"You wouldn't like it if you got up there and your sash caught on the wheel," he told her. "Think how you would look going round and round like a pinwheel. Folks would come to look at you instead of the circus."
"I wouldn't catch my sash," said Sarah positively. "There's a little platform up there and I could stand on that. And I saw the little iron stairs that go up inside like a lighthouse."
The twinkle went out of Warren Baker's eyes and his pleasant voice was serious when he spoke.
"There are just two places on this farm from which you are barred," he said, his glance including the attentive three before him. "One is the windmill; the door is usually locked and I don't know how it came to be left open this morning. But locked or not, keep out of it—it is no place for anyone unless a mechanic wants to oil or repair the machinery.
"The other place is the tool house. Mr. Hildreth has a bunch of fine tools and they're the apple of his eye—apples, would be more accurate, perhaps. The tool house is usually locked, too, and there are only three keys; but if you do find it unlocked some fine morning, take my advice and stay outside. Or, if you must go in, don't touch a tool. The rest of the farm is open to you and the four winds—with reasonable restrictions, I ought to add."
Three pairs of eyes stared at him so solemnly, that he felt uncomfortable.
"I'm not laying down the law in my own name," he said earnestly. "Mr. Hildreth is mighty particular about how things are run at Rainbow Hill and I thought I could save you future trouble by warning you. Of course I only work for him—'hired man' is my title—and very much at your service."
There was so much boyish honesty in the speech, so much genuine good will and an utter absence of attempt to strike a pose, not unmixed with worth-while pride and a desire that his position should be clear to them from the start, that even Sarah, who was quick to resent real or fancied efforts to "boss" her, answered his smile with her own characteristic grin.
"Of course we won't go where we shouldn't," said Rosemary warmly. "At least not now, when there is no excuse for not knowing."
But Warren, noting that Sarah became absorbed in the antics of a beetle crossing her shoe, registered a resolve to see that the windmill door was kept locked.