stone wall at the side of the road,
and Kit laid one hand in comradely fashion on Piney's shoulder. What she
meant to say was how wonderful and brave she had always thought Piney was,
and how oftentimes, when her own pluck failed her, she would think of the
Hancocks and how they had kept their faces valiantly turned to the sunny
side of care through all the years of necessity and privation, but girls
are curious people, and all that she really said was:

"Life's awfully queer, isn't it, Piney?"

Piney nodded with a little smile.

"It's fun though," she said, "if you just keep your face to the front and
never look behind."

CHAPTER XXVI

PAYING GUESTS

The first campers were due to arrive the second week in June, but
everything was in complete readiness long before that time. The girls
never wearied of making their tours of inspection to be sure nothing had
been overlooked, and each time it seemed as if they added a few more
finishing touches.

Cousin Roxy declared it was all so inviting that she felt like closing up
the big house and coaxing the Judge to camp out with her.

Instead of grouping the tents together, they had chosen the most
picturesque and sequestered spots to hide them away in. There was one on a
little jutting point of land near the Peckham mill. Here, the river swept
out in a wide U-shaped curve that was crowned with gray rocks and pines.
The music of the falls reached it, and the road was only about quarter of
a mile across the fields to the north, but apparently it was completely
isolated.

"I'd like to put a poet in there," Helen said, "or a musician. Wasn't it
Rubenstein, Kit, who used to take his violin and play the music of the
rain and falling water?"

"Ask me not, child, ask me not," returned Kit, practically. "All I'm
wondering about this minute is how on earth Shad ever expected this fly to
stay put, if a good, old-fashioned Gilead thunder-storm ever hit it."

Helen watched her as she climbed up on a camp stool, with most precarious
footing, and tried to readjust the fly at the back of the tent.

"Don't you have to take them in when it storms or the wind blows, just
like sails?" she asked. "Ingeborg and Astrid told me that. They learned it
from their camp-fire rules. I'm sure you don't leave them stringing out
like that, Kit."

All at once Doris came speeding around the rock path, her eyes wide with
excitement, her whole manner full of mystery.

"There's an automobil