“You folks have a nice hot cup of coffee ready for the men when they come along, and I’ll do the same up here, to hearten them up a bit. I’ll be down later on; a week from Monday is Lincoln’s birthday, and I thought we’d better have a little celebration in the town hall. It’s high time we stirred Gilead up a bit. I never could see what good it was dozing like a lot of Rip van Winkles over the fires until the first bluebird woke you up. I want you girls to all help me out with the programme, so brush up your wits.” “Isn’t that splendid?” exclaimed Kit, radiantly. “Cousin Roxy is really a brick, girls. She must have known we were ready to nip each other’s heads off up here just from lack of occupation.” Piney joined in the general laugh, and sat by the table, eyeing the four girls rather wistfully. “You don’t half appreciate the fun of being a large family,” she said. “Just think if you were the only girl, and the only boy was way out in Saskatoon.” Jean glanced up, a little slow tinge of color rising in her cheeks. She had not thought of Saskatoon or of Honey and Ralph for a long while. “When do you expect him back, Piney?” “Along in the summer, I think. Ralph says he is getting along first rate.” “Give him our love,” chirped up Doris. “Our very best wishes,” corrected Helen in her particular way. But Kit said nothing, and Jean did not seem to notice, so the message to the West went unchallenged. CHAPTER IX JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD Cousin Roxy came down the following day and blocked out her plan for a celebration at the Town Hall on Lincoln’s Birthday. The girls had pictured the Town Hall when they had first heard of it as a rather imposing edifice, imposing at least, for Gilead. But it was really only a long, old gray building, one story high, built like a Quaker meeting house with two doors in front, carriage houses behind, and huge century-old elms overshadowing the driveway leading up to it. Two tall weather worn posts fronted the main road, whereon at intervals were posted notices of town meetings, taxes, and all sorts of “goings on and doings,” as Cousin Roxy said. An adventurous woodpecker had pecked quite a good sized hole in the side of one post, and here a slip of paper would often be tucked with an order to the fishman to call at some out of the way farmhouse, or the tea and coffee man from way over near East Pomfret. Next to the Town Hall stood the Methodist Church with its little rambling burial ground behind it, straying off down hill until it met a fringe of junipers and a cranberry bog. There were not many new tombstones, mostly old yellowed marble ones, somewhat one sided, with now and then a faded flag stuck in an urn where a Civil War soldier lay buried.