Just then Miss Morrison came out and he helped her into the cutter and they drove away. At the same moment Miss Watson with the gold-filled teeth, and the merry widow puffs, disappeared and Pearl Watson, caretaker of the Millford School, in a plain little serge dress, beginning to wear in spite of sateen sleeve protectors, turned from the window with a sudden tightening of the heart, and sought the refuge of her own seat, and there on the cool desk she laid her head, sobbing softly, strange new tears that were not all pain!



CHAPTER VII

THE SECOND CHANCE

For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

——Longfellow.

PEARL, having taken her resolve to leave school, did not repine, and no one, not even her mother, knew how hard the struggle had been. It all came out afterward that, John Watson, too, in his quiet way, had been thinking of the advantages of farm life for his growing family. So when Pearl proposed it he was ready to rise and second the motion.

Nearly all the land around Millford had been homesteaded, and was being successfully farmed, but there was one quarter-section in the crook of the Souris that had been abandoned. Bill Cavers had entered it some years before, and paid his ten dollar entrance fee, built a little house on it, and farmed it indifferently for two or three years; but poor Bill had to let it go at last. The numerous black whiskey bottles around his miserable buildings told the story. The land was good—it was only four miles from Millford—it could be re-entered on payment of ten dollars. John Watson went out to see the farm and came back well satisfied, so they decided to move out on it as soon as the snow was gone.

By selling the house and lot they had enough money to buy a team of horses, a waggon, and some machinery. For seed grain and everything else that was needed Pearl would take her money. Aunt Kate protested loudly against having Pearlie's money taken, and said if it wasn't that Bill's stone had come so high she'd spend her own rather than have Pearlie's touched. But Pearl stoutly insisted that helping her family in this way was just what she wanted to have done with her money.

Pearl had not seen the farm until she drove out with her father on the first load. "A movin' gen'rally looks sort of sad, doesn't it, Pa?" she said, as she settled herself on the dismembered beds. "But there's nothin' sad about this movin'. We're not goin' because we can't pay the rent, and there's goin' to be a notice of it in the paper, too."

"How do you know that, acushla?" her father asked her.

"I wrote it myself. I was afraid Mr. Evans might forget. He's all cluttered up wid politics, so I wrote it myself, and pinned it on his door."

"What did you say, Pearlie?"

"I wrote this: Mr. and Mrs. John Watson and their interesting family are leaving our midst to live on a farm, hoping to better their circumstances and give the boys a chance to grow up decent."

"Faith, that's puttin' it plain, Pearlie," her father laughed. "You're gettin' to be real handy wid the pen."

"I have a far lovelier one than that done, Pa; but I couldn't bear to have it published in a newspaper, for every pryin' eye to see. So I wrote it out in purple ink, and will just keep it in me scrapbook."

"What was it, Pearlie?"

"I wouldn't say it for everybody, Pa, for they wouldn't understand; but I know you will. This is what I wrote:

Farewell, sweet childhood's happy home, For now we sadly haste away. We'll leave your happy scene with tears— We tried to leave you yesterday, But fate denied, for Adam Watt Had broke the axle of his dray.

Farewell, sweet childhood's happy home, We're going out four weary mile, We've gone to seek another home And may not see you for a while. But every inch of thee is dear, And every stick in thy woodpile.

Each mark upon thy wall is linked With deepest meaning and with love, See where young Bugsey spilled the ink, Caused by his youngest brother's shove.

See where wee Danny picked a hole— He knew no better tho', I guess. The patch that covers it from sight Is made of Pearlie's winsey dress.

All through the dreary winter time Thou sheltered us from cold so bleak Thou sheltered us from wind and rain, Save where thy kitchen roof did leak.

When strangers come to live in thee, And fill thy halls with noise and shout, Still think, dear house, of those who once Did from thy gates go in and out."

"It's just grand," her father said admiringly, "and it's true, too. I don't know where you get the things you think of."

The road lay along the bank of the Souris, which still ran high with the spring floods. The spring came early in Manitoba that year, and already the cattle were foraging through the pastures to be ready for the first blade of grass that appeared. The April sun flooded the bare landscape with its light and heat. From the farm-yards they passed came the merry cackle of hens. Horses and colts galloped gaily around the corrals, and the yellow meadow larks on the fence-posts rang out their glad challenge. The poplar trees along the road were blushing with the green of spring, and up from the river-flats, gray-purple with scrub oak and willow, came the indescribably sweet spring smell.

At the corner of Thomas Perkins's farm they turned straight north, following the river.

"There's our farm, Pearlie," her father said.

What Pearl saw was one long field of old stubble, gray and faded, cut out of the scrub, and at the end of the field, against a grove of poplars, stood a little house, so sad, so battered, so broken, that Pearl's stout heart almost sank. It was made of logs and plastered with mud, and had settled down on one side, looking as ungainly and tired as an old horse when he rests on one leg. There was a door in the side next the road, with one window at each side of it—windows with almost everything in them except glass.

Pearl jumped down from the waggon and ran around her new home trying to find something good about it. When her father came in after tying up his horses, he found her almost in tears.

"Pa," she said, "this is sadder than I ever thought it would be. I wish it had been real dirty and shiftless; but look, Pa, they've tried to keep it nice. See, it's been whitewashed, and there's a place you can tell they've had a bit of oil-cloth behind the box the wash basin sat on, to keep the spatters off the wall. And see here, Pa," stooping to pick up a piece of cretonne from the rubbish on the floor—"this has been a paper holder—there's beads sewed on it around the flowers; and do you see yon little shelf? It's got tack marks on it; she's had a white curtain on it, with knitted lace. I know she has, and see, Pa"—looking behind the window casing—"yes, sir, she's had curtains on here, too. There's the tack. She had them tied back, too, and you can see where they've had pictures. I know just what Mrs. Cavers is like—a poor, thin woman, with knots on her knuckles. I could see her face in the house as we drove up to the door, kind of crooked like the house, and gray and weather-beaten, with teeth out. Houses always get to look like the people who live in them. They've tried—at least she has, and she's failed. That's the sad thing to me, Pa—she's tried. If people just set around and let things go to smash and don't care, that's too bad but there's nothing sad about it. But to try your livin' best and still have to go under—that's awful!"

Pearl walked to the window and wiped the cobwebs from it.

"I know how she felt when she was standin' here watchin' fer Bill, hopin' so hard that he's come home right this time, and bring the list of things she asked him to bring with his wheat-ticket. I can see she was that kind, always hopin'; if she wasn't that kind she wouldn't ever have sewed the beads on. She'd stand here and watch for Bill so full of hope and still so black afraid, and then it would come on dark and she couldn't see anything but Perkins's light winkin' through the trees, and then she'd lay out the supper, but not eat a bite herself, but just wait, and wait, and wait. And then when Bill did come she'd run out wid the lantern with her heart thumpin' so, and her knees all weak and wobbly—and Bill, you know how he'd be. Sandy Braden had got the wheat-ticket, and he hadn't paid a bill or bro't a thing for the house, and so at last she saw she was beat and done for; she saw that every hope she had had was a false one."

They were putting up the stove now, and when it was set in place Pearl said: "Let's get a fire goin' now, quick, Pa—and that'll cheer us up."

Her father went to the river and brought water, which they heated on the stove, and then he scrubbed the floor while Pearl cleaned the windows and put up the cheese-cloth curtains she had brought. She went outside to see how the curtains looked, and came back well pleased.

"Pa," she said, "I've got a name for it. We'll call it 'The Second Chance.'"

"For why, Pearlie?" her father asked curiously. "Well, it just came to me as I was lookin' round, what this farm has had to put up with Bill Cavers. Here it is as good a farm as any around here, and it's all run to weeds. I am sure this yard is knee-high with ragweed and lamb's quarter in the summer, and the fields are all grown up with mustard and wild-oats, and they're an abomination to any farm; and so it has just sort, of give up and got discouraged, and now it lets in any old weed that comes along, because it thinks it'll never be any good. But here comes the Watsons, the whole bilin' of them, and I can see over there, Pa"—taking him to the window—"the place the garden will be, all nicely fenced to keep out the cattle; and over there, under the trees, will be the chicken-house, with big white hens swaggerin' in and out of it and down the ravine there will be the pig-pasture, and forninst us will be acres and acres of wheat, and be hind the bluff there will be the oat-field. I can see it, Pa."

"Faith, and yer a grand girl at seein' things," her father said, with his slow smile, "and I just hope yer right."

"I'm sure of it," said Pearl, after a pause, "and that's why, we'll call it 'The Second Chance,' for it's a nice kind name, and I like the sound of it, anyway. I am thinkin', maybe that it is that way with most of us, and we'll be glad, maybe, of a second chance. Now, Pa, I don't mind tellin' ye that it was a sore touch for me to have to leave school, and me doin' so well, but I am hopin' still that some time, some place, perhaps, for me, too, like the farm, there may be a second chance. Do you see what I mane, Pa?"

"I see it, acushla," said her father. "And I'm thinkin' maybe there's one for me, too."

And all day long, as John Watson worked, there was a wish in his honest heart, so earnest a wish that it formed a prayer, that he might be able to give his children many of the things that had been denied him; and it came to him, vaguely at first, but growing ever clearer that in Pearlie, Teddy and the rest of them, and his desire to do better for them, than he had done for himself, he was getting his second chance.

The next day saw the whole family moved out and safely landed on the farm. Mrs. Watson, Aunt Kate and Pearlie were soon busy putting up beds and setting the house in order. Teddy, who was fifteen years old, and a strong boy for his age, was set to plow at once on the field in front of the house, for it was still early in April, and there was time to get in some crop. John Watson, when he got his family and household goods safely landed, went to work, assisted by Billy and Jimmy, to prop up the old stables and make them habitable for the two cows.

Mary was given the hardest task of all—to look after her four young brothers—not to let them play in the mud, for obvious reasons; climb trees, which is hard on the clothes; go in bare feet, which is not a safe thing to do until after the 24th of May; or fall in the river, which is a dangerous proceeding at any time. Mary was something of a child-trainer, and knew what fascination the prohibited has for people, and so marched her four young charges down to the river, regaling them, as they went, with terrible stories of drowning and shipwreck. They threw sticks in, pretending they were drowning sailors, but that soon grew monotonous, for the sailors all made their escape and went sailing serenely down the stream. The balm of Gilead trees exuded their healing perfume on the cool breeze that blew ceaselessly up the broad valley; a golden-brown chipmunk raced up a tree and scolded at them from the topmost branches; overhead, in the clear blue of the mid-heaven, a flock of wild geese, with flashing white wings, honked away to the Brandon Hills, en route for that northern lake that no man knows; while a flock of goldfinches, like a shower of marigolds, settled on a clump of willows, singing pauselessly.

"Let's catch them and sell them," said Tommy, who had the stubby hands of a money-maker.

"What'll ye do with the money?" Patsey asked.

But before Tommy could decide between an automobile and an Irish mail, the goldfinches had crossed the river and were fluttering over the purple branches of the leafless saskatoon bushes, which bordered the stream.

A jack-rabbit came gaily leaping down the road behind them, and at sight of him the four boys set off in eager pursuit. Bugsey got right in Tommy's way, which was a fortunate thing for the jack-rabbit, because only for that Tommy would have had him he is pretty sure of that.

After the rabbit had gone from sight and the baffled hunters returned to where Mary sat, Bugsey came in for a good deal of abuse from the other three. Then, to change the conversation, which was rather painful, Bugsey suggested: "What do you bet that fellow hasn't got a nest somewhere around here? Say we have a look for it."

A vigourous search began. Incidentally Tommy found a nest of mice, and Patsey discovered a hawk's nest in a tree and was halfway up before Mary saw him. She made him come straight down—climbing trees was too hard on the clothes; but when she came back from looking up Danny, who had dropped behind to look down a gopher's hole, she found that Patsey had discovered a plan whereby he could climb up for the lovely silver nest and not endanger the safety of his clothes, either. He stood below the tree with the coveted nest in his arms, covered with glory and scratches, but little else.

When the boys got home everybody had something to show but Danny. Tommy had his mouse's nest; Patsey had the hawk's nest; Bugsey had a fungus. Danny was the only empty-handed one, but Pearlie cheered him up wonderfully by predicting that he would get the very first wood-tick when the season opened.



CHAPTER VIII

A GOOD LISTENER

The prosperity of a joke lieth in the ear of thine friend.

——Shakespeare.

WHILE John Watson was busy fixing the dilapidated stables, he was joined by his nearest neighbour, Thomas Perkins, who was of a very sociable nature, and loved the sound of his own voice.

Thomas Perkins was a man of middle age, a stout man with a florid countenance and dewy blue eyes; his skin was of that quality that is easily roughened by the wind. He always spoke rapidly, and without punctuation.

"How do you do, Mr. Watson, how do you do? Just movin' in, eh? Well, sir, I'm glad to see you; the little house looked lonely since Bill and the wife left. Poor Bill, he was a decent chap, too; but he lost his bet."

"What was the bet about?" Mr. Watson asked, while the other man stopped to light his pipe.

"Well, you see, Bill bet the Government ten dollars that he could make a living on this farm, and the Government puts up the farm against the ten dollars that he can't. That's the way it goes. Nearly every body wins when they bet with the Government. I made the same bet twenty years ago, and it would take ten thousand dollars now to get me off of old seventeen, north half; you see, I won my bet, but poor Bill lost his. Still, it wasn't a fair race. Bill would have won it if the Government hadn't put the whiskey in his way. You can be pretty sure it's whiskey that wins it for the Government nearly every time when the homesteader loses. You'll win yours, all right, no fear of that. I made my start when I was nine years old; left home with the wind in my back—that's all I ever got from home—and I started right in to make my pile, and I guess I haven't done too bad, eh? What's that?"

Mr. Watson had not spoken, but the other man nudged him genially and did not resent his silence at all.

"First money I ever earned was from an old Scotch woman, picking potatoes at eleven cents a day, and I worked at it twenty-five hours a day, up an hour before day—there was no night there, you bet, it was like heaven that way; and then when I got my sixty-six cents, didn't she take it from me to keep. It was harder to get it back from her than to earn it—oh, gosh! you know what the Scotch are like. Ye see, my mother died when I was a little fellow, and the old man married again, a great big, raw-boned, rangey lady. I says: 'Not for mine,' when I saw her, and lit out—never got a thing from home and only had about enough clothes on me to flag a train—and I've railroaded and worked in lumber shanties. But a farm's the place to make money. How many of a family have ye?"

"Nine," John Watson said, after some deliberation.

"Well, sir, you'll save a lot of hired help; that's the deuce, payin' out money to hired help, and feedin' them, too. I lost two of my boys when they were just little lads, beginnin' to be some good. Terrible blow on me; they'd a been able to handle a team in a year or two, if they'd a lived—twins they were, too. After raisin' them for six years, it was hard—year of the frozen wheat, too—oh, yes, 'tain't all easy. Now, there's old Bruce Simpson, back there at Pelican Lake. It would just do you good to be there of a mornin.' He has four boys and four girls, and just at the clip of five o'clock them lads jump out of bed—the eight feet hit the floor at the same minute and come leppin' down the stairs four abreast, each fellow with a lantern, and get out to the stable and feed up. The four girls are just the same—fine, smart, turkey-faced girls they are, with an arm like a stove-pipe. You'll be all right with the help you've got—you'll have nearly enough to run a threshin' mill. Any girls?"

"Two girls," said John Watson.

"Two! That's not so bad—they'll be needed all right to help the missus. I have two girls, too; but one of them's no good—too much like the mother's folks. You know the Grahams are all terrible high-headed people—one of the old man's brothers is a preacher down in the States—Professor Graham, they call him—and sir, they can't get over it. Martha, my oldest girl, she's all right—straight Perkins, Martha is—no nonsense about her; but Edith, she's all for gaddin' round and dressin' up. 'Pa,' she says one day to me, 'I want a piano'—that was the Graham comin' out of her—and I says, says I 'Edie, my dear, run along now and let me hear you play a toon on the cream separator or the milkin'-stool,' says I; 'there's more money in it.' But, by George! the wife kept at me, too, about this piano business, just pesterin' the very life out o' me, until I got sick of it. But I got them one at last—I was at a sale in Brandon, last fall, and I got one for eighty dollars. I told them it cost four hundred—you have to do it, when you're dealin' with wimmin'—they like things to cost a lot. Well, sir, I got the worth of my money, let me tell you. It's a big, long, dappled one, all carved with grapes and lions. Two or three people can play it at once, and it's big enough to make a bed on it when there's company. But what do you think of this now? Oh, it has clean disgusted me. They don't like it because it won't go in the parlour door, and there isn't room for it in the hall, and if you'll believe me, it's sittin' out there in the machine-shed—so I've got to take it down to Winnipeg and try to change it.

"You see, that's what comes o' lettin' young ones go to school. Since Edie got her education she thinks she knows more than the rest of us. My boy, young Bob—but we call him Bud—he's been to school a good deal; but he and Steadman's boy had a row, and I guess Bud was put out—I don't know. I was glad enough to get him home to draw poles from the big bush. Old George Steadman is a sly old rooster, and the other day he comes up to me in Millford, snuffin like a settin' goose, and I saw there was something on his mind. 'What's wrong, George?' I said. 'It's about them oats you promised me for seed,' he said. I had promised him some of my White Banner oats this spring. 'Ye'll let me have them, will ye?' says he. 'I was wonderin' if it made any difference about the boys quarrelin',' says he. I says: 'No, George, it don't make no difference; if you have the money you can have the oats, but don't expect me to take no security on mortgaged property,' says I."

Mr. Perkins slapped his patient listener on the back and laughed uproariously.

"You see, that was the worst thing I could say to him, for he's so eternally proud of his land. He has nineteen hundred acres all paid for, and him and the missus is always talkin' about it."

"Did he have much when he started?" John Watson asked.

"Well, I should say not. His wife had some money; but, you bet, she has it yet. She was a Hunter; they're as tight as the bark to the tree, every one of them—they'd skin a flea for the hide and tallow. Well, I'll just tell you, she lent him forty dollars to buy a cow with the first year they were in this country, with the understandin' he'd pay her back in the fall. Well, the crop didn't turn out well and he couldn't pay her, so she sold the cow, and the kids had to do without milk. Well, I must be goin' now to see how things are goin'. I don't work much—I just kinda loaf around and take care of the stock. How would you like a yoke of oxen to plough with? I got two big husky brutes out there in the pasture that know how to plow—I got them on a horse deal—and they've never done a stroke of work for me. Come on over with me and I'll fix you up with harness and all. I got the whole thing."

John Watson looked at him in grateful surprise and thanked him for such welcome help.

"Oh, don't say a word about it, John," Mr. Perkins said genially, "I'll be glad to see the beggars having to work. Look out for the black one—he's a sly old dog, and looks to me like an ox that would keep friends with a man for ten years to get a good chance to land a kick on him at last."

When John Watson went over for the oxen, Mrs. Perkins came out bareheaded to make kind inquiries for his wife and family. From within came the mellow hum of the cream-separator, as Martha, the steady member of the family, played a profitable tune thereon.

That night Pearl called all her family to come out and see the sunset. The western sky was one vast blue lake, dotted with burning boats that ever changed their form and colour; each shore of the lake was slashed into innumerable bays, edged with brightest gold; above this were richest shades' of pale yellow, deepening into orange, while thick gray mountains of clouds were banked around the horizon, bearing on their sullen faces here and there splashes of colour like stray rose-petals.

John Watson watched it silently, and then said, more to himself than to anyone else: "It is putty, ain't it?"



CHAPTER IX

MRS. PERKINS'S TURN

Tell you what I like the best Long about knee-deep in June ... Some afternoon Just to git out and rest And not work at nothing else.

——James Whitcomb Riley.

OUT in the poplar grove behind the house, on a fine, sunshiny Saturday, afternoon, Pearl Watson and Billy were busy making a hammock under Aunt Kate's directions. They had found an old barrel in the scrub, and Aunt Kate was showing them how, with the staves, they could make the loveliest hammock by boring two auger holes in each end and running ropes thro' the holes.

When the hammock was completed and swung between two big trees, Pearl ran into the house for her mother.

"Ma," she said, "we've made this hammock mostly for you, and you're to get in first." She took a quilt and pillow off one of the beds and brought her mother out to the hammock, which was now held down by the four youngest boys. By a quick movement Pearl spilled them out on the grass and, spreading the quilt on the staves, soon made her mother comfortable.

"Now, Ma, here's where you're to come every after-noon," she said. "Aunt Kate'll see that you do it when I'm not here to watch you; but, anyway, I know I can trust you. Look up to the clouds and listen to the birds and think of the nicest things you ever heard, and forget that there ever comes holes in the little lads' pants, and forget that you ever had to wash for other people, and just remember we've a farm of our own and the crops' growin', and so is the garden just as fast as if you was up watchin' it."

Aunt Kate, standing by, looked in wonder at her little niece.

"Faith, Pearlie, you have quare ways," she said. "Ye're as much like yer Uncle Bill as if ye belonged to him. He'd have taken great comfort out of you and yer quare speeches if he was here, pore fellow."

"He's in a better place, Katie, dear," said Mrs. Watson piously.

After a pause, Pearl said: "You see, Ma, a person has to get soaked full of sunshine and contented feelings to be able to stand things. You've just got to lay in a stock of them, like a squirrel does the nuts for the winter, and then when trouble comes you can go back and think over all the good times you've had, and that'll carry ye over till the trouble passes by. Every night here there'll be a lovely sunset, all blue and gold, like the streets of heaven. That ought to help some, and now the leaves are comin' and new flowers every day nearly, and the roses'll be here in June, and the cherry blossoms will be smellin' up the place before that, and at night ye'll hear the wild ducks whizzin' by up in the air. They'll all keep us heartened up more'n we need just now, but we better be settin' it away to use when we need it."

"Look! Who's yon?" Aunt Kate asked, looking down the road.

A quaint-looking, stout old lady was walking toward them.

"That'll be Mrs. Perkins comin' to see us," Mrs. Watson said, in alarm. "Let me out o' this, Pearlie. It's a lazy trollop she'll think I am if she ketches me lyin' here."

"Lie where you are, Ma," Pearl said firmly. "It'll do her good to see some one restin' easy. I know her, Ma, she's Martha's mother, and they're great workers."

When Mrs. Perkins arrived, Pearl went forward and introduced her to her mother and Aunt Kate, with due ceremony.

Mrs. Perkins was a short, stout woman, whose plump figure was much like the old-fashioned churn, so guiltless was it of modern form improvers. Mrs. Perkins's eyes were gray and restless, her hair was the colour of dust, and it was combed straight back and rolled at the back of her neck in a little knob about the size and shape of a hickory nut. She was dressed in a clean print dress, of that good old colour called lilac. It had little white daisies on a striped ground and was of that peculiar shade that people call "clean looking." It was made in a plain "bask" with buttons down the front, and a plain, full skirt, over which she wore a white, starched apron, with a row of insertion and a flounce of crocheted lace.

Pearl brought out chairs.

"Well, now, you do look comfortable,"' said Mrs. Perkins, with just a shadow of reproach in her voice that did not escape Pearlie. "It must be nice to have nothin' to do but just laze around."

"She's done a big day's work already," Pearl said, quickly. "She worked all her life raisin' us, and now she's goin' to take a rest once in a while: and watch us rustle."

"Well, upon my word, you can talk some, can't you?" Mrs. Perkins said, not altogether admiringly. Aunt Kate gallantly interposed on Pearl's behalf by telling what a fine help the was to her mother, and soon the conversation drifted into an amiable discussion of whether or not peas should be soaked before they are planted.

Then Pearl and Mary went into the house and prepared the best meal that the family supply of provisions permitted. They boiled eggs hard, and spiced them the way Pearl had seen Camilla do. Pearl sliced up some of Aunt Kate's home-made bread as thin as she could, and buttered it; she brought out, from the packing box that they were still in, one of the few jars of peaches, and then made the tea. She and Mary covered the table with a clean white flour-sack; they filled a glass jar with ferns and anemones for a centre-piece and set the table as daintily as they could, even putting a flower beside each pate.

"Land alive!" Mrs. Perkins exclaimed, when they carried the table out under the trees, where she sat with Aunt Kate and Mrs. Watson. "I haven't et outside since we used to have the picnics in Millford in old Major Rogers's time. I mind the last one we had. I seen old Mrs. Gilbert just fillin' the stuff into her basket, and I do believe she tuk more home than she brought, though I ain't the one to say it, because I do not like to talk against a neighbour, though there are some as say it right out, and don't even put a tooth on it."

"Don't you go to the Pioneers picnics, now?" Pearl asked, as she poured the tea.

"No; I haven't gone since Mrs. Burrell came. I don't like her. She isn't what I think a minister's wife ought to be, mind you; she said an awful queer thing at our place the very first time she was there. She was askin' me why we didn't get out to church, and I was tellin' her about all the chores we had to do, milkin' and feedin' the stock, and that, and she didn't say much, but when she got down to pray before she left, she started off all right, and I wasn't really noticin' what she was sayin' until I hears her say: 'Lord, take away the cows and the pigs and the hens from these people, if it is the pigs and the cows and hens that's keepin' them from attendin' church, for it is better for them to do without milk or butter or eggs all their lives than to be eternally lost.' Them was just her words. Well, it just about made me faint to think of losin' all that, and I says: 'Take that back, and we'll go'; I was so flustered. And now, some of us has been drivin' down once a day; but, mind you, I don't feel real easy when I'm near her. The idea of her plottin' harm against innocent critturs that never done her any harm!"

Pearl said to Mary when they went back into the kitchen, "Mary, that woman hasn't got the right idea of things. It don't do you a bit of good to eat outside if you're thinkin' hard of anybody. It'll take a queer old lot of blue sky and fresh air and singin' birds and cherry-blossoms to soak all that out of her; but of course it'll help some."

Mrs. Perkins stirred her tea with pleasure. She found it a real delight to have good listeners who did not interrupt her. All her life she had had to tell her stories against a counter-attraction, that is, if her husband was present, for he was always telling one of his own at the same time, and that sort of thing wears on the stoutest nerves.

"You'll soon have a real nice place here, Mrs. Watson," she said, looking around. "Poor Mrs. Cavers would have had things nice if she had had her own way. She was the greatest woman for makin' little fixin's—she and my Martha were always doin' something—dear me, the way she'd stick up for that man, and make excuses for him! 'Mr. Cavers has a headache,' or 'Mr. Cavers is quite tired out.' Mr. Cavers, mind you. Oh, I tell you, she was fetched up different. Any one could see that. When I saw her first she was as pretty a girl as you'd see, and Bill was a fine-lookin' man, too. We never knew he would drink, and I don't think he ever did until Sandy Braden got his license and opened up a bar. I'll never forget the first night he came home drunk. She came runnin' over to our house and told us she was afraid he was dyin'. Pa and I went over with her, and I told her right out, plump and plain, what was wrong with him just as soon as I saw him. I'll never forget the way she backed up from me, givin' queer little screeches, and then she came back quick, her eyes just blazin', and says she, grabbin' me by the shoulders, 'I don't—believe—it,' just as slow as that, and then she begged me to forgive her, the pore lamb, and straightened right up as stiff as a poker, but all white and twitchy, and from that day to this she has never let on to a livin' soul about him drinkin', but she's just as nice to him as if he was a good man to her."

Pearl listened to this story with sympathetic interest. She had known this all the time—the beads on the cretonne had told the story.

"And when her little Georgie died, if ever a woman was tried sore it was her. She sent Bill for the doctor, and he fell in with a threshin' gang and forgot to come home; yes, and that poor woman was alone with little George choking with croup. Libby Anne ran over for me, but he was too far gone. Bill came home in the mornin' so drunk we couldn't make him understand that the child was dead, and he kept askin' us all the time how little Georgie was now. I came home in the mornin' to help to milk, and Martha went over to stay with her. Martha can't ever forget the sad sight she saw when she went in. Bill was on the lounge drunk. Little George lay on the bed dead, and she was sittin' there makin' the shroud, and even then she made excuses for Bill to Martha, and said he'd been up all night, and was tired."

When Pearl went back into the kitchen she reported progress to Mary.

"She's talkin' kinder now, Mary. The fresh air and the wind through the trees is beginnin' to tell on her. Give me another cup of tea for her."



CHAPTER X

THE NEW PUPILS

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Has had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar, Not in entire forgetfulness, not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God—who is our Home.

——Wordsworth.

WHEN school opened after the Easter holiday, the Watson family began to attend. It was two miles to the bare little schoolhouse at the cross-roads. The road lay straight across the prairie, green now with the tender green of spring, and dotted thick with blue anemones. A prairie fire, the fall before, had burned away all the old grass, and so everywhere the country was of the richest dazzling green, varied only in the shades—the tender, soft green of the young wheat, the bluish green of the oat-fields, with here and there splendid groves of poplars, making a scene which, to Pearl's eyes, was of untold beauty.

Away to the south the Tiger Hills were veiled in blue smoke, as if some distant prairie fire was raging through the meadows beyond. Across the long reach of upland pasture—swiftly and almost noiselessly—swept the mixed train of the Canadian Northern, its huge smoke plume standing straight up in the morning air, white and gray like billows of chiffon, suddenly changing to deepest black.

"They're stokin' up for the grade," Jimmy said, as he stood watching it. Jimmy had not stolen rides on freight-cars without learning something.

Danny, although not quite of school age, was with the party because he refused to stay at home. Aunt Kate encouraged him in the idea, and made him a pair of pants and fixed up a striped sweater of Bugsey's for him. So Danny, fully clothed in boy's attire, was very much in evidence.

When they were crossing the fire-guard around the school, Bugsey grew faint-hearted and began to cry. "I'm feart he'll bate me," he whimpered.

Bugsey had been to school in Millford, of course, but his teacher there had been Miss Morrison, and the teacher here was a man.

Patsey showed signs of being infected with the tear-germ, too, and so Pearlie quickly forged ahead with the unaffected members of her party, to get them under cover before they had time to think of it.

School was called when she arrived in haste and walked up to the teacher's desk, followed by Danny, Mary, Jimmy, and Tommy. Danny was hiding his face in her skirts. Tommy and Jimmy were outwardly calm, but Pearl knew that it would take very little to stampede them.

"We're coming to school, if you please," Pearl said, keeping a tight hold of Danny.

The teacher was a man of middle-age, with heavy eyebrows and great dignity of manner. He looked at the Watson family in silence.

"Speak to them, or they'll bolt," Pearl said, with the authority that comes of being the eldest girl in a large family.

The teacher saw the situation and rose to it. "Come here, Johnny," he said at a venture. "Are you a little gun-shy?"

"My name ain't Johnny, if yer meanin' me," said Jimmy, with a fine show of courage.

Pearl introduced her flock hastily and told the teacher to hang on to Danny while she went for the others.

When Pearl came in leading the other two boys the teacher exclaimed in wonder.

"This'll be all until winter-time," Pearl assured him, "and then Teddy and Billy will be comin'."

"I guess we're sure of the Government grant now," the teacher said, smiling. He helped Pearl to convince the boys that they were in the hands of friends, and even brought out the contents of his pocket and searched through his desk to get Danny to take a cheerful view of life again.

The Watson family, when they were at last settled in their new seats, did a great deal to relieve the bareness of the dingy school-room. All at once the room seemed to be very much alive and stirring.

While the teacher was busy with the boys, Pearl's sharp eyes were looking over her new schoolmates. Instinctively she knew that the pale little girl ahead of her must be Libby Anne Cavers. She had wondered often, since coming to the farm, how Libby Anne would regard the Watson family. Would she think that they had taken away her old home? Impulsively Pearl leaned over and presented Libby Anne with a new slate-rag securely anchored by a stout string to the neck of a small bottle filled with water. This new way of slate-cleaning had not yet reached the Chicken Hill School, where the older method prevailed, and as a result, Libby Anne's small slate-rag was dark gray in colour and unpleasant in character, and nearly always lent to her less provident neighbours.

Libby Anne turned her pale face and frightened eyes toward the big new girl, and in that glance Pearl read all her sad child history. Libby Anne was just what she had pictured her to be, little and thin and scared. She put her hands on Libby Anne's thin shoulders and, drawing her back, whispered in her ear: "I like ye, Libby Anne."

Libby Anne's face brightened, though she made no reply. However, in a few minutes she pulled the cork from the little bottle and gave her slate a vigorous cleaning with the new rag, and Pearl knew her oblation of friendship had been favourably received.

Mr. Donald, the teacher, was a student of human nature, as every successful teacher must be, and before the day was over he was sure that in Pearl Watson he had a pupil of more than ordinary interest. At the afternoon recess he called her to his desk and asked her about her previous school experience.

Pearl told him frankly her hope and fears. "I want to learn," she said. "I want to know things, because I love to learn, and besides, I have to be able to tell the boys and Mary what's what. We're awful poor, but we're happy, and there's none of us real stupid. All we want is a chance. I just ache to know things. Do you ever?" she asked him suddenly.

"I do, Pearl," he answered. "I do, indeed."

"Oh, well," she said, "I guess you know all of the things I'm thinkin' about; but I suppose the farther a person goes the more they see that they don't know.

"That's it, Pearl," he said, smiling. "The larger the circle of light, the larger the darkness around it."

Pearl pondered a minute.

"That's just what I've often thought, but I didn't know how to say it. Well," she went on, "I often wonder what makes the wind blow, and what makes you fall when you step off things, and how does the hail come when it's scorchin' hot; and I've often wondered what holds the clouds up, and I'd like to know what's goin' on, and what people think about things."

She stopped suddenly, and looked closely into his face. She had to be sure of a sympathetic listener.

"Go on, Pearl," Mr. Donald said, kindly. "I am interested. Tell me what else you are wondering about."

"Well," she said, "I'll tell you the biggest wonder I have. I would not tell it to every one, for if they've never thought of it it is just as well for them, for there's a danger of thinkin' too far in it. I am wonderin' often why God let the bad men crucify the dear Lord, and Him that kind and sweet and gentle. I often think about it at night, and can't sleep. I think about all the angels, big strappin' fellows, flyin' around the cross, feelin' so sorry for Him, and just wantin' so bad to hold Him up in their arms, but knowin' they dassent interfere without orders, and I often imagine to meself that the word did come to the angels to jump in and save Him, and I can just see how tender they would lift Him down from the cross, and the two poor fellows with Him, and they would float away off into the blue sky, leaving the bad people down below, the soldiers and the high priests and all of them, gawkin' up, wid their mouths open, watchin' them growin' smaller and smaller, until they were gone clean from sight; and then Pilate would say to them: 'Didn't I tell you to watch what you were about? Let me tell yez, ye have put your foot in it good and plenty this time.' But then I think of what really did happen, and it just breaks my heart to think of it."

Pearl's tears overflowed her eyes, but she wiped them away and went on steadily. "I wonder if you could tell me why it happened, Mr. Donald. I know God did it for the best. I am not sayin' a word against Him, mind ye, for I know what He's like, and how good He is, and all; but it was awful to let our Lord die that like."

Mr. Donald felt his own heart strangely moved at the little girl's distress.

"I am not very well up in these things, Pearl," he said; "but if He hadn't died he could not have shown us the resurrection."

"Oh, I don't mind Him dyin'," said Pearl quickly. "Everybody has to die, and when they've lived right and done the best they could for every one, it is just glorious to die and go home. It's just like people comin' home from college with their examination papers marked high, and their certificates and medals to show how hard they worked; or I guess it's more like soldiers comin' home all tired out, and sunburnt, showing their scars—we can show our hands all hard with work for other people, and our faces cheerful and patient. That's what'll count up there, I guess. It's all right to die, but I can't see why He had to die that way—it was terrible, and it wasn't comin' to Him."

"Perhaps it was to show us how much He loved us," the teacher said gently.

"He shows us that in lots of ways," Pearl said. "He says He loves us, and ye can't live one day without feelin' that there's love in the world, and I'm sure it didn't come from anywhere else but God—oh, no, it didn't need, that to show us."

The teacher was looking at her in wonder.

"I tell you what to do, Pearl. Ask Mr. Burrell; he'll be able to tell you."

After school that night Pearl opened the theological discussion again.

"Mr. Donald," she said, "don't you think we should try to get some one to preach here and have a Sunday-school? These children here, except Lib. Cavers, don't know anything about the Bible. I've been asking them about Easter Sunday. They don't know anything about it, only it's a time to see how many eggs you can hold, and they think that God is a bad word It would just be fine if we could have a Sunday-school and learn verses. Our Jimmy got a black Testament for fifty verses, said exactly like the book. You would be superintendent, wouldn't you?"

Mr. Donald coloured painfully. "I don't know, Pearl—we'll see," he said evasively.

That night when he went back to his boarding-place—the big brick house on the hill—he was strangely disturbed and troubled. He had told himself years ago that religion was a delusion, a will o' the wisp. But there was something in Pearl's face and in her words that seemed to contradict the logic of his reasoning.

Charles Donald was a man who tried hard to make a stoic of himself, to convince himself that he was past feeling the stings of evil fortune. He had suffered so deeply that he told himself that nothing could ever hurt him again. A spiritual numbness had come upon him, which he took to be the compensation for the variety of hard knocks he had experienced. He was a genial, pleasant, gentle man, but his face bore that look of settled sadness that comes into the eyes of people for whom the world has held an awkward hour.

He was regarded by the people in the school district as a good teacher, and, indeed, he had quite conscientiously put before his pupils as much of the curriculum as they could conveniently grasp. He was kind and patient with his pupils always, but he had never exerted himself to change their outlook upon life, or to put nobler ideals before them.

"They are happier as they are," he often thought to himself. "The ox in the field, so long as the grass is good, is happier than most of us with all our wisdom, and well he should be, for his days are free from care, and when his days are over there's the quick blow and the sharp knife, and that is not so bad."

But after Pearl came to school, he found himself going over his neglected library to find the books that would throw light on the many questions that she brought forward, and every evening he went carefully over the lessons, taking a distinct pride now in making them of interest to her.

In this way, having more to employ his thoughts, he soon began to think of the past less sadly. Pearl's optimism was contagious.



CHAPTER XI

THE HOUSE OF TROUBLE

There! little girl—don't cry!

——James Whitcomb Riley.

A MILE from the Chicken Hill School stood the little vermin-infested house in which the Cavers family lived after they abandoned the weed-choked farm on the river-bank. This unpretentious log house had been the first home of Mr. and Mrs. Steadman, and was part of the "improvements" specified by the Government to show that a homestead is entered in good faith. The land had been rich and productive, and from it George Steadman had made the money to buy the half-section of school land just across the road and to erect the magnificent brick house and splendid barns that were the pride of his heart.

George Steadman was so keen after money that he even overworked his farms, and now his old farm was so impoverished that it was unable to grow a heavy crop. This was the principal reason he had for letting it to such an undesirable tenant as Bill Cavers. No wide-awake tenant would take it, and, besides, if he had rented it to almost any person else, he would have had to spend some money fixing up the house, which was in a most dilapidated condition.

Bill Cavers had lost the ambition that he once had, and now did not care very much what sort of house he lived in. Bill was content to live the simple life, if the liquid refreshment were not simplified too much, and Mrs. Cavers never complained.

The Caverses had only one child living, Libby Anne, eleven years old; but there were several little unmarked mounds in the Millford cemetery that Libby Anne and Mrs. Cavers sometimes piled high with white cherry-blossoms or blue anemones. Little George had lived to be two years old, and Libby Anne remembered that when he died there was a funeral, with horses and buggies in the yard, and the minister prayed and there was singing, and Martha Perkins brought over little cookies with pink seeds on them, and it was fine!

But for days and days Libby Anne would steal up the narrow stairs, fully expecting to find her little brother sleeping under the pink quilt on his mother's bed, but there wasn't ever even the dint of him on the quilt, and Libby Anne at last went up with her eyes shut to feel around the bed, so as not to be disappointed so soon. Then her mother told her about the beautiful country that little George had gone to, and Libby Anne was glad to know that no one there was ever cold or hungry, and that nobody's father ever came home drunk. One day in school Libby Anne told the teacher what heaven was like, and when she mentioned this last and greatest advantage of living there he told her gently that she must not say such things.

For some time after coming to the Steadman farm things had gone better with the Caverses, for a strong influence was brought to bear on Bill, to keep him sober. Mr. Steadman had never taken any interest in the liquor question—he had no taste for whiskey himself, and, besides, it costs money—but now, with Bill Cavers for his tenant, he began to see things differently. If Bill Cavers drank he would not be able to pay the rent. So Mr. Steadman desired Bill to be a sober man, and to this end had a very straight talk with him on the subject of total abstinence.

Bill Cavers was a very poor farmer, as one look at his abandoned homestead would show; that he was not a success as a husband no one would doubt after seeing Mrs. Cavers; and that he was a conspicuous failure as a father, Elizabeth Anne Cavers, his daughter, with her frightened eyes and sad mouth, would abundantly testify. But there was one capacity in which William Cavers was a spectacular success, and that was in maintaining the country's revenue from malt and distilled liquors, for Bill was possessed of a thirst that never faltered.

Bill was quite different from the drunkard who consumes and never produces, for he would work and work hard; and he was strictly honest with every one except himself and his family. Sandy Braden was not afraid to trust Bill with all the whiskey he wanted, for Bill would surely pay. His wife might not have respectable clothes to come to town in, and Libby Anne knew what it was like more than once to go hungry to bed, but Bill always paid what was chalked up against him at the Grand Pacific without question. All the neighbours called Bill Cavers a good, straight fellow.

When Bill was sober, he bitterly regretted the way he had wasted his money, and he often made solemn protestations as to his future conduct, the strange part of it being that at such times he fully believed that he would never drink again, and his wife was always, sure that he would not.

In this way life was harder for her than it would have been for a less sanguine woman, who would have long ago given up all hope, but Mrs. Cavers always saw her husband as he had been in his good days; his drinking had never ceased to be a shock to her; she never could accept it as the inevitable, but constantly looked for better days to come.

Mrs. Cavers often told Libby Anne about the lovely home she had when she was a little girl, and showed her just how the flower-beds were laid out and how the seat was put in the big elm-tree outside her mother's window, where she often sat and read and dreamed; and so it was no wonder that her mother's old home in Ontario, where her grandmother and Aunt Edith still lived, became to Libby Anne a sort of Paradise Valley, the delectable country of her dreams, and through all her colourless childhood there ran a hope like a thread of gold that some time she and her mother would go back.

The last summer that they had been on their own farm this hope had been very real, for her father had said one day, when he was in his best mood, that if the crop turned out well they would all go down east for three months.

Then what a busy, hopeful time began for Libby Anne and her mother. Everything was bent toward this one end. Mrs. Cavers made butter and sold it. Libby Anne looked faithfully after the eggs, and made every old hen give an account of herself each night. By getting the neighbours to subscribe to a magazine, Mrs. Cavers was able to add a few dollars to her savings. The kind-hearted neighbours, who knew of the projected visit, were all ready to help.

Martha Perkins gave Libby Anne ten fine young turkeys, half-grown, to help to buy new clothes for herself, and the thought of the lovely red curly cloth coat that she would be able to buy when she sold her turkeys comforted her not a little when, tired out with her other work, she came to gather them in for the night, and they obstinately would scamper away into the trees; as unconcerned as if there was never a wolf or a mink or a weasel in the world.

No crop was ever watched with greater hope and fear than that one. Every bank of cloud that gathered in the west seemed to sit like a dead weight on Libby Anne's heart, for it might bring hail, and a hailed-out crop meant that they could not go home, and that was—outer darkness. Perhaps it was the child's wordless prayers that stayed the hail and the frost and the rust, for certain it is that none came, and the crop was most abundant.

Libby Anne and Mrs. Cavers worked in the field to save a hired man's wages. Libby Anne was a tireless little worker, and though many, many times her thin arms must have ached, she never complained, because every sheaf that she carried brought her nearer the Promised Land.

People driving past looked with pity at the tired-looking woman and the little girl in the faded derry dress carrying sheaves almost as big as herself, and one day Mrs. Burrell, the minister's wife, spoke to them sympathizingly. Libby Anne flashed back at her almost scornfully. "Don't you know we are going home?" she said, her tired face kindling.

At last the grain was harvested and threshed, the neighbours kindly assisting, and Bill began to sell his grain. He paid his store bills, his binder-twine bill, his blacksmithing, and made the payment on his binder. Libby Anne sold her turkeys and got her coat, and the day was set for them to go east—December the first, the first excursion!

The day before they were to start, Bill went to town to cast his vote; the Provincial elections were held that year on the last day of November. There was a good deal of excitement over the election, for Sandy Braden, the popular proprietor of the Grand Pacific Hotel, was running against a Brandon man, and Millford was standing solid for their own man. The bar could not be opened until after five o'clock, when the voting was over, but after that there was nothing to prevent good-fellowship abounding.

It did abound all night. There was a bonfire in front of the hotel when the returns began to come in, for Sandy was winning easily, and Sandy certainly showed his gratitude for the way the boys had stood by him.

Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne waited all that long night. They tried to keep up each other's courage, making all sorts of excuses for Mr. Cavers's absence. Mrs. Cavers knew, but she did not tell Libby Anne, that he was going to cash the wheat-tickets that he had saved for the trip, for the train went so early in the morning he was afraid he might not have time then.

Libby Anne went again and again into the little bedroom to look at the trunk already strapped. Surely people always went if the trunk was strapped, and she tried and tried to feel what it was like yesterday.

Just as the sun was rising on the first day of December ushering in the first day of the winter excursions, they heard him coming. He was coming with the Thomas boys, who were often his companions on similar occasions. Some one had loaded them up and started them for home, trusting to a drunken man's luck not to get killed.

Round the turn of the road they came singing, and Libby Anne and her mother listened with sinking hearts as the sound came nearer and nearer:

"Who's the best man in this town? Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden."

they sang, putting the words to that good old rollicking Scotch tune of "Highland Laddie."

Bill fell out of the waggon at the door. He was covered with dirt, his clothes were torn, and one eye was blackened, but he was in a genial mood, and tried to dance on the door-step. They got him in at last and put him to bed, where he slept profoundly until the next afternoon. He brought home out of his wheat-tickets thirty-five cents and the half of a dollar bill—the other half was torn away!

Libby Anne did not shed a tear until she saw her mother unstrap the trunk to get out something, and then suddenly all the strength went out of the lithe little arms that had carried the sheaves so bravely, and she fell in a little heap on the floor, sobbing out strangely.

Her mother gathered her up in her arms and rocked her for a long time in the rocking-chair, crooning over her queer little rambling tunes without meaning; only once she spoke, and then what she said was this: "Libby Anne, I hope you will never be as lonely to see me as I am right now to see my mother."

Just then a still later consignment of Mr. Braden's supporters drove past the house gaily singing the same refrain:

"Who's the best man in this town? Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden."



CHAPTER XII

PEARL VISITS THE PARSONAGE

Mylo—he jest plows—and don't Never swear-like some folks won't.

——From "Mylo Jones' Wife."

THE Reverend Mr. Burrell, whom Mr. Donald recommended to Pearl as a proper person to consult on the questions that troubled her mind, was the Methodist minister in Millford. The first year of his pastorate there he had been alone, Mrs. Burrell having remained "in the East," with her own people.

Mrs. Ducker was the president of the Ladies' Aid Society, and given to serious thinking, so when she read an article in the Fireside Visitor dealing with the relation of the minister's wife to the congregation, she was seriously impressed with the fact that the congregation was suffering every day by not having the minister's wife on the ground. Mrs. Ducker thereupon decided that she would bring the matter forward at the very next meeting.

Now, it happened that the "rubberman" came to Millford the very day before the Ladies' Aid meeting was held, which may seem to be a very unimportant and irrelevant fact; but it really had a significant bearing on that meeting of the Ladies' Aid, for little John Thomas Forrest, dazzled by the offer of three lead-pencils for two rubbers, sold his mother's only pair, and being a cautious child, and not fond of disputatious conversation, did not mention the matter to his mother, but left her to discover her loss herself, which she did the day of the meeting.

It was a sloppy day in November. Mrs. Forrest had a cold, and she could not walk away over to Mrs. Ducker's without rubbers. Mrs. Forrest did not go to the meeting. If Mrs. Forrest had gone she would have, beyond doubt, raised objections. She always did, and usually very successful ones.

But when Mrs. Ducker, after the business was over, breathlessly declared that she thought Mrs. Burrell should come and join her husband, she found Mrs. Francis and Mrs. Bates quite imbued with the same idea, for they likewise were subscribers to the Fireside Visitor. Mrs. Francis also gave prominence to the fact that Mr. Burrell needed some one to take care of him, for she had seen him that very day without his rubbers. Having no children of her own, Mrs. Francis did not know that the day after the "rubberman" had been in town quite a few people went without rubbers, not because they were careless of their health either, but because they had thoughtlessly left them in the front porch, where little boys can easily get them.

Half an hour after they began to discuss it, everybody felt that not only was the church suffering severely, but that they had been the unconscious witnesses of a domestic tragedy.

They formed a committee on "ways and means," another one to solicit aid from country members, and a social committee to get up a pie social to buy a new stair-carpet for the parsonage, and they appointed Mrs. Francis and Mrs. Ducker to approach Mr. Burrell on the subject of his wife's coming.

The unconscious object of their solicitude was quite surprised to receive that evening a visit from Mrs. Francis and Mrs. Ducker. Reverend John Burrell did not look like a man who was pining for the loved and lost—he was a small, fair man, with a pair of humorous blue eyes. A cheerful fire was burning in the Klondike heater, and an air of comfort pervaded his study.

The ladies made known their errand, and then waited to see the glad look that would come into their pastor's face.

He stirred the fire before replying.

"It is very kind of you ladies to think of fixing up the parsonage," he said. "Mrs. Burrell is having a very pleasant visit with her mother in Toronto."

"Yes; but her place is here," Mrs. Ducker said with decision, feeling around in the shadowy aisles of her mind for some of the Fireside Visitor's "It is lonely for you, and it must be for her."

Mr. Burrell did not say it was not.

Mrs. Francis was filled with enthusiasm over the idea of fixing up the parsonage, and endeavoured, too, to give him some of the reasons why a church prospers better spiritually when there is a woman to help in the administration of its affairs.

When the women had gone, the Reverend John Burrell sat looking long and earnestly into the fire. Then he got up suddenly and rattled down the coals with almost unnecessary vigour and murmured something exclamatory about sainted womanhood and her hand being in every good work, though that may not have been the exact words he used!

The work of remodelling the parsonage was carried on with enthusiasm, and two months later Mrs. Burrell arrived.

Mrs. Ducker, Mrs. Francis, and Mrs. Bates went to the station with Mr. Burrell to meet her, and were quite surprised to see a large, handsome, auburn-haired woman, carrying two valises, alight from the train and greet their minister with these words: "Well, John Burrell, I declare if you aren't out this raw day without your overcoat, and you know how easily you take a cough, too. I guess it is high time for me to come. Now, please do keep your mouth closed."

* * *

The first time Pearl was in Millford she called at the Methodist parsonage to see Mr. Burrell. The question of having service in the schoolhouse was bothering Pearl.

It was a dull brown house, with, a row of tall maples in front of it, and a pansy bed, made by filling the earth into old binder-wheels, on each side of the walk. Pearl at once though of the old binder-wheel in the scrub at home, and in her quick fancy she saw the purple faces of prospective pansies looking up from it as it lay in front of the east window.

Mrs. Burrell came to the door in answer to Pearl's ring, but did not recognize her at the first glance. She told Pearl to have a seat in the parlour.

When Mr. Burrell came in he was pleased to see Pearl, who said, in response to his friendly greeting: "We're doin' fine, Mr. Burrell. We're goin' to have a crop and potatoes and lots of things. There's seven of us goin' to school and learning. Jimmy's at long division. I'm just finishing 'The Lady of the Lake.' Danny's doing digits, that's another name for figgers. Patsey's readin' at the Sweet Pea lesson, with ten of the hardest words for meanings. That's all right, but there's no church or Sunday-school. We left town to get a better chance to bring up the boys right, and the farm is fine only for what I'm tellin' ye. Every Sunday the other children trap gophers and the people sleep or visit. I do be hearin' them tellin' about it at school, and last Sunday, mind ye, wee Patsey and Bugsey wanted to make a kite, and of course ma wouldn't let them, but Jimmy up and says—he was in it, too, do you mind—he says: 'Let's make it out of an Onward, and that will be all right; sure that's a Sunday paper.'"

Mr. Burrell laughed sympathetically, but shook his head, too, so Pearl knew he was with her on the proper observance of the Sabbath.

"And Mr. Burrell," she went on, "I am worried about Danny—he's that artful and deep—if ever a child should be learnin' verses he's the wan. Yesterday he hit his thumb when he was hammerin' with the little tack-hammer, and instead of just yellin' and stickin' his finger in his mouth the way he did before, he said right out plain—well, you know what the beavers build to broaden out the water—well, that's what he said."

"Is it as bad as that, Pearlie?" Mr. Burrell asked in a shocked voice, which was contradicted by the twinkle in his eye.

"It is," Pearl answered, "and I was wonderin' if you could come and preach to us on Sunday afternoons, and encourage them to get a Sunday-school. There's lots of room in the school, and there's a fine big shed for the horses if it was raining, and there's no need of so many services here," she concluded with alarming frankness. "What I mean is," she explained in answer to his look of surprise, "there's lots of churches here, and all kinds of preachin' goin' on', with only a few scatterin' people out at each one."

Mrs. Burrell came in hastily and listened to the conversation.

"How far out is it, Pearl?" Mr. Burrell asked.

"About five miles, I think; just a nice drive for you and the missus."

"Does she want you to take another country appointment, John?" Mrs. Burrell asked; and Pearl noticed for the first time that her hair was just the colour of their horse at home—the one that was cross.

"That was Pearlie's suggestion," he answered.

"Well, indeed, he is not going to do any such thing; I should say not," and Mrs. Burrell shut her mouth with a click. "And, besides, nearly every Sunday it rains."

"Well, that's good for the crops," said Pearl, thinking of the twenty acres of wheat in front of the house and of the oat-field behind the bluff; "and, besides," quoting a favourite axiom of her mother's, "he ain't sugar or salt, and he won't melt."

"Well, what would happen our congregation if we had only one service a day? They would all be going to the Presbyterian."

"That won't hurt them," Pearl said hopefully. "They'll get good sermons from Mr. Grantley."

Mrs. Burrell could not think of what she wanted to say. Pearl kept her eye on Mr. Burrell—there was something in his face which made her hope.

After a pause he said to her: "Pearl, your idea is strictly first-class. I have wanted to take another outside appointment ever since I came here, but the congregation had objections. However, I'll talk it over with Mr. Grantley, and I'm sure we can arrange something."

Mrs. Burrell remembered then. She found the words she was looking for. "You'll do nothing of the sort, John. Going away every Sunday to two outside appointments and leaving our own people exposed to Presbyterian doctrine. That's a horrid, bare, desolate little school, anyway, and you couldn't do a bit of good to those people; I know you couldn't. I'll go to the Trustee Board meeting—they meet to-night—and I'll tell them you are physically unfit—you are wearing two thicknesses of flannel, with mustard quilted in between them, now on your chest, and you had onion poultices on your feet last night for your cough, and so you're not fit to go."

"Please, ma'am," said Pearl, "we won't mind. I didn't notice it at all, and I don't believe anybody will, if you don't tell them."

Mr. Burrell laughed so heartily that Mrs. Burrell told him he was a very frivolous man, and quite unfit for the position he held.

"Sure, you could come out yerself," Pearl said encouragingly, "and show us how to fix it up. It is bare, as you said, but the land is there, and it could grow scarlet-runners and pansies, the same as you have yer self here by the cheek of the dure. If some one like yerself'd come and show us how to fix it up, we might have a purty place yet!"

"Fix it up on Sunday!" Mrs. Burrell cried, with vehement emphasis.

"Show us, I said," Pearl corrected her, "and I guess it would be a real good work to fix it up, too."

"It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day, you know, Mattie," Mr. Burrell quoted gently.

Mrs. Burrell sniffed audibly.

"The trustees meet this evening, Pearl. Now, if you will stay in, I'll drive you out to-morrow morning. Mrs. Burrell will be glad to have you stay here."

Mrs. Burrell seconded the invitation.

"But I am going to the meeting, John," she declared decidedly. "I'll tell them that you are not to undertake it."

"My dear, I understood the Ladies' Aid were meeting to-night," her husband said, with the forced enthusiasm of a person who tries to draw a child's attention from a prohibited pleasure.

"It does, too; but I am going to the other meeting," answered his amiable spouse.

Mr. Burrell looked at Pearl in alarm.

"But I want you to stay, Pearl," Mrs. Burrell said quickly, and with more kindliness than she had yet shown.

Pearl thanked her, but said she would have to go to see her father first and see if she could stay. Mrs. Burrell went out into the kitchen to get tea ready, while Mr. Burrell went to the door with Pearl.

In the little square hall they held a hurried conference. "Will she go to that meeting?" Pearl asked in a whisper.

He nodded.

"Will she cut up rough?"

Mr. Burrell thought it likely that she would.

"Don't let her go," said Pearl, who evidently believed in man's supremacy.

He made a gesture of helplessness.

Pearl wrinkled her forehead, and then took a step nearer him and said slowly: "Hide her false teeth—she won't go if she has to gum it."

He stared at her a second before he grasped the full significance of her suggestion.

"Things like that have been done," Pearl said, reassuringly. "Ma knew a woman once, and whenever she wanted to keep her man at home she hid his wooden leg. I suppose, now, she hasn't——" Pearl looked at him meaningly.

"Oh, no!" he said hastily. "We can't do that."

Pearl went out, leaving the Reverend John Burrell clearly demonstrating the fact that he was too frivolous a person for his position.

* * *

When Pearl came back, after getting her father's permission to stay for the night, she found Mrs. Burrell in a more amiable frame of mind, and after tea was over she was much relieved to find that Mrs. Burrell had given up the idea of going to the trustee meeting, but was going to the Ladies' Aid meeting instead, and was going to take Pearl with her.

Before the meeting, Pearl went over to see Camilla and Mrs. Francis. Mrs. Francis was the secretary of the Ladies' Aid, but was unable to go to the meeting that night on account of a severe headache. Pearl, always ready to help, asked if she could take the minutes of the meeting.

"Thank you so much, Pearl," Mrs. Francis said. "It would relieve me if you would write down everything that happens, so that I can make a full report of it. It is so sweet of you, dear, to offer to do it for me; and now run along with Camilla, for I know she has a lot of things that she is longing to show you."

Camilla took Pearl upstairs to her room, and there spread out before Pearl's enraptured vision a wonderful creation of white silk and lace.

"The lace has little cucumbers in it," Pearl said, looking at it closely, "and it's the loveliest dress I ever saw. Have you worn it yet?"

Camilla did not at once reply, and then, quite by intuition, Pearl guessed the truth.

"Camilla!" she exclaimed. "You are going to be married to Jim."

Camilla put her gently.

"Yes, dear, I am," she said. Pearl, sat thinking deeply.

"Are you happy, Camilla?" she said at last. "Are you that happy you feel you can never lose a bit of the glad feeling?"

Camilla held her tighter, and kissed her again. "I've thought about it a little," Pearl said after a while, "and I thought perhaps that would be how people felt, and then it didn't matter if it was all dark and gloomy outside, or even if the wind was howlin' and rattlin' the windows, you wouldn't mind, for all the time you would be singin' inside, just bustin' for joy, and you'd feel that contented sort of feelin', just as if the sun was pourin' down and the birds singin' and the hills all white with cherry-blossoms; is that anything like it, Camilla?"

"It is very like that, Pearl," she said.

"And, Camilla," she went on, "do you feel like you could die to save him from any trouble or pain, and even if he did go wrong—Jim never will, I know, but I am just supposin'—even if he did go wrong you'd never go back on him, or wish you hadn't took him, but you'd stay with the job and say to yourself: 'He's my man, and I'll stay by him, so I will!'"

Camilla nodded her head.

Pearl's eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"And, Camilla, do you ever think if you were to lose him it wouldn't be so bad as' never to have had him, and even if the time came that he had to go, you could bear it, for you'd know that somewhere you'd find him again waitin' for you and lovin' you still, just the same; and even if it was long, long years ago that you were left alone, you'd never forget him, but you'd always know that somewhere, up in the air or in the clouds or maybe not so far, he was there dear as ever, and you'd always keep thinkin' in your heart: 'He's the only man for me.'"

Camilla's arms tightened around her, and Pearl felt something warm on her cheek.

"How do you know all this?" Camilla whispered, after a while.

Pearl laughed and wiped her eyes on her handkerchief. "I don't know," she said. "I never knew that I did know it all till just now. I've thought about it a little."

Camilla laughed, too, and went over to the wash stand to bathe her eyes, while Pearl, in wonder, inspected the dress.

"Now, Pearlie Watson, I want you to do me a favour," said Camilla gaily.

"As many as you like," was Pearl's quick answer.

"I want you for my bridesmaid. You are my good luck, Pearl. Remember you sent Jim to me. If it hadn't been for you I might never have met him."

Pearl's eyes sparkled with delight, but no words came.

"And see here, Miss Watson, I have been reading up all about weddings, and I find it is a very correct thing for the bride and bridesmaid to be dressed alike. Miss Watson, will you please stand up and shut your eyes?"

Pearl stood up.

Over her head she felt Camilla putting something soft and deliciously silky. Camilla was putting her arms in unmistakable sleeves, and pulling down an unmistakable skirt.

"Open your eyes, Pearlie."

When Pearl opened her eyes she found herself dressed in a white silk dress, exactly the same as the one that lay on the bed—cucumbers and all!

"Oh, Camilla!" was all she could say, as she lovingly stroked the dress.

"Jim would not think of having anybody but you, and Dr. Clay is going to be the groomsman."

Pearl looked up quickly.

"Dr. Clay told me," Camilla went on, "that he would rather have you for the bridesmaid when he was going to be the groomsman than any other girl, big or little."

Pearl clasped her hands with a quick motion.

"Better'n Miss Morrison?" she asked, all in one breath.

"Yes; better than pose so, for he said on earth."

"Oh, Camilla!" Pearl said again, taking deep breaths of happiness, and the starry look in her eyes set Camilla wondering.



CHAPTER XIII

THE LADIES' AID MEETING

Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oorselves as ithers see us.

——Robert Burns.

PEARL went to the Ladies' Aid Meeting, which was held at Mrs. Ducker's, and was given a little table to sit at while she took the notes. Pearl was a fairly rapid writer, and was able to get down most of the proceedings.

Camilla copied the report into the minute-book, and as Mrs. Francis did not think about it until the next meeting, when she came to read it she found it just as Pearl had written it, word for word. The reading caused some excitement. The minutes were as follows:

* * *

The Ladies' Aid met at the home of Mrs. Ducker. There were seven present when it started; but more came. Mrs. Burrell doesn't know why they can't come in time. She told them so. Mrs. Bates said, Lands sakes, she had a hard enough time getting there at all. She left a big bag of stockings all in holes. Mrs. Forrest says it's been so hot the holes are the most comfortable part of the stockings, and if she was in Mrs. Bates's place she'd let the girls go barefoot. Mrs. Bates is going to let Mildred go, but she can't let Blanche—she's so lanky—she'd look all legs, like a sand-hill crane. Burrell says, Let's open the meeting by singing, "How Firm a Foundation" but Mrs. Ducker says, Oh, don't take that, it's in sharps; take "Nearer, Still Nearer"—it's in flats, and Maudie can handle the flats better. Then they sang, and Mrs. Burrell and Mrs. Ducker prayed. Mrs. Ducker prayed longest, but Mrs. Burrell prayed loudest, and for most things. Mrs. Bates read the last report, and they said it was better than usual, she'd only left out one or two things. Then they collected the money. Nearly every one paid; only Mrs. Burrell couldn't find hers, she was sure she had it in her glove when she came in, and she couldn't see how it ever fell out. Mrs. Ducker will get it when she sweeps if it's in the house at all. Mrs. Williams had her ten cents in a tea-cup all ready, but when she went to get it it was gone, and she's afraid she gave that cup to one of the boarders by mistake. Mrs. Williams says that's the worst of keeping boarders, your home is never your own. Mrs. Forrest says if she only knew which one got it, she should charge it up to him. Mrs. Williams wouldn't ever think of doing that. Total receipts of evening, $2.20.

Then Mrs. Burrell asked what about the new stairs carpet. She's ashamed every time she takes any one upstairs, it's going something awful. Mrs. White hasn't had time to think anything about it, she's been doing up rhubarb; it's so nice and tender in the spring. None of Mrs. Bates's folks will eat rhubarb, and so she never does any up, though she really is very fond of it herself, done with pineapple, the shredded pineapple—half and half. Mrs. Ducker is doing rhubarb, too, it's nice in the spring when everything else goes flat on you. Mrs. Burrell says, What about the stairs carpet, now if you're done with the rhubarb?

Mrs. Forrest said linoleum is better than carpet. Mrs. Ducker said it's too cold on the feet. Mrs. Grieves said, Land sakes, let them wear their boots—they don't need to go canterin' up and down the stairs in their bare feet, do they? Mrs. Burrell said linoleum would do all right if they couldn't afford carpet; but there wasn't any decent linoleum in town, and even if there was you have to pay two prices for it, but she saw in the Free Press that there was going to be a linoleum sale in Winnipeg on Saturday. Mrs. Ducker does not like sales. Mr. Ducker got a horse at a sale one time, and the very first time they hitched it up it took blind staggers. Mrs. Forrest thinks there would be no danger of the linoleum havin' it, though. Mrs. Burrell said she wished they'd talk sense. Mrs. Snider said she would move that Mrs. Burrell gets whatever she wants for the stairs and the Ladies' Aid will pay for it. Carried. Mrs. Burrell said what about the knives and forks committee. Mrs. Bates hasn't been able to go out since she fell down stairs. There's a black patch on her knee yet. Mrs. Bates blackens easy. Mrs. Snider has had her hands full, goodness knows, since Aunt Jessie has been laid up with erysipelas. Aunt Jessie is pretty hard to wait on, and doesn't like the smell of the ointment the doctor gave her, it's altogether different from what she got when she was down in the States. Mrs. Burrell said she would get the knives and forks herself if anybody would make a motion. Two made it, and three seconded it. Carried.

Mrs. Burrell said, How are the things getting on for the bazaar? Mrs. Ducker had a box of things sent from Mrs. Norman in Winnipeg. Mrs. Snider thinks Mrs. Norman must have been at a sale: You can get things so cheap there sometimes. When Mrs. Snider was in at Bonspiel time, she saw lovely lace stockings for eleven cents a pair, and beautiful flowered muslin, just the very same as they ask sixty-five cents here, going for twenty-nine cents. (Couldn't get all they said here, everybody talked at once about sales.)

Mrs. Burrell said: Where'll we hold it, anyway, if we do get enough stuff? Mrs. Ducker thought the basement of the church. Mrs. Bates can't get used to holding sales in churches. Her mother never could either. Mrs. Burrell said when the church was having the sale, what was the odds where it was held? No use turning up your nose at a sale and still take the money. Mrs. Smith moved that sale be held in church, though if the stuff didn't come in faster, a piano box would do. Mrs. Allen said, hurry up, do, please. She left the baby with Jim, and he's no good at all if She begins to fuss. Mrs. Snider seconded the motion.

Mrs. Burrell said, where will we meet next time? Mrs. Graham said, come to my house. Mrs. Forrest said it was too far. Mrs. Graham said the walk would do her good, she had just been reading in the Fireside Visitor that that's what's wrong with lots of people, they don't walk enough. Mrs. Forrest is glad to know this, for she has often wondered what was wrong with lots of people, but Mrs. Forrest doesn't think much of the Fireside Visitor—it's away off sometimes.

Mrs. Brown would like to come every time if she had company home. Mrs. Burrell said bring Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown wouldn't come. You couldn't get him within three acres of a Ladies' Aid Meeting. Never could. Decided to meet at Mrs. Burrell's.

R. J. P. WATSON, Sec.

Just for this time.

* * *

Pearl and Mrs. Burrell became very good friends before Pearl left the next morning. Mrs. Burrell, while they were washing up the breakfast dishes, apologized in her own way for her outburst against the country appointment.

"I'm a crabbed old woman, Pearl, dear," she said.

"Not old," Pearl said promptly, with wisdom beyond her years. She did not deny the other adjective.

"I'm a crabbed old woman, Pearl," she repeated; "but I am always afraid he'll catch cold and get sick he is so reckless, and never seems to have serious thoughts about himself, or realize what wet feet will do for him if he persists in them; and really, child, it's hard to be a minister's wife. You've so many people to please, and when you're pleasing one, some one else doesn't like it. Now, did you notice Mrs. Maxwell wasn't at the meeting? She got miffed with me over the smallest little thing. You know her boy, Alec, plays lacrosse, and there's going to be a big game here on the 1st of July, at the Pioneers' Picnic, and she was talking about it—he's so foolish that way for a woman of her age. I said to her, just as kindly as I am speaking to you now: 'I do hope Alec will be able to control his temper,' I said. 'I know it's hard for people with that complexion to control their temper.' You see, I know, for my youngest brother has hair just like Alec Maxwell, and I told her this, and I did it all so kindly. But what do you suppose? She tossed her head"—Mrs. Burrell showed Pearl the way—"and she says. 'Just look after your own, Mrs. Burrell. I guess Alec can control himself as well as most red-headed people.' Red-headed, mind you! I was so upset about it. Of course, I know there is a tinge of red in mine—more of a gold, I guess it is, just when the sun shines on it—but no one would think of calling it red, would they, Pearl?"

"No, indeed," Pearl answered truthfully. "It isn't a bit red."

Pearl was thinking that sorrel was nearer the colour, but she knew she must not say it.

"I am always getting people offended at me when I do not mean any offence. John just laughs at me when I tell him. He often says, 'Mattie, you are a wonder in your own way,' and I am not sure just what he means by it; but often, Pearl, I'm afraid I haven't tact."

Pearl assured Mrs. Burrell that she shouldn't worry about it.

"Sometimes I think I do pretty well, and say the right thing. One night I met Miss Rose, your friend, and Mr. Russell out walking. I met them going past the McSorley house, and you know they're building a piece to it since the twins came. So I said to Mr. Russell: 'Be sure to get a big house at first, so you won't have to be adding to it all the time; it's so expensive to enlarge a house.' I guess Mr. Russell took it all right, because he said: 'Yes, Mrs. Burrell, just as solemn as can be, but I don't believe John liked it, because he began to talk to Miss Rose right away. I often think, Pearl, if my own little girl had lived I would have been a lot happier; I wouldn't be depending, then, so much on other people for my happiness. I am a poor, cross old woman, and I really do not mean to be. I feel real kind to people, and would be if they would let me."

"You're all right, Mrs. Burrell," Pearl said soothingly. "You've keen kind to me, and I like you just fine."

Mrs. Burrell looked at her gratefully.

"I believe you do, you blessed child; you see the good in everybody."

When Pearl went home that day she announced to her family that she was happy in four places. "I'm happy because we're goin' to have church now, that's one; and I'm happy because Mrs. Burrell gave me all those pansy plants, that's two; and I'm happy because Camilla is goin' to be married, and she has made me the loveliest white silk dress you ever saw, just the spittin' image of her own, because I'm to be her bridesmaid, that's three; and I'm happy because"—she hesitated, as a sudden shyness seized her—"oh, well, I'm just happy."



CHAPTER XIV

"IN CASE——"

Ah! well for us all some deep hope lies Deeply buried from mortal eyes.

——Whittier.

PEARL went around the settlement the next week, to tell the people that there would be church in the schoolhouse the next Sunday afternoon.

On Monday evening, coming home from school, she went into the Perkins home. She had not seen Martha since she had lived at the Motherwells' the year before. It was a large frame house, with a well-kept garden in front and a hedge of purple and white lilacs in full bloom. Pearl was standing looking at the hedge in mute enjoyment, when Martha came out to get green onions and lettuce for tea.

"Take some lilacs, Pearl," she said, pointing to them. "They are pretty, aren't they?"

"Oh, Martha!" Pearl cried, "you must be happy living with these things. Don't you just wish you could gather up all the poor little children? Mr. Donald was reading to us out of a magazine to-day, and showing us the pictures of how they are crowded together in the cities, and never see any grass, just all side walks and black dirt. Wouldn't you love to let them all have a look and a smell and armful and be happy for once?"

"I guess it doesn't do much good to be once if it doesn't last."

"Well, I don't know," Pearl said, after some deliberation. "I believe it does. I've often heard Ma tell about the day she and Pa were married, how the sun just danced on the flowers and the grass, and she carried a big sheaf of lilacs, and when she came to this country, and it was all so new and bare, and no flowers only the wild ones, and she hadn't got used to them, she often thought of them lilacs and pretty near smelled them again, and cried over them, and got real happy just thinkin' of them. You know there's a lot in lilacs, more than their beauty. Some flowers have a lot in them, just like people. Now, there's the wild sunflower, it's a pretty flower, with real rich colours, yellow and brown; but nobody ever cries over it, or has a good time over it in any way, because it doesn't make you think of anything."

"It's just a weed," Martha said with conviction.

"Well, now," Pearl went on, "even some weeds have something in them. There's the blue cockle and the ball mustard. They're bad weeds, but they're pretty. They've got a sort of a bold-as-brass look about them, and they have to be pulled, but they're pretty."

"Yes; they're pretty," Martha agreed. She had often thought about the cockle as she pulled it out of the garden. The flaming purple of it, so strong and bold and defiant, seemed to mock her and sneer at her sallow face and streaky, hay-coloured hair. In her best moments she had often wondered how it could be so bad when it was so beautiful, but there were times, too, when she had almost envied the bold and evil cockle, and thought bitterly that somehow it had the best of it.

"But what's the use of its lovely flashing purple?" Pearl said, as if in answer to her thoughts. "Nobody likes it, and it just gets rooted up and flung in heaps. It only takes up room and spoils crops and makes people mad. Look at the mignonette—it isn't pretty, but everybody loves it and plants it, and don't think a garden's a garden without it. Oh, I tell ye, Martha, beauty ain't everything, unless, ye can back it up with something better. Lots of the finest people on earth ain't much to look at, but nobody thinks of that."

Pearl was pinning a spray of lilac on her print dress as she talked. Then she made known her errand.

"Yes, I'll go," Martha said, readily. "And so will Bud. He likes Mr. Burrell. Pa and Ma will go, too, I guess. I'll be glad to have somewhere to go on Sunday afternoons—it's lonesome since Edith went to Winnipeg. Come in, Pearl. You've never been in our house yet, have you?"

Pearl followed her into the big kitchen, spotlessly clean and comfortable. Three windows let in the afternoon sunlight, windows that sparkled from a recent washing; a trailing fuchsia in full bloom, in an old wash-basin painted green, was suspended from the ceiling in front of the east window. There were flowers in every window, abundant in bloom, showing that a loving hand was caring for them. On the wall was a paper-holder made of cretonne with beads outlining the flowers.

"Did Mrs. Cavers make that?" Pearl asked quickly. "Yes," Martha said. "Mrs. Cavers gave it to mother years ago."

There was a bookshelf made by stringing together empty spools, with two boards covered with flowered cretonne for the shelves, but the only books on it were a cook-book, covered with oil-cloth, and Kendall's Horse Book. A framed picture of "Dan Patch" was on the wall.

"That belongs to Bud," she said smiling. "He's the greatest boy for horses—he's always training the colts, down in the pasture. He has one now that is a pacer. He's always wanting to run his colts in the races, but father won't let him. I've never been a race in my life, have you?"

"Oh, yes," Pearl said. "I've been at every race that I ever was near enough to go to, or lacrosse match or baseball match, or anything. You sure must come to the Pioneers' Picnic this year, Martha; we will have a splendid time."

"I've never had time to go," Martha said slowly. "I've always had to stay home and look after things, and besides, I don't know many people and I don't like going among strangers. I often get lonesome now since Mrs. Cavers has gone to live on the other farm, and I am real glad you came over, Pearl. I hope you and I will be good friends."

Pearl looked at her with quick sympathy.

"You bet we will, Martha," she said heartily.

Martha's pale face flushed with pleasure. Pearl was quick to notice what a fine forehead and what steady, calm eyes she had, and that she would be a good-looking girl if her hair were combed becomingly. Poor Martha, who stayed so much at home, knew but one way of hair-dressing, which was to part it in the middle and comb it straight back—the way hair was done when her mother was young. She was dressed in a clean, starched dress of gray print, plain as a nun's. Pearl noticed that her teeth were clean and even, and her active brain was doing a rapid summing-up of Martha's chances for beauty.

"Look at how pretty her teeth are," she was thinking to herself; "she may not know how to do her hair, but you bet she takes care of them. Whether or not yer hair's combed right is a matter of style, but clean or dirty teeth is a matter of the heart. Martha's heart's all right, you bet; and say, wouldn't she look fine in a wine, coloured dress, made long, with lots of fluffy things to make her look rounder and fatter, and her hair like Miss Morrison's, all kinkly and puffed, with a smashin' big combs with diamonds—no, I wouldn't just like a big comb either, it wouldn't suit her face. I just wish Camilla could live in the house with her for a while. She'd make Martha look a different girl. She's got hair, too," Pearl was thinking, "but she rolls it into such a hard little nub you'd never know. It needs to be all fluffed out. That nub of hair is just like Martha herself. It's all there, good stuff in it, but it needs to be fluffed out."

"Stay for tea, Pearl," Martha was saying. "Father and Mother are away, and there's only Bud and me at home."

Pearl readily agreed. She had told her mother that she probably would not be home for tea. Pearl's social instincts were strong.

Martha took her into the parlour, a close, stuffy little room, and showed some of her treasured possessions. There were the hair-wreath, the seed-wreath, and the wax flowers, which, to Pearl, were triumphs of art. There were three huckaback cushions standing stiff and grand on the high back of the lounge, and another one made of little buns of silk beside them, all far beyond the reach of mortal head.

"Do you never use them, Martha?" Pearl asked, touching them gently. "Do you know, I like cushions that are not half as pretty, but look more friendly like and welcome. But these are just lovely," she added quickly.

An enlarged picture of Mr. Perkins was on one wall, while on the opposite side of the room hung one of Mrs. Perkins.

Pearl told the other children about them when she went home. "There they are," she said, "just glarin' straight at each other, day and night, winter or summer, just the same, neither one of them givin' in an inch. 'I can stare as long as you,' you'd think they was saying, the way they've got their eyes glued on one another; and it ain't cheerful."

A hanging lamp, with its fringe of glittering pendants, hung over a table made of spools like the bookshelves, and covered with a drape of tissue paper table-napkins, cut into a deep fringe around the edge.

The table that held the family Bible had a cover made of rope, hanging in huge tassels down at each corner. Under the carpet had been placed newspapers, to make it wear better, and it crackled noisily as they walked over it. On the window curtains were pinned little calendars and Christmas cards, stuck on ribbons.

To Pearl these decorations were full of beauty, all except the wool wreath, which hung over the lounge in a deep frame covered with glass; but its indigo and mustard coloured roses and swollen bright green leaves made her suspicious that it was not in keeping with the findings of good taste.

There was something in Pearl's sympathetic interest that encouraged Martha to show her the contents of a cupboard upstairs in her room.

There were quilts in abundance. Martha held them up lovingly in different angles to show how they "make a pattern every way you look at them." There were the "Pavements of New York" in blue and white, the "Double Irish Chain" in red and white, "Fox and Geese" in buff and white; there were daintily hemstitched sheets and pillow covers; there were hooked mats in great variety, a lovely one in autumn leaves which seemed a wonderful creation to Pearl; there were pin-cushions, all ribbon and lace, and picture-frames ready for pictures, made of pine cones that Martha had gathered on the sand-hills of the Assiniboine.

When Pearl had feasted her eyes on all these wonders and praised them abundantly, Martha opened her trunk and showed her a still more precious store of hand embroidery, such beautiful garments as Pearl had never dreamed of.

"Martha," she cried impulsively, "are you going to be married, too?"

Martha's pale face flushed painfully, and Pearl was quick to see her mistake.

"No, I am not, Pearl," she answered steadily.

"Not just now," Pearl said, trying to speak carelessly; "but, of course, you will some time. Such a clever girl as you are will be sure to get married. You're a dandy housekeeper, Martha, and when it comes to gettin' married, that's what counts."

"Oh, no, Pearl, there are other things more important than that," Martha spoke sadly and with settled conviction. She was standing at the foot of the bed, looking out between the muslin curtains at the level stretch of country, bordered by the wooded river bank. She had been looking at this same scene, varied only by the changing seasons, for many weary, wearing years, and the big elms on the river bank had looked back indifferently, although they must have known that Martha was growing old, that Martha was fading, and that the chances of the trunk and cupboardful ever being used were growing less. The long arms of the windmill on the barn caught the sunlight and threw it in a thousand dancing splinters on the floor behind her.

"Being a good housekeeper hasn't got anything to do with getting married," she said again, and her voice was tense with feeling. "I can work and keep house, and sew and bake; but no man would ever fancy me' why should he? A man wants his wife to be pretty and smart and bright, and what am I?"

The strain in her voice struck Pearl's heart with pity.

"I am old, and wrinkled, and weatherbeaten. Look at that, Pearl." She held up her hands, so cruelly lined and calloused: "That's my picture; they look like me."

"No, no, no!" Pearl cried, throwing her arms around Martha's thin shoulders, and holding her tight in her strong young arms. "You're only twenty-five, and that's not old; and your looks are all right if you would only do your hair out bigger and fluffier, and you'd get to be a better figure if you'd breathe deep, and throw back your shoulders, and sleep with your windows open. I read all about it, and I'll get it for you. It was in a paper Camilla gets—a long piece called 'How to Be Pretty, though Plain.' I am doin' the things, too, and we'll do them together, Martha. See here, Martha, here's the way to breathe, and here's the way to throw back your shoulders"—suiting the action to the word—"and a cold bath every morning will give you rosy cheeks."