"For instance, there's June. I know she shouldn't be rocked to sleep--but the one day I tried to break her of the habit and make her go to sleep quietly by herself, I didn't get a thing done. The other children got into mischief, Alec was hurt trying to pitch hay and manage the team without help and, after all, June didn't learn a thing. She acted worse the next day, so I had to give it up and go back to the cradle rocking." "I suppose it is hard because she is used to the cradle now," said Rosemary, busily clearing a place on the table for the clean dishes. "Yes, that's the reason," agreed Louisa. "And we spend a lot of time staking Dora around in different places--she was in the front yard that day you came over with Richard. She was there because the front yard has the one decent piece of fencing left on the farm. She would give more milk if we could let her go free in the pasture--but Kenneth has to stake her with a staple and rope because the fences are so poor--where there are any--that the only way to keep her home is to tie her." "You're tired," said Rosemary quickly. "You worked too hard yesterday, Louisa. I wish you'd go off somewhere--find a nice, cool place--and rest; I'll do these dishes." Louisa did look tired. More than that, she looked discouraged. She had not taken pains to brush her hair as carefully as usual and it was "slicked back" in the tightest possible knot. Her dress was perfectly clean, but so faded and mended that it would have taken a merry-hearted girl to have been quite happy in it. Louisa was far from merry-hearted. "But the potatoes will bring in some money, won't they?" urged Rosemary, who now knew a great deal about the Gay finances. "They will, if they're not all sunburned, before Alec gets them into the barn," responded Louisa gloomily, pouring hot water over a pan of dishes. "Last year the yield was poor, too. Ken and Jim try to help, but neither Alec nor I can bear to keep such little boys working in the hot sun all day long. It isn't right." Louisa was not given to complaint and Rosemary guessed something of the pressure the slender shoulders must be enduring. "I wish I had a million dollars!" burst out Rosemary, putting her arm about Louisa. "I'd give it all to you!" To her distress, Louisa began to cry. She was standing near the kitchen table and she just put her head down on her arms and "let go" as Rosemary later told her brother. Shirley, who had ventured to leave the cradle, after several cautious tests to determine the depth of June's slumbers, peered in aghast. Rosemary motioned to her to go on and Shirley dashed out into the sunshine, glad to escape. "You're so sweet to me!" choked Louisa, raising her tear-stained face. "And you're so pretty--I never saw a girl as pretty as you are. I wish I could look the way you do and have the clothes you do!" So the faded dress had had something to do with it, after all.