ke
a big hole in one side of it. Store boxes don't cost much. I will have
Uncle Wesley buy me one, and set it up wherever hunting looks the best,
early in the spring. I would feel safer at home."

"Shall we do the work or have supper first?"

"Let's do the work," said Elnora. "I can't say that I'm hungry now.
Doesn't seem as if I ever could be hungry again with such a lunch. I am
quite sure no one carried more delicious things to eat than I."

Mrs. Comstock was pleased. "I put in a pretty good hunk of cake. Did you
divide it with any one?"

"Why, yes, I did," admitted Elnora.

"Who?"

This was becoming uncomfortable. "I ate the biggest piece myself," said
Elnora, "and gave the rest to a couple of boys named Jimmy and Billy and
a girl named Belle. They said it was the very best cake they ever tasted
in all their lives."

Mrs. Comstock sat straight. "I used to be a master hand at spice cake,"
she boasted. "But I'm a little out of practice. I must get to work
again. With the very weeds growing higher than our heads, we should
raise plenty of good stuff to eat on this land, if we can't afford
anything else but taxes."

Elnora laughed and hurried up stairs to change her dress. Margaret
Sinton came that night bringing a beautiful blue one in its place, and
carried away the other to launder.

"Do you mean to say those dresses are to be washed every two days?"
questioned Mrs. Comstock.

"They have to be, to look fresh," replied Margaret. "We want our girl
sweet as a rose."

"Well, of all things!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "Every two days! Any girl
who can't keep a dress clean longer than that is a dirty girl. You'll
wear the goods out and fade the colours with so much washing."

"We'll have a clean girl, anyway."

"Well, if you like the job you can have it," said Mrs. Comstock. "I
don't mind the washing, but I'm so inconvenient with an iron."

Elnora sat late that night working over her lessons. The next morning
she put on her blue dress and ribbon and in those she was a picture.
Mrs. Comstock caught her breath with a queer stirring around her heart,
and looked twice to be sure of what she saw. As Elnora gathered her
books her mother silently gave her the lunch box.

"Feels heavy," said Elnora gaily. "And smelly! Like as not I'll be
called upon to divide again."

"Then you divide!" said Mrs. Comstock. "Eating is the one thing we don't
have to economize on, Elnora. Spite of all I can do food goes to waste
in thi