rosemary walked home slowly. louisa, worn out by worry and work, had yielded to the luxury of a good cry and though, when she had wiped her eyes, she declared she felt much better and more cheerful than for a week. rosemary was not convinced. a glimpse of alec, thin and brown, with the same worried look in his nice clear eyes, had not helped to convince her. it was plain that both louisa and alec were expecting the foreclosure of the mortgage on the farm and anticipating the separation of the family.

"i couldn't stand it," said rosemary earnestly to a chipmunk, who shook his head in sympathy. "i couldn't stand it, if sarah and shirley and i had to go live in different houses. suppose we didn't have mother and hugh and winnie!"

the realization of her own blessings only emphasized the hard position of the gays without a father or mother. by the time she had come to the rainbow hill orchard, rosemary was feeling very blue indeed.

"come on up!" two sweet little voices called to her. "come on up, rosemary!"

rosemary peered at the trees, and giggles floating from one gnarled old apple tree revealed where sarah and shirley were hidden.

"what's the matter?" asked shirley instantly, when rosemary had swung herself up to a seat beside them.

"i've been to see louisa gay," explained rosemary, "and they haven't a cent of money for the interest on that awful mortgage. it's due the first of september and louisa says the man will take the farm and they'll all be on the town!"

"i thought you had to go and live in the poor house, if folks took your farm," objected sarah.

"it's all the same," said rosemary impatiently. "louisa says so. when you're 'on the town' that means the town supports you and you live at the poor farm. girls, we just have to get some money for the gays!"

"ask hugh," suggested shirley, as her favorite way out of money difficulties.

"we can't," rosemary told her. "louisa and alec don't like strangers and hugh is a stranger to them. we mustn't even tell grown-up people about them, because if they know the gays are poor, they'll come and take them to the poor farm, anyway. alec says they don't even go to the center any more because he doesn't want people to ask him questions."

when winnie rang the bell to signal that lunch was ready, the three girls had not succeeded in forming any definite plan to help the gays. they had made up their minds that money must be obtained, but the way was anything but clear.

"you see," said rosemary, taking up the question again after lunch, "we can't ask warren or richard for any money. they are saving all they earn to get them through agricultural college and hugh told me they have to do some work in the winter to get enough. jack never has any money of his own—he will have some at the end of the month, but he's set his heart on buying his mother something lovely with the first money he has ever really earned. there doesn't seem to be anybody to help louisa and alec, except us."

"and we haven't a cent, except the five-dollar gold pieces aunt trudy sent us fourth of july," said sarah practically.

"we must think," declared rosemary solemnly. "you think hard, sarah, and you, too, shirley. and i'll think with all my might."

such concentration of thought should have produced some result, but the next morning each had failure to report. then richard announced that solomon must be shod and offered to take anyone over who felt free to spend the morning in bennington.

"i have to make up my lost practising," said rosemary, "and hugh is going to take mother and shirley with him—he telephoned he'd stop for them. sarah would like to go—she was wailing that everyone went to places and left her home."

sarah climbed happily into her place by richard and they drove off to bennington, at a slower pace than usual for richard wished to "favor" the shoeless foot.

"ph, look!" the rather silent sarah kindled into animation at the sight of a gay-colored poster tacked to a telegraph pole along the road. "what's that, richard?"

"circus!" he answered smilingly. "coming next month. see the lions, sarah? how would you like one of those to play with, eh?"

he obligingly pulled in the willing solomon, and sarah studied the poster with intent, serious dark eyes. driving on, richard found her curiously self-absorbed. she answered him in monosyllables and was apparently deep in a brown study.

"a penny for your thoughts?" he offered, wondering what she could be pondering over.

but sarah refused to sell and continued to be silent.

richard would have been surprised indeed, could he have seen what was going on in that active little brain. the circus poster had shown sarah, besides the wonderful lions, a marvelous performing bear, dancing on his hind legs. a crowd of people laughed at him and applauded.

"bony can do that!" sarah had thought with pride, and then, like a flash, followed the thought: "i could sell bony to the circus and give the money to louisa!"

the rest of the way to bennington was occupied, as far as sarah was concerned, in selling bony to the owner of the bear, who promised to give the pig a kind home and explain to him frequently why his mistress had consented to let him leave rainbow hill.

sarah had reached the moment when she put her precious pig into the bear man's hands (she innocently assumed that he must have charge of all the circus animals) just as richard drew up before the blacksmith's shop.

"you don't want to hang around here," said richard authoritatively, lifting her down from the seat. "i'll have to give some orders about shoeing solomon and you wait for me on the side porch of the hotel. i won't be long."

he led sarah unprotestingly—though at any other time she would have teased to be allowed to stay and watch the fascinating work of the smithy—across the street and to the steep little flight of steps that led to the pleasant, vine-covered side porch of the country hotel.

"good morning, mrs. king," he said, lifting his hat as a gray-haired woman peered over the railing at them. "this is sarah willis—i want to have her wait here while i'm over at the shop."

"she'll be all right," answered mrs. king kindly. "she can sit here and rest; it's nice and shady."

mrs. king was shelling peas, and sarah sat down in the cretonne-covered rocking chair next to her. there was one other person on the porch—a stout gentleman, stretched out in an arm chair, sound asleep. his face was covered with a white silk handkerchief which partially hid his round, bald head.

"do you like the country?" asked mrs. king, glancing toward her small visitor while her clever, quick fingers sent a continuous shower of peas rattling into the pan in her lap.

"oh, yes, i like it," nodded sarah with enthusiasm. "i like it lots better than eastshore and going to school. i wouldn't mind living in the country for always."

"but you'd have to go to school if you lived in the country," said mrs. king mildly. "you can't get away from lesson-books, no matter where you go."

"not in africa?" suggested sarah who never disdained an argument.

"i've never been in africa," mrs. king replied, "so i can't tell you positively. but my guess is all the children who aren't natives, have to be educated."

"what do the children who are natives do?" asked sarah.

mrs. king considered.

"i imagine they go around without any clothes on and the tigers eat them," she decided, recalling to mind several doleful pictures she had seen in an old geography.

sarah shivered, not in sympathy with the scantily clad children, but because of the tigers mentioned.

"i wouldn't want to be eaten by a tiger," she declared, rocking violently back and forth, "but i would love to have a baby tiger to play with me."

"look out you don't go over backward," warned the landlady. "don't you know a baby tiger would grow up to be a fierce, wild animal and probably end up by eating you?" she added.

"he wouldn't eat me, if i brought him up tame," said sarah. "baby tigers are like kittens—i saw some pictures of them once. i'd keep mine to guard my farm and i'll bet no robbers would come if they knew a live tiger was roaming around."

"no, robbers wouldn't come, or your friends, either," mrs. king said grimly. "and the butcher would be afraid to turn up, for fear the tiger might think he was the meat ordered for his dinner. you and your tiger would get lonely after a while."

"i have a tiger cat home," volunteered sarah. "but she isn't very exciting. i like big animals. maybe a baby elephant would be more fun."

"than a tiger?" said mrs. king, pausing to admire a freshly opened pod in her hand. "seven perfect peas," she murmured.

"yes, i could use a baby elephant," sarah informed her. "they are very strong. i have an animal book that tells all about them. even baby elephants are strong. i saw a picture of one pulling a tree over."

"my land, a farm won't be big enough for you," commented mrs. king. "what you ought to do is to go out west and start a place in the middle of the desert. but the snakes would probably send you back home before long."

she was quite unprepared for sarah's cry of rapture.

"snakes!" repeated that small girl in a voice of ecstasy. "are there snakes in the desert?"

mrs. king shook her pan vigorously in the effort to find a stray pod that had slipped through her fingers.

"i've heard that the place is full of snakes," she answered. "man or beast isn't safe from them. rattlesnakes and all kinds—sometimes, i've heard folks say, if the nights are the least bit chilly, the rattlers crawl under the blankets to get warm. imagine waking up in the morning and finding a snake in bed with you!"

"he wouldn't hurt you, if you didn't provoke him," sarah asserted. "snakes are polite and they'll let you alone if you let them do as they please. i think snakes are the most interesting things to see!"

"i don't!" said mrs. king. "i'd run a mile before i'd face one. there is nothing, to my mind, more disgusting than a wriggling snake."

sarah looked grieved.

"that's the same way my aunt trudy talks," she observed. "she is scared to death of little, tiny snakes. even water snakes. and a water snake never hurts anyone."

"don't show me one," said mrs. king hurriedly. "i don't care what kind of a snake it is, they're all alike as long as they can move. i never want to see one on the place."

sarah wisely concluded that another topic would be welcome and unconsciously the huge gray cat that climbed over the porch railing and leaped heavily to the floor, provided it.

"what a darling cat!" cried sarah, abandoning her chair in such haste that it narrowly missed falling backward. "is it yours, mrs. king?"

"yes, he's mine," said the landlady. "he used to be a right handsome cat but lately he's getting too fat. the girls in the kitchen feed him all the time. i don't believe he has caught a mouse or a rat for six weeks."

"he wouldn't catch mice," sarah declared feelingly. "would you, darling? he's too nice for that," and she sat down in the cretonne-covered rocker again, holding the cat in her arms.

"no cat is worth his board, to my way of thinking, who doesn't catch mice and rats," retorted mrs. king. "garry used to be a famous mouser."

"i guess the poor mice want to live," sarah protested, stroking the thick fur of the purring cat with a practised hand.

"it's a question of human beings living, or the mice," declared mrs. king. "of course if you want the mice to move into your house and you move out, that's another matter. till i get ready to do that, i'm going to set traps in the pantry every night and leave garry shut up in the kitchen."

"just like winnie," murmured the hapless sarah.

"seems to me you ought to run a zoo," said mrs. king glancing curiously over her spectacles at the small girl rocking the fat cat. "though how you're going to keep the mice and the cats and the snakes and the tigers all happy and contented together, is more than i'm able to figure out."

"i could make 'em love each other," said sarah confidently.

"i don't know about that," argued mrs. king. "even in the circus they can't bring that about. mr. robinson would tell you that," and she pointed to the stout man who was still asleep in his chair.

"who's that?" whispered sarah, wondering why anyone should want to sleep with a handkerchief over his face.

"that's mr. robinson, dearie," replied mrs. king, her swift fingers never pausing in their work. "he's advance agent for the circus."

sarah sat up with a jerk.

"does he own the circus?" she asked eagerly.

"bless you, no," said mrs. king smiling, "he doesn't own it, though he has a good deal to do with it, in one way or another. he comes every year to see that the posters are put up and to arrange for space for the tents and some extra help, if it's needed. he goes around to all the towns, ahead of the circus, you see, and tells folks it is coming; and in the winter he does considerable buying of animals and whatnot and hiring of performers, they tell me."

sarah stared at the silk handkerchief in spellbound fascination. one more question struggled for utterance.

"what is whatnot?" she demanded, her eyes still on the fat man asleep in his chair.

"whatnot?"—mrs. king was puzzled.

"you said he bought whatnot for the circus."

"my land alive, didn't you ever hear of whatnot? it doesn't mean a thing—it's just a phrase," poor mrs. king protested. "i meant mr. robinson buys little tricks and novelties and small side-show stuff like that."

sarah nodded absently, though she had no very clear idea of the good lady's meaning even then. when mrs. king went away presently, murmuring that it was time to put the peas on to cook, sarah sat quietly in her chair, her gaze riveted to the silk handkerchief.

suddenly, as she watched, a large and noisy fly also discovered the handkerchief. he decided to investigate, experience probably having taught him that handkerchiefs may be used to conceal a set of sensitive features.

cautiously he alighted and began to crawl—swat! the stout gentleman slapped sleepily, narrowly missing the tormentor.

up rose sarah and bore down upon the scene.

"don't swat him!" she begged. "he won't hurt you—flies only tickle. anyway, if you'd use a palm leaf fan, no flies would ever bother you."

the circus agent snatched the handkerchief from his face and sat up in astonishment, revealing a very kindly, very good-humored face fringed with white hair and lighted by a pair of twinkling eyes.

"bless me!" he cried when he saw the determined small girl. "what's all this?"

"the fly!" explained sarah seriously. "you tried to kill him. and he doesn't even bite."

"well, i may have been hasty," apologized mr. robinson, his eyes twinkling more than ever. "i don't always think when i am half asleep."

sarah's mind was already running on what she wanted to say to him. she was more direct by nature than tactful as her next remark showed.

"you're a circus man, aren't you?" she said, making it more a statement of fact than a question.

"i'm advance agent, yes," mr. robinson admitted.

he was totally unprepared for the next query.

"then," said sarah gravely, "wouldn't you like to buy a very fine pig?"