at was effective even with the determined Sarah,
that the most strenuous day should end at five o'clock. Then, freshly
bathed and dressed, they rested quietly till dinner and spent the short
evening on the porch or in the pleasant living-room.

That living-room proved a magnet to Richard and Warren. As soon as the
lamp was lighted and Rosemary or her mother sat down at the piano, the
boys seemed irresistibly drawn to the little white house. Their
evenings with the Hildreths had been dreary in the extreme--both the
farmer and his hard-working wife practised and preached that "early to
bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise"--and
they either sat silently in the twilight until nine o'clock when they
went to bed and set the alarm clock for five, or lit a single lamp in
the kitchen and read agricultural papers by its uncertain rays.

"I hope I can be as good a farmer as Joe Hildreth," Warren once
confided to Mrs. Willis, "but I think I'll have one less cultivator on
my farm and a couple more lights in my farmhouse."

No wonder that the shaded lights of that other living-room, which cast
a soft and rosy glow over the simple wicker furniture and cretonne
cushions, the books and magazines and the always open piano, spelled
comfort and cheer to the lonely young fellows miles distant from
relatives and old friends. Richard Gilbert said it was the books that
drew him, while Warren thought the music lured him. In reality, it was
the gracious, lovely presence of the mother, gentle Mrs. Willis who
never raised her voice above its soft, even level, who moved
noiselessly about the house and whose step was so light on the stair
that one might easily not hear her cross the hall and enter a room.
But she could not leave it that her absence was not noted and her low
laughter missed.

No wonder that twenty times a day the cry, "Where's Mother?" sounded
through the house. No wonder that Doctor Hugh called up every morning
and "ran in" as often as his busy schedule would allow, or bore her off
with him to inspect the progress of the building at the Eastshore
house. No wonder the nervous, driving energy of Mrs. Hildreth's nature
was turned into channels that flowed back to the little lady in the
white house bearing gifts of the garden and dairy. And no wonder at
all that two boys, who had never known their own mothers, found no
words with which to tell her what her interest and friendship meant to
them.