the first part of april was unusually mild. a sort of balmy hush seemed to lie over the barren land, as though spring had chosen to steal upon it sleeping. doris brought in the first violets on the fifteenth, with a few wisps of saxifrage and ragged robin. shad brought up a load of lumber from the mill the same day, and started to make the flooring for the tents.

second-hand army tents had been secured, and almost daily something was added to the store of supplies for the summer venture. the next problem to be solved was finding the occupants for the tents, and here it was jean who helped out.

"you don't want to get a lot of people," she wrote, "who will be expecting all the comforts of a typical summer resort or the excitement of the boardwalk. you want nature-lovers, the kind of people who really and truly want to rest and invite their souls. so i suggest my spreading the glad tidings among the art students here of greenacre farms. they are sure to pass it along to their friends. make your prices, sisters mine, attractive and alluring, and i know the world will make a pathway to your door, as some famous hermit remarked. i am going to sketch a few wonderful placards announcing the golden opportunity."

the next surprise that came was a visit from piney hancock, one saturday afternoon in may. the girls had gone up after wild flowers into the wood-lot. here shad and mr. robbins had been cutting birches for nearly a week. helen wandered through the violet-carpeted glades in a perfect day-dream. the warmth and glow had fallen on the land so unexpectedly after days of rain, and now the whole woodland was athrill with the songs of birds and the chirp and chatter of brooding things.

"i wonder just who helen is making believe she is now," doris said, reflectively, as she watched the sauntering figure in the misty distance.

"probably fair rosamond, or blanchefleur," kit replied, down on her hands and knees after a little patch of flag-root that bordered the bed of a brook. "you know, this fall i'm going to take a whole sack of bulbs and come up here through these woods and plant whole clumps of crocus and narcissus and hyacinths broadcast. just imagine poet's narcissus underneath those drooping hemlocks."

"i think there's a deer breaking through that path," helen called to them softly, "with long, spreading antlers!"

the girls listened and caught the unmistakable sound of some large animal pushing its way through the overgrown cow path, but instead of an antlered head, molly's white nose showed, and piney called to them gaily from her perch on the old mare's back:

"i had to ride over the minute i got the letter. who on earth do you suppose, girls, wants to rent one of your tents for the whole summer?"

she slipped off the saddle and held up an envelope, and every one of the three girls guessed the same name:

"ralph macrae!"

"oh, dear, i thought it would be a surprise to you," piney laughed, dropping down on a patch of green moss. "i had written out to honey, and told him all about your tent colony. you know they had planned to come east the first of june anyway, and he wants to know whether you have one to spare along the river."

"it's the gem of the whole collection," kit announced proudly. "do you remember, piney, the place where billie and i had our birch tepee long ago? he used to call it turtle cove. there's a dandy shore there, and canoeing on the lake above the falls. i'd much rather have honey and ralph there than strangers."

"well, you'll probably have me, too," piney announced, "because i'm just dying to go camping. it seems so queer, kit, that none of us ever thought of it before. here are these glorious woods and hills around us, with miles and miles of land as wild as you'd find anywhere, yet we all cling to the little farm spots. i hope somebody else will go ahead and put up tents the way you folks have done. i was telling a lot of the girls at high school about it, and they may take a tent for a couple of weeks."

"and cousin roxy told me yesterday that she was positive billie and mr. howard would come down for a while in july or august." kit heaved a sigh of contentment, as she rose from the ground. "i see that my wilderness is going to blossom like the rose, proserpine hancock. now, if you'll kindly tell me where all these tent dwellers of mine are going to get fresh water from when the brooks dry up, i'll be glad. they can't all trot way up to the house to our well."

"trot it to them," piney suggested instantly. "charge them five cents a pail for it, and let one of the little peckham boys handle that. i'll tell you one thing i bet you girls don't know. there's a never-failing spring about a mile up the road, and a lot of them could get water there. it's right near cynthy allen's old place."

kit regarded her admiringly, as they all started back down the woodroad towards home, molly trailing along behind leisurely.

"i believe cousin roxy was perfectly right. she told me long ago, piney, before i ever knew you, that you knew where every single wild flower bloomed in all gilead township, and every cow path and brook."

piney's eyes held a little wistful gleam, but she smiled with the old dauntless tilt to her head.

"i guess i do around greenacres," she said. "you see, honey and i always thought it would be our home some day, and about the first thing that i can remember is mother telling us all the places around here that she loved best when she was a girl. i suppose that's why i remember them all."

doris and helen were far ahead, trying to get down some branches of dogwood that hung invitingly over the stone wall at the side of the road, and kit laid one hand in comradely fashion on piney's shoulder. what she meant to say was how wonderful and brave she had always thought piney was, and how oftentimes, when her own pluck failed her, she would think of the hancocks and how they had kept their faces valiantly turned to the sunny side of care through all the years of necessity and privation, but girls are curious people, and all that she really said was:

"life's awfully queer, isn't it, piney?"

piney nodded with a little smile.

"it's fun though," she said, "if you just keep your face to the front and never look behind."