of suggesting that Louisa might be willing to go
and see Miss Clinton--Louisa needed friends as badly as the little
wheel-chair woman did--but the girl's answer was not encouraging.

"She lives in that little yellow house," said Louisa. "She may be
lonely, but she has enough money to live on and no one need be pitied
who can keep out of debt."

"Oh, Louisa!" Rosemary drew nearer in concern. "Haven't you the money
for the interest?"

"Not a cent," said Louisa bitterly. "The little we did have saved
toward it, we had to spend on a pump. The old one gave out and you
can't get along without water, no matter what else you can do without."

Rosemary glanced toward the shining new pump--so obviously new and
shiny that it made everything else in the kitchen look shabbier by
contrast.

"There ought to be _some_ way to get money when you need it," she said
earnestly.

"There isn't," Louisa informed her. "Don't you suppose I've thought
and thought? No matter how much you need it, there isn't any money to
get--and if there was, you wouldn't need it because it would be there
to get," and Louisa laughed rather hysterically.

"That may not make good sense," she added, "but I can't help that; it
is true."

CHAPTER XXII

SARAH HAS AN IDEA

Rosemary walked home slowly. Louisa, worn out by worry and work, had
yielded to the luxury of a good cry and though, when she had wiped her
eyes, she declared she felt much better and more cheerful than for a
week. Rosemary was not convinced. A glimpse of Alec, thin and brown,
with the same worried look in his nice clear eyes, had not helped to
convince her. It was plain that both Louisa and Alec were expecting
the foreclosure of the mortgage on the farm and anticipating the
separation of the family.

"I couldn't stand it," said Rosemary earnestly to a chipmunk, who shook
his head in sympathy. "I couldn't stand it, if Sarah and Shirley and I
had to go live in different houses. Suppose we didn't have Mother and
Hugh and Winnie!"

The realization of her own blessings only emphasized the hard position
of the Gays without a father or mother. By the time she had come to
the Rainbow Hill orchard, Rosemary was feeling very blue indeed.

"Come on up!" two sweet little voices called to her. "Come on up,
Rosemary!"

Rosemary peered at the trees, and giggles floating from one gnarled old
apple tree revealed where Sarah and Shirley were hidden.

"What's the matter?" asked