ad, he shook his fist in unreasoning
anger and yelled, "Drat your pesky hides! Come back here and I'll tan
you good! What do you mean by spoiling all that high-priced fruit? Oh,
if I just had my hands on you now!"

"You got only what you deserved, Dave Hartman," said a quiet voice
behind him, and he whirled angrily toward his wife, who had come upon
the scene unnoticed.

"All I deserved! Twenty quarts of fruit spoiled! Four dollars' worth,
Myra Ann!"

"You should have been fair to the children and it never would have
happened. They have worked hard and earned their money."

"Fair! I meant to be fair. I was just fooling with them. If she hadn't
been quicker'n greased lightning she would have got all that was coming
to her."

"How was she to know that? You looked so ferocious I don't wonder she
took you at your word. The best thing you can do now is to rescue that
fruit before the chickens have spoiled it entirely, and let me wash and
can it. Then you better go over and pay the children for their work."

"Pay the children a dollar and a half for spoiling four dollars' worth
of strawberries? Well, I should say not! They will never get another
cent out of me, no matter if they go barefooted all the rest of their
days."

CHAPTER IV

LITTLE FLOWER GIRLS

In the hot room, high up under the eaves of the little brown house,
Peace sobbed out her anguish of soul, and then faced the problem of
shoes with a dauntless spirit.

"We'll _have_ to have new ones when school begins again, and if we could
just get some of these canvas things to wear during the summer, our old
ones would last quite a while longer. Mercy, where does the money go?
Seems as if there never was any to buy things we need with. Wish my
tramp would come back and leave us another bill. Wish--why didn't I
think of that before? The woods are full of flowers yet. I'll get Hope
and Cherry to help me make a lot of birch bark baskets and then Allee
and me will sell them in the city. My tramp said lots of folks would buy
them if they got a chance. Oh, Cherry, let's go down to the creek and
get some more bark. Tomorrow's Sunshine Club day and we will take Miss
Dunbar some baskets for her flowers."

Glad to distract Peace's thoughts from her great woe, Cherry agreed, and
the two made a hurried trip to the woods for material, getting not only
a big armful of bark, but also quite a bunch of moccasin flowers and
tiger lilies, which they had chanced upon in