han the shoes."

"Oh, Peace!"

"Well, wouldn't you? There is someone at the front door."

Gail disappeared through the hall to answer the knock, and Peace, with
her new shoes in her hand, slipped out of the kitchen door. "Just as I
thought," she muttered to herself. "Mr. Hardman brought them over. He
thinks they will make up for that money he never paid us last summer,
but they won't. He can just have his old shoes right back again!"

Out to the barn she marched, hunted up a scrap of paper and a pencil
left there for just such emergencies, laboriously scribbled a note,
which she tied to the slippers, and deposited the bundle on the Hartman
steps, where he found it when he came out to sweep paths. "Well, I
swan," he exclaimed, half in anger, half amused, as he picked tip the
rejected shoes, "if she hasn't trotted them slippers back! Peace, of
course. Let's see what she says." Carefully he untied the little slip
and read:

"Here are your shoes. Im greatful but this is the rong seesun for
them. By summer they will be to small as they aint very big now. Ive
got over wanting tenis shoes anyhow. The muny you owe us would have
come in handier. Peace Greenfield."

He tucked the note in his pocket, dropped the shoes on the kitchen
mantle, and went chuckling about his morning work. Hardly had he
finished his numerous tasks, when he was surprised to see Peace coming
slowly up the path, with eyes down-cast and face an uncomfortable red.
She knocked lightly, as if hoping no one would hear, and looked
disappointed when he opened the door.

"Merry Christmas, Peace. Come in, come right in," he said cordially,
his eyes gleaming with, amusement. "What can I do for you this morning?"

"Give me back the shoes I left on your porch," she answered, in tones so
low he could hardly hear. "Gail said I must come over and get them and
ipologize for being so rude. She says it is very rude to return
Christmas presents like that. If you meant them for a present, why,
that's different; but I thought likely it was our pay for picking
strawberries last summer. Now, which was it, a present or our pay?" The
old, independent, confident spirit asserted itself once more in the
little breast, and Peace raised her eyes to his with disconcerting
frankness.

"Well, well," stammered the man, hardly knowing what to say. "Suppose
they are a Christmas present, will you accept and wear 'em?"

"When it comes summer time, if I haven't ou