Shirley instantly, when Rosemary had swung
herself up to a seat beside them.

"I've been to see Louisa Gay," explained Rosemary, "and they haven't a
cent of money for the interest on that awful mortgage. It's due the
first of September and Louisa says the man will take the farm and
they'll all be on the town!"

"I thought you had to go and live in the poor house, if folks took your
farm," objected Sarah.

"It's all the same," said Rosemary impatiently. "Louisa says so. When
you're 'on the town' that means the town supports you and you live at
the poor farm. Girls, we just have to get some money for the Gays!"

"Ask Hugh," suggested Shirley, as her favorite way out of money
difficulties.

"We can't," Rosemary told her. "Louisa and Alec don't like strangers
and Hugh is a stranger to them. We mustn't even tell grown-up people
about them, because if they know the Gays are poor, they'll come and
take them to the poor farm, anyway. Alec says they don't even go to
the Center any more because he doesn't want people to ask him
questions."

When Winnie rang the bell to signal that lunch was ready, the three
girls had not succeeded in forming any definite plan to help the Gays.
They had made up their minds that money must be obtained, but the way
was anything but clear.

"You see," said Rosemary, taking up the question again after lunch, "we
can't ask Warren or Richard for any money. They are saving all they
earn to get them through agricultural college and Hugh told me they
have to do some work in the winter to get enough. Jack never has any
money of his own--he will have some at the end of the month, but he's
set his heart on buying his mother something lovely with the first
money he has ever really earned. There doesn't seem to be anybody to
help Louisa and Alec, except us."

"And we haven't a cent, except the five-dollar gold pieces Aunt Trudy
sent us Fourth of July," said Sarah practically.

"We must think," declared Rosemary solemnly. "You think _hard_, Sarah,
and you, too, Shirley. And I'll think with all my might."

Such concentration of thought should have produced some result, but the
next morning each had failure to report. Then Richard announced that
Solomon must be shod and offered to take anyone over who felt free to
spend the morning in Bennington.

"I have to make up my lost practising," said Rosemary, "and Hugh is
going to take Mother and Shirley with him--he telephoned he'd stop for
t