fast. And on the other side of the
tent wall was a happy young convalescent, demanding of him whether it
was not good to be alive. He found himself answering, in a genuinely
cheerful tone:

"I'm certainly mighty glad you're alive, Sally Lunn!"

CHAPTER VII

EVERYBODY IS SATISFIED

"Bobby, let's have a garden, you and I." Bob looked up from the front of
the tent platform, where he sat polishing a pair of much-worn russet
shoes. Riding back and forth, nights and mornings, on a bicycle, over
very dusty roads, made it necessary to polish often. But Bob didn't mind.
The two weeks of camp life he had enjoyed had made him indifferent to any
extra trouble involved.

"Looks as if you had a garden somewhere," he responded, eyeing with
favour the pailful of red raspberries Sally held up. "You must have got
up with the lark, to have picked all those. Mary Ann hasn't more than
started the fire in the kitchen tent. I had to go and help her. That girl
doesn't know how to boil an egg. She cracks it getting it in. Her coffee
is a thick, dark, wicked looking stuff. What do you suppose she does to
it?" he asked in a whisper.

"Never mind. I'm growing stronger every minute, and mean to begin to
cook, next week."

"Thank goodness!" murmured Bob. "I mean," he explained quickly, "that
I'm thankful you're well enough."

Sally laughed, pulled off her wide straw hat, and sat down beside Bob.

"Your cheeks are pink as hollyhocks," he observed, eyeing her with
satisfaction.

"I had a lovely time picking those raspberries," she said. "There must
have been a big patch of them back there once. Bob, I want to start a
kitchen garden. Max and Alec haven't waked up yet to the fun it would be
to grow things on this old place, but you're always awake. Come on!"

Bob stood up.

"I'm ready for anything you say, but I don't know any more about planting
gardens than I do about building bridges. You don't plant a garden in
July--I'm sure of that."

"Isn't there a thing that can go in late, and produce a late crop?"

"Don't ask me. Maybe our friend Ferry would know. If there's anything he
doesn't know, I haven't found it out. It's funny a preacher should be
such an all-round sort of fellow, isn't it?"

"A--what?" Sally nearly dropped her raspberries, she was so astonished.

"A preacher. He preaches in the old white church with the big pillars,
away down town in the middle of everything. I just found it out yesterday
from a fellow in