eals of labor.

Warren, leading the way out of the vegetable garden, laughed.

"Sure I have to work," he said good-naturedly. "If you knew Mr.
Hildreth, you wouldn't ask a question like that; he does two men's work
every day of his life and encourages everyone else to follow his
example. But you see, I can talk and work, too; it's all right to
talk, if you don't stop work to do it."

"Is it?" queried Sarah doubtfully.

"Not a question about it," declared Warren, taking down two bars for
the girls to go through into a green lane fenced in on either side with
a heavy wire fence. "Talk and work, mixed, are all right, but all talk
and no work makes Jack a poor hired man--haven't you ever heard that
proverb?"

Sarah puzzled over this until they came up with the cows and then she
forgot it promptly. There were ten of the sleek, cream-colored
bossies, gentle, affectionate creatures who pressed their deep noses
trustingly into Warren's hands and begged him to open the wide gate
that kept them from the shady pasture.

He swung the gate back and they moved slowly forward, beginning to crop
the grass before they were half way through.

"There's a brook," cried Shirley, catching sight of the water. "I want
to go wading--come on!"

"Not now," said Rosemary, catching Shirley by her frock as though she
feared that small girl might plunge into the stream head-first, "after
lunch, dear, if Mother is willing."

"We want to do a lot of other things first," Sarah reminded her. "We
haven't been up to the top of the windmill yet."

Warren turned and looked at her, a twinkle in his eyes.

"You wouldn't like it if you got up there and your sash caught on the
wheel," he told her. "Think how you would look going round and round
like a pinwheel. Folks would come to look at you instead of the
circus."

"I wouldn't catch my sash," said Sarah positively. "There's a little
platform up there and I could stand on that. And I saw the little iron
stairs that go up inside like a lighthouse."

The twinkle went out of Warren Baker's eyes and his pleasant voice was
serious when he spoke.

"There are just two places on this farm from which you are barred," he
said, his glance including the attentive three before him. "One is the
windmill; the door is usually locked and I don't know how it came to be
left open this morning. But locked or not, keep out of it--it is no
place for anyone unless a mechanic wants to oil or repair the ma