"I'll take Shirley with me," said Rosemary, "and you'll tell Winnie, won't you, Mrs. Hildreth? She went down to the mail box at the cross-roads to mail a letter and she'll wonder where we are when she comes back."
Mrs. Hildreth promised to tell Winnie and she and Sarah departed to begin their war on the chicken pests while Rosemary and Shirley set off to follow the back road to the little yellow house where Miss Clinton lived.
They found it without difficulty, knocked and heard someone call "Come in," just as Mrs. Hildreth had predicted.
"How do you do?" said the same voice when they stepped directly into a large square room. "I'm very glad to see you."
A very tiny old lady sat in a wheel chair in the center of the room. Her skin was almost as yellow as the paint on the house and considerably more wrinkled. She had bright black eyes that reminded Rosemary of a bird and little, eager claw-like hands that were strangely bird-like, too. She beamed at the girls, plainly delighted to have company.
"I'm glad you came," she said when Rosemary had given her the eggs and explained they were from Rainbow Hill. "Mrs. Hildreth told me the Hammonds rented their house this summer. Sit down and we'll talk. Let the little girl play with the toys in the cabinet—she won't hurt 'em."
The cabinet stood in one corner of the room and was well stocked with toys, some new, some well-worn. Shirley sat down on the floor and amused herself contentedly while Miss Clinton kept up a running fire of comment till Rosemary's wrist watch showed half-past four.
"I wish you'd come see me again," said the old lady wistfully. "I get lonesome for someone to talk to. I get around pretty good in this chair and I have lots of books and papers to read; but I like to talk and summers everyone is so busy they don't think to drop in."
"I'll drop in," promised Rosemary impulsively. "Mother would come to see you, too, but she couldn't walk this far; perhaps Hugh, my brother, will bring her some day."
"Let me have my knitting, if you're really going," said Miss Clinton regretfully. "It's there in that basket beside you. That's my sixth bedspread, or will be, when I get it finished."