"Now mother dear! Don't you fret over it,—please don't! We'll find
Rosy. I'll get Mrs. Clark to 'phone for me at once."

"'Phone where?" said father. "It's no use 'phoning. Its those gypsies. And they got to town hours ago—and Rosy's beef by this time." He set his jaw hard; but there were tears in his eyes, too.

I was nearly distracted myself. "If only Jimmy were here," I said, "he'd find her!"

"I don't doubt he'd make a try," said father, "but it's too late."

I ran over to Mrs. Clark, and we 'phoned to the police in Barstow, and sure enough they found the hide and horns! It didn't do us any good. They arrested some gypsies, but couldn't prove anything; shut one of 'em up for vagrancy, too,—but that didn't do us any good, either. And if they'd proved it and convicted him it wouldn't have brought back Rosy,—or given us another cow.

Then mother got sick. It was pure discouragement as much as anything, I think, and she missed Rosy's milk,—she used to half live on it. After she was sick she missed it more, there were so few things she could eat,—and not many of those I could get for her.

O how I did miss Jimmy! If he'd been there he'd have helped me to see over it all. "Sho!" he'd have said. "It's hard lines, little girl, now; but bless you, a broken arm's only temporary; your father'll be as good as ever soon. And your mother'll get well; she's a strong woman. I never saw a stronger woman of her age. And as to the food—just claim you're 'no breakfast' people, and believe in fasting for your health!"

That's the way Jimmy met things, and I tried to say it all to myself, and keep my spirits up,—and theirs. But Jimmy was at sea.

Well, father couldn't work, it had to be his right arm, of course. And mother couldn't work either; she was just helpless and miserable, and the more she worried the sicker she got, and the sicker she got the more she worried. My patience! How I did work! No time to read, no time to study, no time to sew on any of the pretty white things I was gradually accumulating. I got up before daylight, almost; kept the house as neat as I could, and got breakfast, such as it was. Father could dress himself after a fashion, and he could sit with mother when I was outside working in the garden. I began that garden just as an experiment, the day after father broke his arm. The outlay was only thirty cents for lettuce and radish seed, but it took a lot of work.

Then there was mother to do for, and father to cheer up (which was hardest of all), and dinner and supper to get,—and nothing to get them with, practically.