d been busy devising means of
improving Martha, mentally and physically. After consulting with
Camilla, Pearl went over to see Martha again, full enthusiasm and
beauty-producing devices. She put Martha through a series of
calisthenics and breathing exercises she had learned at school, for
Martha was inclined to stoop, and Camilla had said that "a graceful
carriage was one of the most important things."

Martha had never had any money of her own, having always sold her
butter to the store and received due bills in return. Thomas Perkins
was not mean about anything but money--he would gladly give to his
children anything else that he possessed--but he considered it a very
unlucky thing to part with money. Pearl saw plainly that cold cash
was necessary for carrying out her plans for Martha, and so, acting
on Camilla's suggestion, she got customers for Martha's butter who
would pay her cash every week.

She got for Martha, too, a lotion for her hands which, put on
regularly every night, was sure to soften and whiten them. She showed
her how to treat her hair to make it lose its 'hard, stringy look.
Camilla had written out full instructions and sent a piece of the
soap that would do the work.

When Martha got her first butter money she sent for the magazine that
she had wanted her father to give her the money for before, and when
the first number came, she read it diligently and became what the
magazine people would call a "good user." Pearl had inspired in her a
belief in her own possibilities, and it was wonderful to see how soon
she began to make the best of herself.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PIONEERS' PICNIC

It is always fair weather
When good fellows get together.

_----Old Song._

THE Pioneers' Picnic was the great annual social event of the Souris
Valley, and was looked forward to by young and old. It was held each
year on the first day of July, on the green flats below the town of
Millford. In John Watson's home, as in many others, preparations for
it began early.

One very necessary part of the real enjoyment of a holiday is cash,
cold, hard cash, for ice-cream, lemonade; and "Long Toms" can only be
procured in that way.

Tommy and Patsey for the first time bitterly regretted their country
residence, for if they had been in Millford, they said, they could
have delivered parcels and run errands and have had a hundred dollars
saved easy. Pearl suggested the black bottles that were so numerous