alarm.

"Not yet, but you want to be mighty careful," Richard warned her.
"Lots of people get queer, thinking too much about pigs, I've heard."

"I won't talk about any pig but my darling Bony," declared Sarah. "I
won't get queer talking about him."

CHAPTER XIII

THE GAY FAMILY

As Richard had foreseen, the Willis girls formed the habit of wandering
over to the Gay farm nearly every day. Rosemary liked Louisa and the
taciturn Alec, and the younger children were companionable in age and
tastes for Sarah and Shirley.

It was Warren who explained something of the conditions under which the
Gay children worked and lived, one evening when the girls were in bed
and Winnie was busy setting bread in the kitchen. Warren treasured
these rare half hours on the porch with Mrs. Willis and he had once
declared to Richard that ten minutes' uninterrupted conversation with
"Rosemary's mother" could make him forget the hardest and longest day.

"The way I figure it out," said Warren, his lean, brown face showing
earnest lines even in the shaded light from the porch lamp, "the way I
figure it, Mrs. Willis, the Gays will help Rosemary and Sarah and
Shirley and they will certainly help them. Alec is fifteen and Louisa
is just Rosemary's age--and yet they have the burden of supporting and
bringing up four younger children."

"And my girls have such a happy, sheltered life," struck in Mrs.
Willis. "Yes, Warren, I can see what you mean; it won't hurt them to
learn of the existence of poverty and hard work. But what happened to
the parents of these children?"

"They died a couple of years ago--within three months of each other, I
believe," said Warren. "All they left was these few acres--sixty, I
think Alec told me. There's a mortgage and most of the stock has been
sold off--Alec does wonders for his age, but he can't get the work done
alone. I helped him some last year and I'd help him more, but he is
too proud to take much."

"But they can't go on like this," Mrs. Willis protested. "It is
unthinkable--to allow six children to struggle alone for a living on a
barren little farm. Doesn't anyone take an interest in them--the
Hildreths or any of the people who live near and who knew their father
and mother?"

Warren settled deeper into his comfortable chair.

"If the house burned down, I suppose they'd be taken in by some of the
neighbors," he said a trifle bitterly. "Or if they all came down with
the plague, so