er and mother would rather have us dead than
paupers."

"Could anyone take the farm away from you and do that?" asked Rosemary,
much shocked.

"Of course--it's often done," said Louisa, her light blue eyes gazing
intensely at her friend. "They'd take us to the poor farm in a minute,
if they knew we couldn't hold the farm."

"Perhaps it is pleasant at the poor farm," Rosemary was trying to find
the cloud's silver lining. "You might like it there; did you ever see
it?"

"No, and I never want to," retorted Louisa with finality.

Then Rosemary asked what it was to be "bound out" and Louisa told her
that children old enough to work were bound out to families who agreed
to give them their board and clothes and send them to school in return
for their services.

"It would mean that until we are eighteen we'd never have a cent to
call our own," declared Louisa. "We couldn't do a thing for the
younger children and, worst of all, we should be separated."

It was a very sober Rosemary who helped with the remainder of the work
that morning. She spread dish towels to bleach, she swept the porch,
made the beds--visiting for a brief moment with the unrepentant Kitty
who clamored to be allowed to get up and finally was released a half
hour ahead of time on her promise to pick the "greens" for dinner--and,
at Louisa's request, showed her how a simple soup was made in cooking
class at the Eastshore school. But she was unusually silent while she
did all this.

Walking home across the fields at noon--they steadfastly refused to
burden the harassed family with three extra mouths to feed--Sarah
noticed her sister's abstraction.

"What's the matter, Rosemary?" she asked curiously and Shirley echoed
the question.

"Oh--I'm thinking," said Rosemary.

CHAPTER XV

THE POOR FARM

Rosemary thought a great deal about the Gays in the days that followed.
Louisa had asked her to promise that she would tell no one the
precarious state of their finances--"no one can help and I won't be
discussed like the 'cases' they bring up at the sewing circle," said
Louisa passionately.

"They'd be 'running up' clothes for June and Kitty," she said another
time, "and fitting us out to go to the poor farm looking respectable.
I'd rather stay here and look any old way."

Sarah was extremely observant for her years and she surprised Rosemary
and Louisa with a shrewd comment or two, until the latter deemed it
expedient to take her into the