where out in the barn? I'll do it myself and spread it on
the grass to dry. Then, when she's getting supper, I can heat an iron
and press it."

Bob was willing; indeed he needed clean collars himself, and had
reached the decision that there was only one way to get them. Inquiry
had established the fact that there was no laundry in Flame City, and
the genus washwoman was practically unknown.

Betty went in to get her middy blouse, and Bob pumped pail after pail
of water and carried it to the barn. One pump supplied the whole
farm, house and barns. The two cows, three horses, and the pigs and
chickens were watered thrice daily by the patient Ki.

Cold water was not the only difficulty Betty encountered when she
came to the actual washing. The soap would not lather, and a thick
white scum formed on the water when she tried to churn up a suds.

"Hard," said Bob laconically. "Got to have something to put in to
soften it. Borax is good; know where there is any?"

Betty remembered having seen a box of borax on the kitchen shelf, and
Bob volunteered to go for it. When he returned with it, he brought
the news that there was a peddler at the back door with a bewildering
"assortment of everything," Bob said.

"Put a lot of this in," he directed, handing the box to Betty, who
obediently shook in half the contents. "Now we'll put the stuff to
soak, and go and look at this fellow's stuff. When you come back to
wash, all you'll have to do will be to rinse 'em out and put them out
to dry."

This sounded plausible, and the middy blouse and collars were left to
soak themselves clean.

The peddler proved to have a horse and wagon, and he carried dress
goods, notions, kitchen wear, books, stationery and candy. Bob and
Betty had never seen a wagon fitted up like this, and they thought it
far better than a store.

"I might buy that dotted swiss shirtwaist," whispered Betty, as Mrs.
Watterby ordered five yards of apron gingham measured off. "My middy
blouse might not dry in time."

"All right. And I'll get a clean collar," agreed Bob. "These aren't
much and I suppose they're too cheap to last long, but at any rate
they're clean."

The peddler drove on at last, and then Bob and Betty hurried back to
their washing. Alas, the tub had disappeared. At supper that night,
Mrs. Watterby had missed it and demanded of her husband if he had
seen it.

"Sure, I had Ki spraying the hen house this afternoon," Watterby
rejoined. "Thought you