es arranged in a row on the picket fence, while she
issued orders to the two sisters sitting in the middle of the gravel
walk busily sorting flowers.

"As true as you live, I don't believe these shoes will ever be dry by
school time. S'posing we have to go barefooted, and this the last day of
the term! Cherry, you've got too many columbines in that horn. They look
pinched. Put some in Allee's boat."

"Allee's boat?"

"Well, she is fixing it for Miss Truesdale, even if she ain't a
sure-enough scholar yet. Don't make such little, stingy bunches of
violets. We picked plenty. I can't coax your toes to shine, Cherry. I'm
scared that the blacking won't do any good. You shouldn't have worn your
best ones."

"I haven't any others. My old pair is all worn out, and--Why, who--"

Cherry had caught sight of the shabby figure at the gate, but before she
could finish her sentence, Peace, following the direction of her eyes,
wheeled about on her perch, surveyed the man with big, almost somber,
brown eyes, and poured forth an avalanche of questions: "Are you a
tramp? Do you want some work, or are you just begging? Can you chop
wood? Do you know how to hoe? Are you hungry--"

"Yes, miss, I'm hungry," the tramp managed to stammer. "Could you give
me a bite to eat?"

"Not unless you will work for it," was the firm reply. "We don't b'lieve
in feeding beggars, but we are always glad to help the deserving poor."

The man's shrewd, deep-set eyes twinkled with amusement at her grown-up
tone and manner, but he answered with seeming meekness, "I will be only
too glad to do anything I can for a breakfast--"

"There's wood to be chopped. Gail ain't strong enough to do such work,
and our man is lazy. Reckon we'll let him go as soon as the garden is in
shape. There's a heap of vines to be trained up on strings 'round the
porches, and there are all the flower beds to be weeded, this grass
needs cutting, and the roof of the hen house has to be fixed so's it
won't leak, the hoop has come off the rain-barrel, the back step is
broken, and--oh, yes, there are three screens that we can't get on the
windows, and Mike never finds time for them."

Peace stopped for breath, and the tramp took advantage of the pause to
say, "Which one of those jobs will you have me do?"

"Which one?" echoed the child in round-eyed amazement. "Why, all of
them, of course! You don't expect us to give you breakfast unless you do
something to earn it, do you, after I'v