“There were three ladies in a hall,— With a heigh-ho and a lily gay:
There came a lord among them all,—
As the primrose spreads so sweetly.”
 I
T was hot, very hot, in Cherry Street. Miss Billy's garden bloomed as Paradise, but up and down the alley household garbage bubbled and boiled in the sun. The sweet peas on the fence were a marvellous cloud of pink, violet, crimson, purple and white. They rioted over the Hennesy pickets, and spread their fairy wings as if to descend on the other side;—but across the street Mr. Schultzsky's weeds flaunted in all the rank arrogance of a second crop.
 
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Miss Billy was disheartened, but not defeated. "Of course I can't accomplish it all by myself," she thought, "and John Thomas is too tired at night to help and Theodore is working, too. But every child in the street that can handle a hoe shall be enlisted in the cause if I can accomplish it."
 
She went over to Mrs. Canary's to talk the matter over, and found Holly Belle in a kitchen that easily registered 110 degrees. Mrs. Canary was in bed with one of her "attacks," the twins, unwashed and sticky, were playing with a basket of potatoes on the floor: Ginevra, the little sister, was grumblingly washing the breakfast dishes, while Holly Belle, with signs of recent tears around her eyelashes, was binding up a badly burned arm.
 
"You see, there's bread-baking to-day," she said, as Miss Billy's deft fingers bound up the burn, "and maw's sick, and paw goes onto his beat at noon, and must have his dinner, and the twins are restless with the heat, and won't stay satisfied five minutes at a time with anything.-202- The boys are off somewhere, and no good to anybody, and my own head aches so I can't hardly see. It aches all the time, now, anyway."
 
"I should think it would," said Miss Billy sympathetically. "Can't you let that fire go out? It's simply unbearable in here."
 
"No," said Holly Belle, "the bread's in the oven, an' there's pork an' cabbage cooking. I've got to get the potatoes peeled right away, or dinner'll be late."
 
Miss Billy reached for a kitchen apron that hung on a nail. "Well, I'll bathe the babies," she said: "I think that will make them feel better. Then I'll sweep up for you, and help with the dinner."
 
"You're awful good," said Holly Belle simply. Her eyes looked heavy, and her shoulders had a pathetic droop. "Jinny, if yer through with the dishpan, give it to Miss Billy to wash the twins in, and then go down to the store and fetch a pound of butter."
 
Miss Billy bathed the babies in a tiny pantry,-203- away from the scorching blast of the cook stove, and clad them in clean, dark calico slips. Ginevra came with the butter, and was despatched with the twins in their carriage to the shady north side of the Lee house. Order slowly evolved from chaos. The kitchen was swept, the pantry put to rights, and Miss Billy, crimson in the face, and with her collar quite wilted, was preparing to set the table.
 
"Don't you think—Holly Belle," she suggested, "that it might be better to move the table into the other room? It's much cooler in there."
 
"We never have," answered Holly Belle dubiously. "We've always eat in the kitchen."
 
"Well, we'll try it this time, anyway,—and if your mother objects we'll not do it again. It's so hot in here, Holly Belle, it's positively dangerous! And as you can't take the stove out, it seems as though you would have to take yourselves out, that's all."
 
"I've been thinking," she went on, as she went back and forth from the table to the pan-204-try, "that instead of having the children in the neighbourhood spend every Saturday morning with me, as they have been doing, I shall have them come every morning for two hours. That would help you, wouldn't it, Holly Belle? And I can just as well do it through the vacation. You could send the babies before nine, and I'd bathe them and be ready for the rest at nine o'clock.
 
"This child-garden, Holly Belle, is going to resolve itself into an Improvement Club. Every member who is old enough must pledge himself to one half-hour's service a day in keeping clean his own yard and alley, and the street in front of his house. The weeds must be kept down, the cesspools disinfected, and the garbage disposed of. Then another half hour might be pledged to household duties,—such as washing and wiping dishes, bringing in wood, carrying water, and making beds. They'll all subscribe to the conditions, I know, for the sake of sharing in the pleasures of the child-garden."
 
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"Launkelot and Fridoline couldn't never wash and wipe dishes," said Holly Belle hopelessly. "They'd break them all up."
 
"Indeed they can, if they try," returned Miss Billy stoutly. "My brother Theodore can wash and wipe dishes as deftly as a girl,—and he could do it at their age, too."
 
"'Twould be an awful help," mused Holly Belle, "and our yard an' alley is a sight to behold, but I ain't got no time to clean it."
 
"Of course you haven't. But you are doing noble work in this kitchen every day,—and taking care of those babies beside. It's noble work, Holly Belle."
 
Holly Belle's lips quivered, and her tears fell. "I ain't like other girls," she sobbed. "I used to go to bed of nights an' dream I had a piano an' could play on it. An' when I'd wake up I'd be so disappointed it seemed to me I couldn't stand it. An' I used to go on hopin' and hopin' that I'd get one, an' learn, but I know it's too late now. I'm growin' on fourteen, already."
 
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Miss Billy, taking in all the pathos of the starved little life, found no words to reply. "But the thing that hurts worst," went on Holly Belle, wiping her tears on her apron, "is that I can't go to school. I had to stop when Mikey was a baby, and then just as I got started again the twins came, and I guess I'll never go back. The teacher came to see maw, an' told her how quick I learned,—but it didn't do no good, an' I'll have to stay right here in this kitchen all the rest of my life."
 
Miss Billy crossed over to the drooping little figure, and put her arm about her. "Keep hoping, Holly Belle," she counselled: "Keep hoping............