"No, dear. We don't know whose that is, or where it came from. Someone may come along and claim it one of these days."
"I don't see how anyone could have lost that money in the barn, Gail. It was pinned down to the grain sacks with a real pin. Folks don't carry bills around in their pockets with pins in them; and s'posing they did, if the bills dropped out of their pockets, they wouldn't up and pin themselves onto gateposts and grain sacks. Someone must have left them for us to use. First I thought it was my tramp, and that maybe he was a prince in disgust"—she meant disguise—"but now I think it was Mr. Strong, even if he did say he had nothing to do with it."
"Peace! Did you ask him again, after I told you not to mention it?"
"N-o, not ezackly. I just wrote it on a piece of paper and he did the same. You never said I mustn't write it, Gail."
"What did you write?" asked Gail, faintly.
"I just said—well, here's the paper. I kept it 'cause he is such a pretty writer."
She drew a crumpled scrap out of her pocket, smoothed it out carefully, and passed it over to Gail. At the top of the page in Peace's childish scrawl were scribbled these words, "Didn't you reely put that muny in our barn?" Below, in Mr. Strong's firm, flowing handwriting, was the answer, "I reely didn't." "Are you purfickly shure you aint lying just to be plite?" was the next question. "Purfickly shure." "Cross your heart?" "Cross my heart."
Silently Gail dropped the slip back onto the table and fell to moulding her biscuit vigorously, biting her lips to hide a telltale smile.
Peace watched her for a time and then began again, "Are we going to have meat of any kind tomorrow?"
"I am afraid not, dear."