you--I think I'd like it--on a
wedding trip--or the like of that.

"But I want to see everything 'round home," said Pearl quickly. "Is
the garden all up, and what did you sow, and where are the hens set,
and did the cabbage plants catch?"

"You bet they did," said Mary proudly. "I transplanted them, and I put
them in close. Pa said I would need to take out every second one, but
I said we'd try them this way for once. You know the way cabbages
sprawl and straggle all over the place--all gone to leaves. Well, mine
won't, you bet, they'll heart up, because there's nothing else for
them to do. Pa admits now its the best way. They've got no room to
grow spraddly and they're just a fine sight already. Cabbages are just
like any one else; it doesn't do to give them too much of their own
way, and let them think they own the earth."

When breakfast was over, Pearl, Mary and Mrs. Watson went out into
the hazy blue sunshine. The ravine below the house was musical with
thrushes and meadow-larks. The blossoms had gone, and already the wild
cherries and plums were forming their fruit. Cattle fed peacefully on
the river banks, and some were cropping the volunteer growth of oats
that had come on the summer fallow. The grain was just high enough to
run ripples of light, as the gentlest of breezes lazily passed.

Pearl remembered the hopes and visions that had come to her the first
day she and her father had come to the farm, and through all its
dilapidation and neglect, she had seen that it could be made into a
home of comfort and prosperity, and now the dream had come true. The
Watson family were thriving; their farm had not failed them; comforts,
and even a few luxuries were theirs, and Pearl's heart grew very soft
and tender with a sense of gratitude.

It was not too good to be true, she thought, as she looked at the
comfortable home, the new barn and the populous farmyard spread out
under the quivering sunshine.

"It was not too good to be true," thought Pearl. "I can't complain,
even if some of my dreams have failed me--and maybe--who knows?"

"It's got to come right," she thought it so hard, she looked up to see
if Mary or her mother noticed. But they were busy with a hidden-away
nest, just found in the willow windbreak.

The news of the neighborhood was given to her by Mary.

"The Paines are putting up a new house, Pearl, and Mrs. Paine has some
real nice clothes, and they seem to be getting on far better."

"That's g