"Could anyone take the farm away from you and do that?" asked Rosemary, much shocked.
"Of course—it's often done," said Louisa, her light blue eyes gazing intensely at her friend. "They'd take us to the poor farm in a minute, if they knew we couldn't hold the farm."
"Perhaps it is pleasant at the poor farm," Rosemary was trying to find the cloud's silver lining. "You might like it there; did you ever see it?"
"No, and I never want to," retorted Louisa with finality.
Then Rosemary asked what it was to be "bound out" and Louisa told her that children old enough to work were bound out to families who agreed to give them their board and clothes and send them to school in return for their services.
"It would mean that until we are eighteen we'd never have a cent to call our own," declared Louisa. "We couldn't do a thing for the younger children and, worst of all, we should be separated."
It was a very sober Rosemary who helped with the remainder of the work that morning. She spread dish towels to bleach, she swept the porch, made the beds—visiting for a brief moment with the unrepentant Kitty who clamored to be allowed to get up and finally was released a half hour ahead of time on her promise to pick the "greens" for dinner—and, at Louisa's request, showed her how a simple soup was made in cooking class at the Eastshore school. But she was unusually silent while she did all this.
Walking home across the fields at noon—they steadfastly refused to burden the harassed family with three extra mouths to feed—Sarah noticed her sister's abstraction.
"What's the matter, Rosemary?" she asked curiously and Shirley echoed the question.
"Oh—I'm thinking," said Rosemary.