om India?" questioned Nan.

"From India," he said quietly.

From out the group of Green Valley folks, now dim in the May twilight,
a voice spoke.

"You may come from India but if you are Cynthia Churchill's son you are
a Green Valley man and this is home. So I say--welcome home."

Roger Allan, straight and tall and speaking with a sweetness in his
voice those listening had never heard before, stepped up to the young
man with outstretched hand.

The young stranger looked for a moment at the dimming streets, into the
kindly faces about him, and then shook hands gladly.

"It is good to be home," he said, "but I wish I had mother here with
me."

CHAPTER IV

A RAINY DAY

On a rainy day Green Valley is just as interesting as it is in the
sunshine. Somehow though the big trees sag and drip and the wind sighs
about the corners there is nothing mournful about the streets.

The children go to school just as joyously in raincoats and rubber
boots. Their round glad faces, minus a tooth here and there, smile up
at you from under big umbrellas. After the school bell rings the
streets do get quiet but there is nothing depressing about that; for as
you pass along you see at doors and windows the contented faces of busy
women.

Old Mrs. Walley sits at her up-stairs front window sewing carpet rags.
Grandma Dudley at her sitting room window is darning her
grandchildren's stockings and carefully watching the street. Whenever
anybody passes to whom she wants to talk she taps on the window with
her thimble. She is a dear entertaining old soul but hard to get away
from. Women with bread at home waiting to be put into pans and men
hungry for their supper try not to let Grandma Dudley catch sight of
them.

Bessie Williams always makes cinnamon buns or doughnuts on rainy days.
She always leaves her kitchen door open while she is doing this because
she says she likes to hear the rain while she is working--that it
soothes her nerves.

So as you come up from around Bailey's strawberry patch and Tumley's
hedge you get a whiff of such deliciousness as makes your mouth water.
And more than likely Bessie sees you and comes running out with a few
samples of her heavenly work. As you dispose of those cinnamon buns
you forget that Bessie's voice is a trifle too high and too sweet, and
that she is inclined to be at times a bit overly religious and too
watchful of what she calls "vice" in people.

Over in front of the hotel