"i don't believe you've heard a word i've been saying, jack welles!"
the boy on his knees before the tangled fishing tackle spread out on the lowest porch step, looked up alertly.
"sure i heard," he protested. "something or other is 'perfectly adorable.'"
rosemary laughed. she had been sitting in the porch swing and now she came and camped on the middle step, chin in hand, regardless of the hot sunshine that turned her bronze hair to red gold.
"i suppose i did say that," she admitted. "but it really is, jack. i don't believe mother would call it an exaggeration."
jack welles frowned at a tangle of line. "i heard you," he said again, "but i didn't get where this place is—i saw you and your mother going off with hugh in the car this morning," he added.
"i'll untangle that for you," offered rosemary, holding out her hand for the line. "we went to see rainbow hill and now mother is crazy to go there for the summer. hugh is as pleased as pleased can be, for he wants her to go somewhere before mr. greggs starts the work here."
"where's rainbow hill?" asked jack, watching the slim fingers as they worked at the waxed silk thread so woefully knotted.
"that's the best part of the whole plan," rosemary assured him, taking his knowledge of a plan for granted. "it's only about eight or nine miles from here and twelve from bennington. hugh can easily come out in the car. you must have seen the house, jack—it is right on the tip-top of that hill to the right, the little white clapboarded house you see as soon as you pass the cross-roads."
"i've seen it," said jack.
"well, you may have seen it, but you can't tell how lovely it is until you go through it," declared rosemary, winding a free length of line about her slender wrist for safe-keeping. "there's no front porch—you step into the living-room right from the lawn. but there is a side porch with awnings and screens that mother will just love."
"where are the folks who live there?" demanded the practical jack.
"they're going to california, to visit their married daughter," rosemary explained. "they're patients of hugh's—mr. and mrs. hammond. and they wanted to rent the house because they didn't like the idea of closing it for almost three months with all their nice furniture and a piano and everything in it. so—wasn't it lucky—they happened to ask hugh if he knew of anyone who would rent the place furnished and he saw right away it would be just the thing for us."
"whereupon they insisted that he take it as a gift, with a maid and two butlers thrown in," recited jack, who knew in what affection doctor hugh's patients held him.
"not exactly," dimpled rosemary, "but they did say that if mother would live there during the summer they would consider it a favor and wouldn't dream of charging rent. mrs. hammond said she knew she wouldn't have to worry about her things if doctor hugh's mother would be there to look after them. but, of course, hugh wouldn't listen to that—he said business was business and as soon as he and mr. hammond had the rent fixed, hugh took mother and me to see rainbow hill. and it's too lovely for words."
"any butlers?" suggested jack.
"not a butler," answered rosemary firmly. "winnie beats all the butlers i ever saw—or read about," she emended, remembering that her actual experience with butlers was limited.
"winnie won't take kindly to pumping water from the well every morning," said jack, sorting fish hooks with a practised hand.
"there's no water to pump," was the prompt and cheerful response. "it's an old-fashioned house, but the plumbing is new—hugh found that out before he even mentioned rainbow hill to mother. it will be such fun to show the place to sarah and shirley—i can hardly wait."
jack looked up at the vivid, glowing face above him.
"i can imagine sarah let loose on a farm," he said drily. "they'd better tie up the pigs and nail down the cows—i wouldn't trust that girl within ten feet of a live animal."
"you think you're smart, jack welles!" broke in the wrathful voice of sarah as that young person hurled herself around the side of the house and confronted them indignantly. "you think you're smart, don't you?"
"'scuse me, sarah, i didn't know you were within hearing distance," apologized jack with proper contriteness. "don't be mad at me, sally, for here you are going away—when are you going?"
"monday," said sarah sullenly.
"you're going away monday," went on jack, "and you may not see me till september; can't we part friends, sarah?"
sarah regarded him suspiciously, but he surveyed her over his fish hooks and was apparently quite serious.
"i'll be glad to leave some people in this neighborhood," stated sarah with peculiar distinctness. "i'm going to do just as i please at rainbow hill."
"then i take it that hugh won't be there?" said jack, but rosemary hastened to act as peacemaker.
"don't fuss," she advised them wisely. "jack, i may learn how to fish this summer myself—mr. hammond told hugh that mr. hildreth is a great fisherman."
jack asked who mr. hildreth was and sarah answered that he was the tenant farmer.
"and his wife is the tenant farmeress," said sarah importantly. "they live in another house and plant things—hugh told me."
"yes'm, i don't doubt it," agreed jack, when he had assimilated this remarkable information, "but how come a farmer and a farmeress have time to give lessons in fishing?"
rosemary began on the last knot in the line. "don't be silly, jack," she begged. "there'll be two boys there—mrs. hildreth says her husband gets two students from the state agricultural college to help him every summer. they'll want to go fishing and sarah and i can go along."
"when you farm, you farm," said jack sententiously. "you don't hoe the potatoes one day and then go fishing for a week. but i may be wrong at that and if you find mr. hildreth needs an extra hired man, rosemary, one to go fishing, i mean, ask him to send for me. i'll come right up and fish and look after the garden in my odd moments."
"hugh's coming to spend two weeks in august," announced sarah. "and he'll come out as many week-ends as he can; will you really come, jack?"
"i always did yearn to be a hired man," jack answered earnestly, "and they tell us there is no time like the present to put one's ambition in training. i'm awfully afraid i'll have to earn my living after i leave school and a nice trade, like that of hired man, might be useful in my later life. i'll think it over and let you know, sarah; but don't let mr. hildreth build on my coming—i can't face his grief and disappointment in case i fail to turn up."
"you think you're smart!" was sarah's retort and rosemary said to herself that it was impossible to tell when jack was in earnest.
winnie came out and told them that lunch was ready just then, and jack took his fishing tackle and retreated to his own home which was next door, first thanking rosemary fervently for the unknotted line she handed him.
there were times during the days of preparation for the eventful monday when mrs. willis wondered whether they were really wise to go to so much trouble, times when she thought wearily that her own home, noisy as it might be, would be far preferable to the effort required to adapt her family to a new environment.
rosemary put the feeling into words one noon when the doctor came home to lunch and found her sitting on the floor beside a trunk with a lapful of rusty keys.
"nothing fits," complained rosemary. "all the keys to everything are lost. and i don't see what good a restful summer will do mother if she has nervous prostration before she gets off."
doctor hugh settled several difficulties in as many minutes—he had a gift for that—by dispatching sarah to the locksmith with soft-soap impressions of the keyless locks and orders to get keys to fit them and insisting that his mother must stay quietly in her room the remainder of the day and be served with luncheon and supper there.
"you girls try to talk all at once," he told his three sisters when they sat down at last to winnie's rice waffles, "and that is enough to tire anyone.
"can't i take the cat, hugh?" urged sarah anxiously. "you can take it in the car for me and i know fresh country air will be good for poor esther."
"esther wouldn't appreciate rainbow hill," said doctor hugh with conviction. "cats don't like to change their homes, sarah. besides, you'll have all the animals you want once you are on the farm. and that reminds me i want to say one thing to you."
"i suppose," remarked sarah plaintively, "you're going to scold."
"not exactly," said her brother, smiling in spite of himself. "but while i want you to have a happy summer, sarah, and 'collect' snakes and bugs and insects to your heart's content, i want you to understand clearly that the menagerie is to be kept outside of the house. mother and winnie mustn't be expected to get used to finding snakes in boxes and spiders in bottles, and the place to study a colony of ants is outside, not in the front hall. if i find you can't remember this one rule, you'll have to come back to eastshore and stay with me during the week."
sarah, with an unhappy recollection of the furore she had created the week before when she had bodily transplanted a thriving colony of ants to the hall rug, promised to remember.
"jack welles said he might come up for a couple of weeks and be a hired man," announced rosemary, smiling.
"i hope he does," approved the doctor promptly. "he'll find it an endurance test and a particularly valuable one. yes, winnie?"
"i wish you'd step out and look at the canna bed," said winnie grimly. "every single plant pulled out and left dying in the sun."
"why, i did that," declared shirley in her clear little voice that always reminded winnie of a robin's chirp. "i thought mother would want to take the cannas to rainbow hill with us—we can plant them around the porch there."
doctor hugh pushed back his chair, his mouth twitching.
"whatever happens this summer, winnie," he said gravely, "something tells me that you won't be bored."
