r's unspoken
question. "I've arranged it so I won't have to go the hospital and,
barring the unforeseen, I can count on a free fortnight. So we'll hope
there won't be any sick people to go see, Shirley."

"Where are you going, Rosemary?" the doctor hailed her as she and Sarah
started down the lawn after breakfast was over.

"We thought we'd go down and see Jack," called Rosemary.

Doctor Hugh pushed open the screen door and came down the steps.

"Let Jack get his bearings first," he advised. "There is bound to be a
number of new experiences for him this initial day and I think it will
be kinder to let him get adjusted to his job. He'll be up this evening
and you and Mother can play for him and cheer him up generally."

"Why--why--will he need cheering up?" Rosemary looked so startled that
her brother laughed.

"Not precisely cheering up, perhaps," he said, "but a mental and
physical rest. Jack is bound to have sore muscles, after a long day
bending over tomato crates; he thinks he knows what it means to work,
but he has never worked in his life as he will now. And I don't know,
but I suspect, he may have a sore mind; Jack has never worked for
anyone and he must learn to be 'bossed.' All in all, Rosemary, I'd put
off going down to the tomato field till to-morrow."

"Well--all right," agreed Rosemary reluctantly. "I do think he might
have stayed with us and then he would have had a better time."

"If we're not going down to the field, I'll go get Bony and take him
down to the brook," said Sarah, quick to seize her advantage. "I can
wash him while Shirley goes wading."

CHAPTER XVIII

A NEW FRIEND

They spent the morning down at the brook. Shirley was enchanted to be
allowed to help build a dam--the height of his ambition, Doctor Hugh
whimsically told them. Shirley paddled around in the brook and brought
him stones and he laid them in a chain that made a crude dam, both
getting very warm and very wet and having a thoroughly enjoyable time
of it.

Rosemary had brought the camera and snapped a dozen poses of the
sunny-haired Shirley as she gamboled about with her skirts tucked up to
her waist, looking like a particularly chubby elf. Doctor Hugh had
done something to the camera that would, Rosemary was sure, correct her
tendency to overexpose a film and the results fully justified her
faith; whether it was due to his manipulation of the "innards" of the
camera or his instructions to her, the