xtended a clean square.

"What's the matter with Sarah?" he asked curiously.

"Oh, she's had a hard morning--thought I'd wash off some of the worst
of it before she scared everyone at the house into fits," explained
Richard, beginning gently on Sarah's face, with the clean handkerchief
dipped in water. "What was the row?"

Warren's face darkened. He bit his lip.

"Mr. Hildreth found the whole flock of hens having a Thanksgiving
dinner out of the grain bins this morning," he said in a tone which he
strived to make light and even. "He insists I left the lids up and I
am just as sure I didn't. In a moment of madness I might leave one up,
but I never had all the bins open at the same time since I've worked
here."

"If Mr. Hildreth had a grain of sense," pronounced Richard, looking
dubiously at Sarah who still presented a sad appearance notwithstanding
his ministrations, "he'd know better than to accuse you. Of course
some of these children have been fooling around the bins."

Sarah jumped at this uncanny penetration. She wanted nothing in the
world so much as to get out of that washroom, away from Richard's
straightforward gaze.

She edged carefully toward the door--but there was to be no escape.

"Sarah, were you in the barn this morning?" asked Richard.

Her answer was a look that Doctor Hugh would have been able to
instantly interpret--it meant that Sarah had retreated into one of her
obstinate, sulky silences and had made up her mind not to be forced
into speech.

Richard turned and shot the bolt across the door.

"Were you in the barn this morning?" he repeated. "Answer me--but I
know you were; and you must have left the grain bins open."

Sarah remained silent. Richard took a step toward the obdurate little
figure, but Warren's voice halted him.

"Quit it, Rich," he said quietly. "Open that door. Run along, Sarah,
and next time you climb an apple tree, have a pillow on the ground
ready to catch you."

Sarah stepped over the sill, turned around, seemed about to speak and
then went silently out of the barn. She heard Richard say something
and Warren's reply:

"Oh, what difference does it make, if she did?"

Mrs. Willis knew what to do for the yellow jacket stings and she knew
how to cure scratched hands and arms and soothe aching little heads.
She knew, too, the signs of a hurt heart--when it was Sarah's. Shirley
thought her sister was merely "cranky" when she pushed her out of the
swing