How cosy the loft bedroom seemed, the small girl thought as she reached the top of the ladder. Those turkey-red curtains, with the sunlight shining through them, were very cheerful looking. Peggotty Ann was probably the most surprised and the happiest doll in the whole State of Nevada, when, a moment later, she was caught up and kissed by her little mistress.
Ken entered the kitchen, and, going to the table where Dixie sat sorting the mending, he said very softly, that the girl in the loft might not hear: “Dix, something’ll have to be done, now that Carol’s back. We can’t make ends meet on nine dollars a month, and one to be laid aside for taxes.”
Dixie looked up brightly. “There’s still two dollars and thirty cents in the sock, Ken,” she said, “and we haven’t reached trouble’s stone wall yet.”
“Dix,” the boy declared admiringly, “you’re a brick!” Then he added, with a mischievous grin, “and I don’t mean because you’re red-headed, either.”
A moment later when Carol, with her doll in her arms, looked out of the small window in the loft, she saw Ken digging in the garden and heard him whistling, and, for the first time in her young life, she realized something of the contentment and joy contained in that one word, “home.”
Being very, very tired, after an almost sleepless night and a long walk, the small girl curled up on the husk-filled bed to rest, her doll held close. Soon she was asleep, and so she did not hear a horse and buggy stop at the door. In fact, she never knew that Mr. Clayburn had called, but Dixie knew, and what that kind man told brought joy to the heart of the little mother.
The banker said that he was glad to inform her that he had succeeded that very morning in loaning her father’s small principal in a way that would bring fifteen dollars a month interest.
He did not tell her that he had loaned the money to himself, as he knew that no one else would pay so high a rate of interest, and he was determined that the wolf should be kept from the door of the four little orphans who were too proud to accept charity.
When he was gone, Dixie ran out into the garden.
“Ken! Ken!” she called, and the boy thought that never before had he seen her face so aglow. “We’ve reached trouble’s stone wall, and there was an opening through and on the other side is a garden that’s all sunshine.”