It was awful nice of him
to think of taking the girls and grandma to the Pine Woods to get real
well and rested while he did up his business in Dolliver. They'll come
back lots better than they'd be if they had to stay here through all
this hot.

"Think of being shut up three months in the house so's they couldn't
plant gardens or go flower-hunting, or have picnics, or even go to
school! I've been doing all those things while they've been sick. I'm
truly 'shamed of myself to be so cross about their going off. Elizabeth
and Saint John are just the dearest people to me, and the Lilac Lady
really cried tears in her eyes when she thought I was going to leave
here Monday. She'll be glad to know that I am to stay two or three weeks
longer. And it will be such fun to get letters from the girls in the
woods all the while they are gone. After all, I b'lieve I'll have a
better time here anyway."

The cloud had passed over without the threatened storm, and the round
face, though still a little sober, looked quite contented again. But
during this silent soliloquy, the young philosopher had been wandering
aimlessly through the streets, without any thought of the direction she
was taking, and was suddenly roused from her revery by the mingled
shouts and laughter of a throng of boys and girls playing noisily in a
great yard fenced in by tall iron pickets.

"Why, school is closed for the summer!" murmured Peace to herself,
pressing her face against the iron bars in order that she might watch
the lively games on the other side of the palings. "Elizabeth says all
the Martindale schools close at the same time. What can these children
be doing here then? P'raps this is where the old lady who lived in a
shoe had to move to when the shoe got too small for her fambly. Do you
s'pose it is?"

"Yup, I guess that's how it happened," answered a voice close beside
her, and she jumped almost out of her shoes in her surprise, for
unconsciously she had spoken her thoughts aloud, and a merry-faced
urchin, sprawled in the shade of a low-limbed box-elder, had answered
her. His peal of delight at having startled her so brought another lad
and two girls to see the cause of his glee, and Peace was shocked to
behold in the smaller of the girls her own double, only the stranger
child was dressed in a long blue apron, which made her look much older
than she really was. As the children stood staring at each other through
the close-set pickets, the boy in t