"did you buy the farm?" asked sarah bluntly.

richard and warren and jack and the circus agent sat on the top step and below them were ranged rosemary, shirley and sarah. mr. hildreth had considerately gone into the kitchen to read.

"no," answered mr. robinson, "i didn't buy the place."

three faces fell.

"but i've rented it," he went on, "and paid a quarter's rent in advance."

"is that just as good?" inquired rosemary respectfully.

mr. robinson laughed and warren nodded.

"alec was over at milking time and he was feeling as gay as his name," said warren. "i guess their troubles are over for a time."

then mr. robinson explained what he had done and why and never did a speaker have a more attentive audience.

"i won't bother you with the legal end of it," he said good-naturedly, "but these children are under twenty-one and when their parents died a guardian should have been appointed for them. if i tried to buy the farm there would have to be a guardian appointed and even then i doubt if he could give me a clear title.

"so, for many reasons, it is much simpler to rent the farm from them and better, i am firmly convinced, for the children. they are to stay on in the house and this winter i and my wife will come out and make our headquarters there. alec can lend me a hand with the animals and mother will see that that plucky girl gets her schooling. i'll stable most of the circus horses out here and as nearly as i can tell it's just the kind of a place we need."

he told them a great deal more about alec's surprise and louisa's delight and something of the plans for the winter which should include the attendance at school of the five gays old enough to go.

the boys walked back with rosemary and shirley and sarah, and warren told them further details.

"mr. robinson is a brick!" he declared heartily. "he's renting the farm because he discovered in what desperate straits the gays are; if he tried to buy it, it would take months to get their affairs untangled—there would be miles of red tape and court hearings and dear knows what all. instead he has paid them cash down for a quarter and i understand from alec he is paying a generous rental, besides offering alec employment this winter. he's put out because the town hasn't done anything—and now, he says, he and his wife will look after them and bennington can save its legal snail tracks."

"but alec and louisa didn't want the town to know anything about them," protested rosemary.

"well, they're too young to manage their own affairs," said warren curtly. "somebody should have been responsible long before this."

it was odd, but jack, warren and richard separately, each took sarah aside and asked her if she had wanted to sell her pig. each offered to return the money to the circus agent for her and get bony back.

"i wanted to sell him," said sarah stolidly, three times.

in the morning she kissed bony good by and watched him drive away with richard and mr. robinson. then she went out to the barn, refusing rosemary's invitation to go over to the gays'. shirley went in her stead and they were greeted by a radiant louisa who declared that her troubles were at an end and that now she had hopes of being able to keep the family together and even educate them.

"of course we have to be careful," she said, smiling as though that would be comparatively easy. "the quarter's rent mr. robinson paid won't quite meet the interest, but alec thinks he can scrape the rest together somehow. and of course we will have to pay for the potato fertilizer and the store bill is overdue; but we'll manage."

it was on the tip of rosemary's tongue to tell her about the money sarah had, but she stopped in time and sent shirley a warning glance. that pleasure belonged to sarah and no one should take it from her.

"will you come upstairs a moment, rosemary?" asked louisa, "i want to show you something. let shirley play with kitty in the yard."

the two girls went up the steep, straight stairs and louisa took her guest into one of the front rooms.

"mr. robinson said his wife would be out to get acquainted with us soon," louisa explained, "and of course she'll have to stay all night. and where, i ask you, rosemary, is she to sleep?"

"why i don't know, dear," replied rosemary, smiling. "what is the matter with this room?"

she looked about it as she spoke. it was a large, square room, very clean and, it must be confessed, very bare. there was a bureau, one leg missing and the lack supplied by a brick; one chair, the bed and a little table (not large enough to be useful and not small enough to be dainty) completed the furnishings.

"it looks so awful," said poor louisa. "and of course i can't buy material for curtains; mother used to say that curtains softened a room and helped to furnish it. but i certainly am thankful for one thing."

"what?" rosemary asked.

"that i've always saved one pair of mother's good sheets and her best light blankets and two pillow cases, real linen ones," said louisa. "when the linen began to wear out, i patched it and darned it as well as i could, but our sheets last winter were made of flour sacks, stitched together. they're white as snow for i bleached them, but i wouldn't want to have mr. robinson's wife sleep on flour sack sheets."

"oh, my, of course not," said the sympathetic rosemary.

"she won't have to," declared louisa with satisfaction. "much as i have wanted to use these sheets and the blankets, i've kept them put away. they are linen mother had when she was married and i never could afford to buy any like it now."

"that's fine," said rosemary, a trifle absently.

she was studying the windows, three placed close together on one side of the room.

"do you know, louisa," she said slowly, "i believe we could make curtains for those windows—just straight side-drapes, you understand, with a plain valance across the top."

"i've seen pictures," louisa admitted, "but i haven't any material."

"i could get it," rosemary began, but louisa shook her head.

"it's a silly idea, anyway," she declared resolutely. "i haven't any business to be thinking about curtains when the whole house is as shabby as my old winter coat. if mrs. robinson does come and see new curtains she'd know right away that i'd spent money i couldn't afford on them. she might even get the idea that i was trying to make an impression."

"you have a perfect right to try and make a pleasant impression!" flared rosemary hotly. "of course you have. and i'll tell you how to make new curtains and they won't cost a cent—except money you have already paid. use the blue and white gingham!"

louisa stared. she had bought, almost as soon as alec had told her the good news of the farm's rental, a dozen yards of neat blue and white checked gingham to make kitty and june some much-needed frocks and herself an apron or two.

"but i never heard of gingham curtains!" louisa protested.

"they're very fashionable for bedrooms," rosemary assured her. "we have some at rainbow hill—i can show you those. and mother has a magazine with heaps of pictures in that show checked casement curtains. you'll love them when you see them made and hung, louisa."

"well—the children can wait for the dresses, i suppose," said louisa.

and, with rosemary's help, the curtains were made and hung before the circus agent's wife paid her promised visit. they were a great success and louisa was inordinately proud of them.

now they went back to the kitchen to look again at the gingham.

"i wish there was some way i could earn a little money," said louisa wistfully.

the knitted face cloth on the back of the kitchen chair was responsible for rosemary's idea.

"you could knit a bedspread, louisa!" she said with enthusiasm. "i'll show you how; miss clinton told me they sell for lots of money and warren has a cousin who is a domestic science teacher in a large city; he said she was out here last summer and offered to get orders for miss clinton, but she wouldn't agree to sell her spreads. she doesn't need the money, but you do."

louisa was as excited as rosemary and before an hour had passed the two girls had, in imagination, knit four elaborate spreads and disposed of them for eighty dollars apiece.

then louisa came down to earth and spoke more practically.

"it will take a long time to do a full-sized spread," she said, "but i will have plenty of time to knit this winter. you show me how and miss clinton will help me, if i get stuck in the middle of a pattern. you are too lovely, rosemary, to think of something i can do!"

"i wish i could earn some money for the gays," sighed shirley, trotting home beside rosemary when they had left the cheerful louisa.

"well, you're a pretty little girl to earn money, darling," rosemary told her, "but i'll try to think of something you can do. we'll ask the boys; they know more about money than we do, warren and rich especially."

her intuition proved to be right, for warren, consulted, suggested that shirley might pick herbs, wild ones, and get the gay children to help her.

"old fiddlestrings buys wild herbs and sells them, along with those he raises in his garden, to city druggists," explained warren. "i'll see him to-night and find out what he wants right now. then i'll help you till you learn to know the different leaves and after that it will be easy."

warren was as good as his word and in a few days shirley and jim, kenneth and kitty gay were earnestly hunting herbs. they made a few mistakes at first, but soon learned and as it was wholesome work and did not take them off the farm, they were encouraged to go herb picking every day. warren acted as selling agent and the little heap of pennies and dimes and nickels in the pink china bank grew steadily.

that, however, was after sarah had presented her offering to louisa. for one anxious half day it seemed that there might be no presentation, for sarah disappeared completely after saying good by to bony; and diligent search on the part of her sisters failed to produce her.

"sarah didn't come to lunch, and mother is worried," announced rosemary, meeting the wagon as it returned from the cannery with warren driving and jack sitting on the empty crates in the back.

warren reined in the horses and looked anxious.

"she hasn't taken belle again, has she?" he asked.

"no, i looked and belle is in the pasture," replied rosemary. "i've looked everywhere and winnie came and helped me and shirley, too. and hugh telephoned he would be out for dinner—where can she have gone?"

jack spoke suddenly.

"i'll tell you what i think," he said. "i think she is crying somewhere about bony. you know sarah—she would run a mile before she would let anyone see her cry. and i'll bet seeing bony go just about broke her heart. she was crazy about that pig."

"yes, she was," agreed rosemary. "poor little sarah! she was determined to sell him and give the money to alec and louisa—and all the time she must have cared so much!"

"you go help rosemary find her, jack," said warren. "rich and i will get up the next load. think where she would be likely to run and hide and then look for her there."

jack jumped down from the wagon and faced rosemary anxiously.

"where shall we look?" he asked.

"in the woods," answered rosemary, after a moment's thought. "there's a place there we call the cave—four rocks around in a ring. you can climb over them and drop down on the moss and it feels as though you really were in a cave. let's go look there."

the woods were some distance away and the sun was hot, but rosemary and jack ran nearly all the way. rosemary was almost crying, for the more she thought about sarah, the more plausible it seemed that she must be heart-broken over the loss of her beloved pet.

"you go look," whispered jack, when they reached the four large rocks rosemary had described. "peek over and see if she is there."

cautiously rosemary crawled over the rocks—long afterwards she remembered how cool and damp they felt to her fevered hands and knees—and peered down into the green hollow they formed. a little figure in a crumpled tan frock was huddled against one of the stones.

"sarah!" called rosemary softly. "sarah dearest! you must be starved!"

"go away!" said sarah crossly.

that was all she would say, though rosemary told her how worried they had all been, urged that doctor hugh was coming to dinner and pleaded with her to come home at once and have something to eat.

"come on, sarah—that's a good girl," begged rosemary. "jack is here, too, and he wants to get back to work."

"tell him to go, then," muttered sarah. jack climbed over one of the boulders and gazed down at the obdurate little person whose unhappy brown face lacked its usual life and color. sarah did not look like herself.

"look here, sarah," said jack with directness, but not unkindly. "your mother is worried stiff about you and you're coming back with us and coming now. if you don't want me to climb down there and pull you out, you'd better scramble up this minute."

suddenly sarah climbed up the rock furthest from jack and dropped to the ground. she refused to take rosemary's hand and scuffed on before them silently, like a small indian in a very bad temper.

"she does care," whispered rosemary to jack. "she always acts like this when she wants to cry and is too proud."

with rosemary to the left of her and jack on her right and no possible avenue of escape open, sarah mounted the porch steps. someone all in white, fragrant and dainty and sweet, gathered her, dirt-stained and disheveled as she was, into loving arms. sarah began to cry.

"there, my precious," said mrs. willis softly, "tell mother all about it—she wants to hear."

rosemary and jack slipped away.