be from her cousin Kate, the "witch with a wand," who had so often
played fairy godmother to the family. She might be writing to say that
she had sent another box. Straightway Mary's active imagination fell to
picturing its contents so blissfully that she forgot the heat of the
sun-baked road over which she was going. Her face was beaded with
perspiration and her eyes squinted nearly shut under the broad brim of
the Mexican sombrero, but, revelling in the picture her mind called up
of cool white dresses and dainty thin-soled slippers, she walked faster
and faster, oblivious to the heat and the glaring light. Her sunburned
cheeks were flaming red when she finally reached the Wigwam, and the
locks of hair straggling down her forehead hung in limp wet strings.

Lifting the snake carefully across the bridge which spanned the
irrigating canal, she trailed it into the yard and toward the
umbrella-tree which shaded the rustic front porch. Under this sheltering
umbrella-tree, which spread its dense arch like a roof, sat Joyce and
her mother. The heap of muslin goods piled up around them showed that
they had spent a busy morning sewing. But they were idle now. One glance
showed Mary that the letter, whosever it was, had brought unusual news.
Joyce sat on the door-step with it in her lap and her hands clasped over
her knees. Mrs. Ware, leaning back in her sewing-chair, was opening and
shutting a pair of scissors in an absent-minded manner, as if her
thoughts were a thousand miles away.

"Well, it's good news, anyway," was Mary's first thought, as she glanced
at her sister's radiant face. "She wouldn't look so pretty if it wasn't.
It's a pity she can't be hearing good news all the time. When her eyes
shine like that, she's almost beautiful. Now me, all the good news in
the world wouldn't make _me_ look beautiful, freckled and fat and
sunburned as I am, and my hair so fine and thin and straight--"

She paused in her musings to look up each sleeve for her handkerchief,
and not finding it in either, caught up the hem of her short pink skirt
to wipe her perspiring face.

"Oh, _what_ did the postman bring?" she demanded, seating herself on the
edge of the hammock swung under the umbrella-tree. "I've almost walked
myself into a sunstroke, hurrying to get here and find out. Is it from
Jack or Holland or Cousin Kate?"

"It is from The Locusts," answered Joyce, leaning forward to see what
was tied to the other end of the rope which Mar