Richard and Warren and Jack1 and the circus agent sat on the top step and below them were ranged Rosemary, Shirley and Sarah. Mr. Hildreth had considerately gone into the kitchen to read.
"No," answered Mr. Robinson, "I didn't buy the place."
Three faces fell.
"But I've rented it," he went on, "and paid a quarter's rent in advance."
"Is that just as good?" inquired Rosemary respectfully.
Mr. Robinson laughed and Warren nodded.
"Alec was over at milking time and he was feeling as gay as his name," said Warren. "I guess their troubles are over for a time."
Then Mr. Robinson explained what he had done and why and never did a speaker have a more attentive2 audience.
"I won't bother you with the legal end of it," he said good-naturedly, "but these children are under twenty-one and when their parents died a guardian3 should have been appointed for them. If I tried to buy the farm there would have to be a guardian appointed and even then I doubt if he could give me a clear title.
"So, for many reasons, it is much simpler to rent the farm from them and better, I am firmly convinced, for the children. They are to stay on in the house and this winter I and my wife will come out and make our headquarters there. Alec can lend me a hand with the animals and Mother will see that that plucky4 girl gets her schooling5. I'll stable most of the circus horses out here and as nearly as I can tell it's just the kind of a place we need."
He told them a great deal more about Alec's surprise and Louisa's delight and something of the plans for the winter which should include the attendance at school of the five Gays old enough to go.
The boys walked back with Rosemary and Shirley and Sarah, and Warren told them further details.
"Mr. Robinson is a brick!" he declared heartily6. "He's renting the farm because he discovered in what desperate straits the Gays are; if he tried to buy it, it would take months to get their affairs untangled—there would be miles of red tape and court hearings and dear knows what all. Instead he has paid them cash down for a quarter and I understand from Alec he is paying a generous rental7, besides offering Alec employment this winter. He's put out because the town hasn't done anything—and now, he says, he and his wife will look after them and Bennington can save its legal snail8 tracks."
"But Alec and Louisa didn't want the town to know anything about them," protested Rosemary.
"Well, they're too young to manage their own affairs," said Warren curtly9. "Somebody should have been responsible long before this."
It was odd, but Jack, Warren and Richard separately, each took Sarah aside and asked her if she had wanted to sell her pig. Each offered to return the money to the circus agent for her and get Bony back.
"I wanted to sell him," said Sarah stolidly10, three times.
In the morning she kissed Bony good by and watched him drive away with Richard and Mr. Robinson. Then she went out to the barn, refusing Rosemary's invitation to go over to the Gays'. Shirley went in her stead and they were greeted by a radiant Louisa who declared that her troubles were at an end and that now she had hopes of being able to keep the family together and even educate them.
"Of course we have to be careful," she said, smiling as though that would be comparatively easy. "The quarter's rent Mr. Robinson paid won't quite meet the interest, but Alec thinks he can scrape the rest together somehow. And of course we will have to pay for the potato fertilizer and the store bill is overdue11; but we'll manage."
It was on the tip of Rosemary's tongue to tell her about the money Sarah had, but she stopped in time and sent Shirley a warning glance. That pleasure belonged to Sarah and no one should take it from her.
"Will you come upstairs a moment, Rosemary?" asked Louisa, "I want to show you something. Let Shirley play with Kitty in the yard."
The two girls went up the steep, straight stairs and Louisa took her guest into one of the front rooms.
"Mr. Robinson said his wife would be out to get acquainted with us soon," Louisa explained, "and of course she'll have to stay all night. And where, I ask you, Rosemary, is she to sleep?"
"Why I don't know, dear," replied Rosemary, smiling. "What is the matter with this room?"
She looked about it as she spoke12. It was a large, square room, very clean and, it must be confessed, very bare. There was a bureau, one leg missing and the lack supplied by a brick; one chair, the bed and a little table (not large enough to be useful and not small enough to be dainty) completed the furnishings.
"It looks so awful," said poor Louisa. "And of course I can't buy material for curtains; Mother used to say that curtains softened13 a room and helped to furnish it. But I certainly am thankful for one thing."
"What?" Rosemary asked.
"That I've always saved one pair of Mother's good sheets and her best light blankets and two pillow cases, real linen14 ones," said Louisa. "When the linen began to wear out, I patched it and darned it as well as I could, but our sheets last winter were made of flour sacks, stitched together. They're white as snow for I bleached15 them, but I wouldn't want to have Mr. Robinson's wife sleep on flour sack sheets."
"Oh, my, of course not," said the sympathetic Rosemary.
"She won't have to," declared Louisa with satisfaction. "Much as I have wanted to use these sheets and the blankets, I've kept them put away. They are linen Mother had when she was married and I never could afford to buy any like it now."
"That's fine," said Rosemary, a trifle absently.
She was studying the windows, three placed close together on one side of the room.
"Do you know, Louisa," she said slowly, "I believe we could make curtains for those windows—just straight side-drapes, you understand, with a plain valance across the top."
"I've seen pictures," Louisa admitted, "but I haven't any material."
"I could get it," Rosemary began, but Louisa shook her head.
"It's a silly idea, anyway," she declared resolutely16. "I haven't any business to be thinking about curtains when the whole house is as shabby as my old winter coat. If Mrs. Robinson does come and see new curtains she'd know right away that I'd spent money I couldn't afford on them. She might even get the idea that I was trying to make an impression."
"You have a perfect right to try and make a pleasant impression!" flared17 Rosemary hotly. "Of course you have. And I'll tell you how to make new curtains and they won't cost a cent—except money you have already paid. Use the blue and white gingham!"
Louisa stared. She had bought, almost as soon as Alec had told her the good news of the farm's rental, a dozen yards of neat blue and white checked gingham to make Kitty and June some much-needed frocks and herself an apron18 or two.
"But I never heard of gingham curtains!" Louisa protested.
"They're very fashionable for bedrooms," Rosemary assured her. "We have some at Rainbow Hill—I can show you those. And Mother has a magazine with heaps of pictures in that show checked casement
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CHAPTER XXIII BONY JOINS THE CIRCUS
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CHAPTER XXV UP TO MISCHIEF
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