"Doesn't that sound like a fairy prince?" asked Peace, when the recital was ended. "But he says he isn't one."
"I should say it sounded like a plain robber story," said Faith bitterly, while Gail sat white-faced and silent with despair. "What did you give him that money for! It's the last we will ever see of it. You are worse than Jack and the Bean-Stalk. You haven't even a handful of bean blossoms to show."
"I've got a curl from Bossy's tail," said Peace indignantly, and then burst into tears, unable to bear the sight of Gail's drawn face any longer.
"Yes, and a robber on our trail. Supposing he comes tonight for the rest of the money you told him about. No, Cherry, I don't want any supper. Come and help me bolt the windows and fix things for the night. I wish Hope was here now."
The supper remained untouched, the dishes were cleared away in silence, and as soon as Hope arrived the unhappy little household climbed wearily, fearfully upstairs to bed, where Peace sobbed herself to sleep, with faithful Allee's arms about her neck. But no robber came to disturb the brown house and at length even Gail and Faith drifted away to slumberland, in spite of this added trouble.
In the dusk of early morning, while the world was still asleep, a heavy wagon drew up at the gate of the Greenfield cottage, unloaded its precious burden and drove rapidly away again; while Peace, in her restless tossing, dreamed that a gentle, brown-eyed cow stood in Bossy's stall, lowing for some breakfast. She awoke with a start, to hear a familiar, persistent mooing, and the tinkle of a bell in the barnyard, and, leaping out of bed, she rushed to the window with wildly beating heart. There in the yard, tied to the old watering-trough, stood a plump, pretty Jersey cow! Peace rubbed her eyes, pinched her arm to make sure she was not still dreaming, and then startled the whole house awake with a whoop of joy: "She has come, she has come! The cow has come! My tramp isn't a robber or a beanstalk at all!"
CHAPTER XI
GARDENS AND GOPHERS
"Have you got any more corn or potatoes to drop, or onion sets to cover, or radishes and beans and turnips to plant, or wheat or barley to scatter, or—or anything else to do?" Peace panted breathlessly one warm Saturday afternoon late in May.