In the hot room, high up under the eaves of the little brown house, Peace sobbed out her anguish of soul, and then faced the problem of shoes with a dauntless spirit.
"We'll have to have new ones when school begins again, and if we could just get some of these canvas things to wear during the summer, our old ones would last quite a while longer. Mercy, where does the money go? Seems as if there never was any to buy things we need with. Wish my tramp would come back and leave us another bill. Wish—why didn't I think of that before? The woods are full of flowers yet. I'll get Hope and Cherry to help me make a lot of birch bark baskets and then Allee and me will sell them in the city. My tramp said lots of folks would buy them if they got a chance. Oh, Cherry, let's go down to the creek and get some more bark. Tomorrow's Sunshine Club day and we will take Miss Dunbar some baskets for her flowers."
Glad to distract Peace's thoughts from her great woe, Cherry agreed, and the two made a hurried trip to the woods for material, getting not only a big armful of bark, but also quite a bunch of moccasin flowers and tiger lilies, which they had chanced upon in an unexpected nook.
"These will be lovely for tomorrow, and ought to sell better than the violets would, 'cause they aren't so common," said Peace, as she looked lovingly down at the mass of red, gold and pink.
"Ought to what?" asked Cherry.
"Oh, dear, what have I said?" thought Peace in dismay; but quickly concealing her confusion, she replied, "They ought to look nice—make better dec'rations, 'cause these are the first I've seen this year."
"Oh! I thought you said sell, and I wondered if you thought Miss Dunbar would pay us for them."
"Oh, mercy, no!" laughed Peace, and Cherry questioned no further.
But she would have been surprised had she seen this young sister stealing out of the house the next morning with baskets and flowers in her arms, headed in the opposite direction from Miss Dunbar's village home. Once out of sight of the house, Peace broke into a wild run and never stopped until the old stone bridge was reached. Here Allee was waiting for her—a queer little figure in a faded blue gown of long, long ago, hatless, barefooted, but looking oh, so sweet, with her sparkling blue eyes and her mop of tangled yellow curls crowned with a wreath of fragrant clover blossoms. "How long you've been!" she greeted Peace. "I thought you would never come. Where's Cherry?"
"I came as soon as I could," was the panting reply, as Peace dropped her burden on the grass and smoothed out a rumpled pink dress of as ancient a style as Allee's. "I had to help with the dishes, and then Faith made me take the milk to Abbott's so's Hope could do something for her. I didn't want Cherry. It takes such a long time to knock any sense into her head that we never would get into town today if she had to be coaxed. Besides, I thought if there were three of us, folks might think the whole family was out peddling, and maybe wouldn't buy like they would of just two. There, don't those boats look lovely? The only thing is, our basket won't hold as many as I hoped it would. I couldn't jam in but fifteen. That will be enough, though, if we can sell them at ten cents each. Oh, I've got a scheme! We will lay our flowers in the basket on the moss and hitch these horns on our dresses. I've got as many as ten pins in my dress which I don't need for anything else." While she spoke she emptied the birch bark boats of their brilliant cargo again, and deftly pinned the quaint devices to their gowns, so they dangled fantastically from their ribbon handles.