nickel Terry gave me for peanuts."

"But, Rosie,"--George cleared his throat--"I thought you were saving
every penny. You know you can't save and spend at the same time."

"I'm not saving any more." Rosie spoke quietly, evenly.

"Not saving any more! What do you mean, Rosie? What's happened?"

She could feel his kind jolly eyes looking at her through the dark but
she knew that he could not see the tears which suddenly filled her own.

"N-nothing," she quavered.

"Rosie! Tell me!" He put his arm about her shoulder and drew her to him.
At the tenderness in his voice and touch, all the sense of outrage and
loss in Rosie's heart welled up afresh and broke in sobs which she could
not control.

"I wasn't going to tell you, Jarge, honest I wasn't, because you're dead
gone on her and, besides, she's my own sister."

For a few seconds Rosie could say no more and George, with a sudden
tightening of the arm that encircled her, waited in silence.

"I--I was going up to count my money, Jarge, and what do you think? Some
one had smashed open the bank and taken every cent! I tell you there
wasn't even one cent left! And, Jarge, I've been saving so hard--you
know I have!" She lay on his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs.

George spoke with an effort: "Why do you think it was Ellen?"

"Terry and me got it out o' ma. When we cornered her she told us.... And
she's gone and spent it on a bunch of curls! Think of that, Jarge--curls
for her hair! Just because Hattie Graydon's got false curls, Ellen's got
to have them, too! Now do you call that fair? I saved awful hard for
that money, you know I did, and it was my own!"

George sighed. "Poor kiddo! Of course it was your own! But Ellen'll pay
you back, I--I'm sure she will."

"That's what ma says. But, Jarge, even if she does, it won't be the same
thing. Just tell me how you'd feel yourself if all your savings were
snatched away from you!"

George's answer was unexpected. "They have been, Rosie, a good many
times."

"What!" Rosie sat up in fright and astonishment. "Has she dared to go
and break into your trunk?"

George laughed weakly. "No, Rosie, it ain't Ellen this time." He paused
a moment. "I've told you about my father's farm. It's a good farm and
I'd rather live on it and work it than do anything else on earth. But
it's got run down, Rosie. The old man's had a mighty long spell of
unluck. A few years ago he got a little mortgage piled up on it and for
nearly two ye