he said in amazement. Then added, "What did you put on your face, dear?"

"Well, you see, I wanted it to be real white," said Sarah, sure that he would understand, "so I used a cucumber and buttermilk and a lemon and I scrubbed it afterward with pumice stone."

They stared at her a moment in silence.

"It's a wonder you have any face left," declared Winnie. "I missed the buttermilk from the refrigerator."

Doctor Hugh said little then, but he took Sarah into the office and put something healing on the red little face. Then he explained that Aunt Trudy had only been teasing her, and that tan was pleasing to most people because it showed that the owner of the face liked to be outdoors. He allowed Sarah to go with him on his rounds that morning and so saved her the ordeal of going to school to meet the inevitable questions about her face. And, after the girls were in bed that night, he "spoke his mind" as Winnie said, to her and Aunt Trudy.

"I'd rather have her tanned as black as a piece of leather," he concluded, "than to be fussing with 'creams' and bleaching lotions. For goodness sake, don't bother her about her looks for at least ten years. She'll begin soon enough."

So Sarah gardened to her heart's content without a hat, and in time the seeds planted made a creditable showing. The doctor spent several evenings figuring and at last decided they might afford to have the house painted. He chose a deep cream color, after many family consultations, combined with a soft brown and when it was finished every one was pleased and sure that the little mother, for whom it was really done, would be equally delighted.

It did seem a waste of sunshine to be obliged to be cooped up in school during such enchanting weather, but it was impossible to convince the trustees of this. The three Willis girls had to be content with spending every hour out of school in the open air. Jack Welles was also gardening and though he gloomily spoke of the weeding to come, he taught the girls many things about planting and showed them how to care for the shrubbery that Doctor Hugh had sent out from the nearest nursery and had small time to care for himself.

"Mother does love roses so," said Rosemary once, "and Hugh is determined to surprise her with a lot of new bushes."

"Is that why you're named Rosemary?" asked Jack curiously, thinking it strange that he had never noticed before how pretty freckles were.

Rosemary's expressive face sobered.

"Partly," she answered, "but I had a sister, you know, whom I never saw. She was named Mary, for Mother. And she died when she was three years old. So when I was born, a year later, Mother named me 'Rosemary,' which means remembrance. Mother told me once that I was named in memory of the little dead sister, and for the flowers she loved and to please my father who thought 'Mary' the most beautiful name in the world. So I've always liked my name."

"It suits you, somehow," said Jack. "Want to hold this bush steady while I fill in round the roots?"

Whenever Jack was touched, he sought employment for his hands, for fear he might say something to show his feeling. He had all the boy's horror of "making a fool" of himself.

April, with its soft, sudden showers and its exquisite velvety greens ran into May with its first hot days and the sound of Peter Cooper's hammer loud in the land as he diligently worked putting up screens and awnings. Aunt Trudy began to "feel the heat" and Winnie and Sarah battled again over the ethics of killing defenseless flies.

Toward the end of the month, the Student's Council, conceived the plan of holding a picnic for the three schools, an all-day picnic some Saturday. The plan was proposed at a morning assembly and met with such vigorous and hearty response that the date was settled upon then and there. Winnie was besieged that night by three excited girls who asked her advice on what "would do" to take to the picnic.

"We want to take enough, because some of them will bring only a little," said Rosemary. "The boys always stuff an apple in their pockets and then wonder why they are hungry when noon comes."

"I'll pack you three lunches that will be lunches," promised Winnie, "and there'll be enough to give away, too."

"We're going in motor trucks," bubbled Shirley, "I want to ride up front."

"I want to ride on back," proclaimed Sarah who never, by any chance, seemed to agree with anyone else. "I want to ride with my feet hanging over. And I'm going to tie a string to Shirley's rag doll and drag it in the dust—like the pictures in the Early Martyrs book, you know."

Shirley began to hop up and down with anger and began to cry.

"I won't have my dolly dragged in the dust," she shrieked.

"Martyrs have to be dragged in the dust," the perverse Sarah insisted. "I want to see her bounce when she hits the stones."

"Oh, Sarah, do be still," begged Rosemary. Then, to the weeping Shirley, "Sarah is only teasing you, darling. She wouldn't hurt your dolly."

"Are the teachers going?" asked Aunt Trudy anxiously. "I hope some older people will be on hand to look after you."

"Oh, the teachers are going—worse luck!" Sarah assured her. "I'll bet they shriek every time I find a water snake."



CHAPTER XXVI

THE SCHOOL PICNIC

The Saturday chosen for the picnic dawned clear and warm and there was no sleep for anyone in the Willis family after six o'clock. Shirley and Sarah had to be forcibly restrained from investigating the boxes on the kitchen table and Winnie finally decided to finish packing them before breakfast, in order to "get a moment's peace" as she said.

Sarah flatly refused to go to the picnic unless her red tie could be found, not that she wanted to wear it for decorative purposes, she carefully explained, but because she thought she could catch minnows in it. There was a brook running through the picnic field and Sarah meant to explore it thoroughly.

By the time Rosemary had found the tie, Shirley had managed to upset the shoe blacking on her white shoes and had to be hastily refitted with tan socks and oxfords. Rosemary, flying down the hall with a new pair of shoelaces for her sister, brushed past Doctor Hugh on his way to the breakfast table.

"Is there a fire, or is it only the picnic?" he asked humorously, and she assured him that it was "always like this" on picnic mornings.

"Well I don't envy the job of the chaperones," said the doctor feelingly, when they were at last seated and Aunt Trudy was pouring his coffee. "You and Shirley," he said to Sarah, "want to do as Rosemary says to-day."

"Then I hope she doesn't say much," retorted Sarah ungraciously.

"If I thought you meant to be as rude as you sometimes sound, Sarah, I'd read you a lecture on politeness," said her brother, rather sternly. "But we won't spoil a holiday by bickering. Can you all go together in the same motor truck?"

"Mr. Oliver said we could do as we pleased, as long as none of the trucks were overcrowded," explained Rosemary. "I'm going to try and have Sarah and Shirley in the same car with me; you see if three other girls want to go together, that will just even it up."

"All right, children, have a good time and don't eat too many sandwiches," said the doctor cheerfully. "I'm sorry I can't stay to see you off, but I'll hear all about the fun to-night. Try not to go crazy, Auntie, before these Indians are safely out of the house."

As soon as he had gone, the girls began to "pack up" though the motor trucks were not to leave the school grounds till half-past nine. They were all dressed in white and each carried a sweater, Sarah's red, Rosemary's blue and Shirley's apple green. Winnie had made up a generous box of lunch for each, and three vacuum bottles, a surprise from Doctor Hugh, were waiting them, filled with lemonade.

"I think we'd better go early, Winnie," said Rosemary, "on account of getting in the same truck. The earlier we are, the better chance we have of getting seats together."

"Yes, it's always well to go early to any picnic," replied Winnie wisely. "The fun can't begin till you start, so why delay?"

The motor trucks were drawn up before the school when the girls reached the grounds and a group of boys and girls were standing about them. They made a parade showing, being six in number and gaily decorated with flags and bunting. There were two teachers assigned to each truck and Rosemary was delighted to find that Miss Parsons and her class teacher, Miss Penfield, were to be in charge of one of the grammar school trucks.

"Why I don't see any reason why you and your sisters shouldn't be together," Miss Penfield answered when Rosemary asked her about Sarah and Shirley. "Hop in here, and you'll be placed and may not have to move."

But just before the trucks were ready to start, Nina Edmonds and Fannie Mears hurried up. They tried to climb into the truck where Rosemary sat.

"Got my load now," said the driver promptly, but pleasantly. "You'll have to go in the next car."

"That's full of primary kids—we don't belong in there with them," protested Fannie. "Oh, look, there are Sarah and Shirley Willis—they can't go in this car, they belong in the primary grades."

"Now Fannie, don't be disagreeable," begged Miss Penfield. "Rosemary wants her younger sisters with her which is perfectly natural. It won't hurt you to ride in one of the other trucks. Do it to be obliging, if for no other reason."

"I'm sure Fannie doesn't want to be disobliging, Miss Penfield," said Nina smoothly, "but Mr. Oliver distinctly said there were two trucks for the grammar grades and that we should not go out of our assigned cars. Besides, Fannie and I want to sit with our friends and they're all in this car. Rosemary needn't move, but I think Sarah and Shirley should go where they belong."

Miss Penfield flushed with vexation and annoyance. Mr. Oliver had made just that ruling and she knew that Nina was quoting the letter of his order, while ignoring the spirit. If she chose to make a scene she could probably send the two girls to the other car, but it was a question whether in attempting to enforce her commands she might not at the same time spoil the day for Rosemary.

"Are you crowded, Miss Penfield?" called Jack Welles, standing up in the first truck and looking back. "We have room for three up here; send them along, if you need space."

"You go, Rosemary, and take Sarah and Shirley," said Miss Penfield quickly. "Now come in here, Nina and Fannie, and for pity's sake let us have no more of this jangling."

The high school cars held the coveted lead in the line and Jack happened to be in the first one. Rosemary and Sarah and Shirley were welcomed joyously by the older boys and girls and Nina and Fannie furiously regretted their insistence. They would have liked to go in the high school truck and if they had only waited, or had been less determined in their demands, they might have found places there.

When the large field, where the Eastshore picnics were always held, was reached, the trucks were parked in a circle and the pupils scattered to amuse themselves according to their varying ages and ideas. Shirley joined the little girls and shrieking games of "Tag" were immediately under way. Sarah, ignoring the suggestions of her classmates that they hunt for wildflowers, dropped flat on her stomach and began a search for bugs. Rosemary left the lunch boxes under the eyes of the teachers who gathered in a ring and took out knitting and fancy work, and went off with half a dozen girls her age to gather and wash wild-grape vine leaves to serve as plates at the luncheon.

As it is at all picnics, no one could really think of anything long, till the boxes were unpacked and the good things set out. The boys helped by getting in everyone's way, by tipping over the bottles of milk and dropping ants and spiders on the tablecloths to frighten the girls. There were great slabs of moss-covered rock all about the field and these, when covered with cloths, made the nicest kind of tables. The groups gathered to suit themselves and when Rosemary found that Jack Welles, Jerry and Fred Gordon, Ben Kelsey, Norman Cox and Eustice Gray were gravitating toward the rock she had selected and that Shirley and Sarah were each bringing a playmate to eat with them, she was thankful that Winnie had had the packing of the boxes.

There were more than enough sandwiches and stuffed eggs and cup cakes and strawberry tarts to satisfy every one and the boys forgot to be shy and, to Rosemary's delight, helped themselves without urging, quite as though they knew Winnie had had their pleasure in mind, as indeed the good soul had.

"We're going to play ball this afternoon," said Jack, when it was a mortal impossibility for any one to eat more. "Mr. Hamlin gave orders that we must go far enough away so that there would be no danger of striking any of the kids with the ball. We're going up the brook away to an open pasture. Can we help you with the dishes or anything?" he added thoughtfully.

"There won't be any dishes," smiled Rosemary. "Winnie put in only paper plates and napkins, and it won't be wasteful to leave the little that's left for the birds. If you want to bury the boxes, that will be nice; Hugh always detests any litter left around after a picnic."

"We'll dig a hole and bury all the trash," said Eustice Gray instantly. "Come on, fellows, we'll go collect it."

"But you haven't any shovel," said the practical Sarah.

"A-ha, you're a good detective, but you don't know motor trucks," replied Eustice, grinning at her, for he had taken a fancy to the odd child who had screamed to him not to mash the spider he had fished out of his lemonade cup. "All good motor trucks take a spade with them, under the seat, to use in case they are stuck on some muddy road."

"Oh!" said Sarah. "Then I'll come help you."

And she trotted around after the boys till they had collected the litter and trash left by each group of picnickers and buried it neatly in a hole they filled in and stamped down firmly. She would have gone with them to play ball, but Rosemary held her back.

"Well, if I can't play ball, I'll go hunt snakes," decided Sarah whose frock was torn and dirty already, but whose streaked face was radiant with the good time she was having.

All the boys, big and little, had disappeared immediately after luncheon, to play ball in more distant fields. The farmers of the neighborhood were perfectly willing to lend their pasture land for a day and there were no crops to be spoiled by tramping feet for several miles along the brook.

The younger girls gathered around one of the primary teachers who promised to tell them stories and most of the grammar and high school girls had brought their crocheting and were ready to sit quietly a while and exchange patterns. Rosemary, however, did not feel in what she called a "knitting mood" and when Bessie Kent suggested that they go wading in the brook, she jumped at the idea. A dozen girls were found to be aching for a frolic and Miss Penfield smilingly told them to be young while they could, but not to wade too far and not to stay too long.

The water was icy cold, and much laughter and shrieking advertised the first step, but as soon as they were used to the temperature only the exhilaration remained. Led by Rosemary, they started slowly up stream.

"Good gracious, if Nina Edmonds and Fannie Mears aren't coming, too," whispered Bessie, glancing back over her shoulder. "Wonder why they want to tag along?"

If she had only known it, Nina and Fannie were feeling decidedly left out of things. They longed to go with the high school girls who persistently ignored them and they were not at all popular with their own classmates. When they found that they were to be left on the edge of the circle of crocheters, they determined to follow the wading party. Nina privately thought she was far too old to indulge in such a silly pastime, and Fannie hated walking anyway, but at the moment wading was better than doing nothing.

"Who's that shouting?" asked Rosemary, as they rounded a bend in the brook and heard a distant noise.

"Must be the boys," replied Bessie. "Yes, see, there they are—way over there; they're playing ball on the other side of the brook, a couple of fields further on."

The girls could see the running figures plainly, and from time to time a bellow of pure joy and excitement wafted down to them.

"Don't they have fun—" Rosemary was beginning, when a scream startled them all.

"I've cut my foot!" shrieked Fannie Mears. "Oh, the whole bottom of the brook must be covered with broken glass. Look how it bleeds!"

She lifted her foot from the water and Nina, who caught a glimpse of the widening gash, cried out in horror. Fannie let her foot fall and struck the glass again. She screamed even more loudly and began to beat the water with her hands.

"Look out, you won't be able to see the glass!" cried Rosemary, turning and dashing toward her. "Stand still, Fannie, just a minute."

Rosemary stooped and felt carefully down about Fannie's feet. Her hands struck a broken bottle and she lifted it out and tossed it on the bank.

"That's what did it," she said calmly. "Hurry and let me see your foot—wait I'll pull you up on the bank, Fannie."

But when Fannie saw her cut foot, which was bleeding profusely, and the girls, who had crowded around saw it and her white, frightened face, a veritable panic started. Fannie slipped into the brook, crying with pain and fright, apparently believing that if her foot was under water and out of sight it must stop bleeding, and the other girls began a chorus of shrill screaming that tried Rosemary to the point of exasperation.

"How can you be so silly!" she stormed. "Somebody hold Fannie's foot while I tie it up; I know first-aid. She's losing blood all the time. Somebody help me—Oh, don't stand there like that! Bessie, can't you hold her foot just a minute?"

"I couldn't!" Bessie shivered and drew back. "My knees are wabbling now, Rosemary. Blood always makes me so sick!"

"Then run," said Rosemary desperately, seeing that she could expect no help from the frightened girls about her. "Run, and tell some of the boys to come quick!"



CHAPTER XXVII

A LONG YEAR'S END

As Bessie obediently started in the direction of the ball-players, Nina Edmonds uttered a shocked exclamation.

"Oh, Rosemary, I don't think you should have done that," she said reprovingly. "We haven't our shoes and stockings on, you know."

"I suppose we should let Fannie bleed to death, then?" suggested Rosemary, her great eyes snapping fire. "Fannie won't hold still herself and not one of you has the nerve to hold her steady and yet you stand there and make a fuss because a boy may see you without your shoes and stockings on. If you're going to be ashamed of anything, Nina Edmonds, be ashamed of being a coward!"

Nina flushed angrily, but Rosemary was trying to pull Fannie back on the bank and paid no further attention to her. Fannie fought off any attempt to touch her and she cried and groaned without a moment's pause. Rosemary, straightening up after a hard and ineffectual tussle, was relieved to see Bessie running toward them, followed by a string of boys, Jack Welles in advance. Bessie's cries had reached them long before she came to the field and they had correctly interpreted her frantic appeals for help.

"Oh, Jack, I'm so glad you've come!" cried Rosemary. "Help me get Fannie out on the bank. She's cut her foot badly and she won't let me touch her, to tie it up."

Will Mears, Fannie's brother, panted up and when he saw his sister and understood that she was hurt, he bent down and lifted her out with one swift, strong pull.

"Gee, you have cut yourself!" he said in distress as he saw the injured foot.

"Hush up!" said Jack sternly, as the girls began to shriek again. "Go away, if you're afraid to look. Rosemary knows what to do, don't you, Rosemary? Tell us how to help you."

"Hold her still," directed Rosemary, frantically calling on her memory for Doctor Hugh's first-aid lessons. "I'll have to wash it out the best way I can, but I think I can stop the bleeding. Then we'll have to get her to a doctor."

"I'll hold her," said Will Mears grimly. "You go ahead."

Fannie could not twist and squirm in his strong arms, and Rosemary deftly washed out the great jagged cut that had slashed across the slim instep, and then, further scandalizing Nina, tore a wide bandage from the bottom of her petticoat, brought the edges of the cut closely together and bound it tightly.

"I think you ought to carry her to the truck," she said, when she had finished. "Look out, Will, she's fainted. Lay her on the grass."

The sight of Fannie, white and motionless, frightened the girls, and it must be confessed the boys, too, far more than her steady screaming. Rosemary did not appear to be alarmed, but borrowing Jack's handkerchief, dipped it in the water and gently bathed Fannie's forehead. Then she took her head in her lap and waited a few minutes. Presently Fannie opened her eyes.

"She's better now," said Rosemary.

"I'll carry her to the truck," declared Will Mears, looking with respect on the young nurse. "As you say, I think we'd better get her to a doctor. Some of you run on ahead and explain what has happened and tell them we want to start back right away."

The girls sped on ahead and in a few minutes the picnic had broken up hastily. A sort of bed was made in one of the trucks, using the sweaters and wraps of the other girls, and Fannie was laid on this, with her head in Rosemary's lap. Will Mears had no confidence in any one else's ability to take care of his sister.

"She would have bled to death, if it hadn't been for Rosemary," he said to Jack, as the truck started, the driver carefully avoiding the bad places in the road in order to spare the patient any unnecessary jar. "I never saw a girl before who could do up cuts and not scream at the sight of blood. I suppose it's because her brother is a doctor."

"Not altogether," replied Jack curtly. "Rosemary doesn't happen to be the screaming kind of girl."

Will Mears directed that the truck be driven to Doctor Hugh's office where, by good fortune, they found him just in from a call, and Fannie, quiet and spent now, with no breath left for screaming, had her wound washed with an antiseptic and dressed. Then she was taken home and put to bed. She was weak from the loss of blood and the consequences might have been serious, the doctor admitted, if the cut had not been tied in time. But to Will Mears' glowing praise of Rosemary, he replied that she had only used her knowledge of first-aid treatment.

"Then all girls ought to learn it," burst out the high school junior. "Those other girls stood around like perfect dubs. Fannie could have bled to death, for all they did."

"All girls ought to know first-aid," affirmed the doctor. "My sisters are not going to be left helpless when an accident happens."

"But you can't say it's altogether the first aid," persisted Will Mears. "Look at Nina Edmonds; she might learn the whole programme, and then, when something did happen, she'd run around like a chicken with its head off! First-aid doesn't teach you to keep your wits about you and not to scream and act like a lunatic generally, Doctor Willis."

"Well, of course, one needs character as well as first-aid knowledge," admitted Doctor Hugh, smiling a little, "but if one knows what to do, there's no temptation to wring the hands and scream, Will. Rosemary knew what to do, therefore she did it."

But Will Mears refused to give all the credit to first-aid and indeed all the boys and girls who had seen Rosemary care for Fannie, were loud in their praise of her fearlessness and skill. Mrs. Mears sent for her to come and see Fannie, as soon as the patient grew stronger, and though Rosemary rather dreaded the visit, she came away feeling that next term in school she and Fannie would be, if not close friends, at least on amiable terms instead of irritatingly hostile which had been their covert attitude this last year.

For it was time to think of school as "next year," since this term was so nearly over. The Eastshore schools closed the middle of June and the week after the picnic the pupils were plunged into the throes of the final examinations. Even Shirley went about anxiously wondering if she would "pass" and asking each of her sisters if they thought she had had good marks during the year.

"I just have to be promoted," she would say over and over. "I just have to be promoted, 'cause my mother is coming home."

"When's Mother coming home?" was Sarah's cry. "You said in a year, Hugh, and it's a year this month."

"I think we may look for her home sometime this month," said the doctor one day when Sarah had asked him for the twentieth time. "You mustn't expect her to keep a calendar, Sarah and come back on the exact day she went away. It may be a few days longer, dear."

"She went away a year ago this Wednesday," said Rosemary, half to herself.

"Has it been a long year, Rosemary?" asked her brother, quickly.

"In spots," answered Rosemary, the tears rushing to her eyes. "It has been ever so long, sometimes, Hugh."

"Well, let's all get promoted," suggested Shirley, in her little chirpy voice. "Mother would like us all promoted, wouldn't she, Hugh?"

"She'll about eat you up, promoted or not," he answered, swinging Shirley to the top of his desk the better to hug her. "But by all means be promoted; that will be fine news to tell her."

The dreaded examinations approached relentlessly, engulfed each fearful class and released them, after a few days, to wait their fates. Shirley was sure she had "passed in everything," Sarah was superbly indifferent, and Rosemary had secret qualms about history. Jack Welles confided that he didn't care so much whether or not he passed, but the uncertainty was driving him mad.

"If I pass, I get my choice of three dandy fishing rods," he explained to Rosemary. "And if I flunk, I have to work in the garden all summer without a single fishing trip."

This state of suspense extended to the last day of the term. The senior classes, in the high and grammar schools, were given their ratings earlier, to allow them to prepare for the graduating exercises. Rosemary, Sarah, Shirley and Aunt Trudy went to the exercises and all through the hot June night Rosemary sat, wide-eyed and delighted, wondering if the day would ever come when she could sit on the platform in a white frock with her arms filled with roses, and perhaps be called on to read an essay.

The day after the graduation, the cards were handed out among the other grades. Jack Welles waited to walk home with the Willis girls and though his patience was sorely tried by the prolonged farewells, he managed to keep fairly good-humored.

"Why was Bessie Kent kissing you as though she never expected to see you again?" he asked Rosemary curiously. "Doesn't she live near you and won't you see her nearly every day this summer?"

"Oh, that's just because it was the last day of school," explained Rosemary.

"Silly, I call it," declared Sarah, voicing Jack's sentiments. "I got promoted, Jack. And I'm going to hunt specimens all summer for the biology teacher. He asked me to."

"I got promoted, too," cried Shirley proudly. "I got a silver star on my card. And now I'm in the second grade."

Jack looked at Rosemary. She nodded happily.

"Passed in everything," she said. "Even history. Won't it be fun to be in the grammar graduating class next term!"

"Well I passed, myself," announced Jack. "Watch me pick out that fishing rod. And the garden won't see much of me this summer, I can tell you that."

"Mother will be so pleased," said Rosemary, as Jack went on to his house, and the three girls mounted the steps of the Willis home. "She likes us to do well in school, and Hugh was never kept back a single year. She would like us to follow his record, I know."

"The house looks kind of nice, doesn't it?" said Sarah unexpectedly. Comment of that kind was unusual with her.

The house did look "nice," its rich cream color showing up the vivid green of the shrubbery and the velvety surface of the well-kept lawn. The new rose bushes were bearing well and Doctor Hugh had managed new green and white striped awnings for the porch.

"I wish Mother could see the roses," said Rosemary as they went in.

The late afternoon June sunshine streamed in through the hall window and made a broad band to the stairway which was in shadow. Voices sounded in the living room.

"Hugh's home!" cried Sarah, her quick eyes darting to the hall table where a man's hat and a light leather bag lay together with a woman's hat and veil.

Rosemary saw the hat and veil. They were not Aunt Trudy's. Her heart gave a sudden leap.

They went forward across the hall to the doorway of the living-room. There, in the large arm-chair, facing the door, sat a little woman with eyes like Rosemary's and dark hair like Sarah, but faintly streaked with gray across its ripples. She was thin, as though from a recent illness, but a clear pink glowed in her cheeks and her soft voice was firm and strong. Her lovely mouth smiled at the girls and she held out her arms. Doctor Hugh, standing behind her chair, laughed a little, to keep from crying he afterward said, as Sarah and Shirley hurled themselves upon their mother, both shrieking, while they waved their report cards, "We're promoted! We're promoted! We passed in every single thing!"

She took them both in her lap at once and their arms were about her neck. Across the yellow and dark head, her eyes met those of her oldest daughter. Doctor Hugh, too, looked at Rosemary.

She had not moved from the doorway since Sarah and Shirley had brushed past her in their mad rush. Standing motionless and speechless, a slender hand on either side of the doorframe, she watched her sisters claim the mother's first kiss. Then, as the beautiful eyes were raised to hers, she made an effort to speak. All the love and longing and loneliness of the past year, not fully felt till now, rushed to her voice. She took a step forward.

"Mother!" said Rosemary.

THE END