"I know her," declared Winnie, slicing bread--she had fastened back the communicating door between the kitchen and the dining-room. "At least I know of her; Mrs. Hildreth was telling me the other day. She's a woman who likes company--that's all she wants and all she doesn't get, summer times at least. I never saw a neighborhood like this one--I don't believe any of the farmers dare die in July or August for fear their friends couldn't stop farming long enough to come to the funeral." Rosemary giggled. "Is she poor, Winnie?" she asked with frank curiosity. "My, no, not that I have heard tell of," answered Winnie. "She has an income of her own and plenty of relatives, scattered hereabouts. I believe a niece comes and stays with her during the winter months--her brother's daughter. Mrs. Hildreth was telling me that she writes hundreds of letters--though I guess she can't write as many as that--and she wheels herself out to the mail box and back in that chair and washes dishes and everything, sitting in it. But summers she gets fearfully lonesome. The neighbors run in a good deal in the winter and hold sewing-circle meetings there, but they haven't time to bother in the growing season." "She had toys in a cabinet--Shirley played with them and she said she'd get her some more if she tired of those," said Rosemary, placing the chairs. "Do many children go see her, Winnie?" "Mrs. Hildreth told me she keeps those toys to amuse the children who may come visiting with their mothers," explained Winnie. "Miss Clinton figured that if the children had something to play with they wouldn't be in a hurry to go home. Downright pathetic, I call it, to be so hungry for someone to talk to that you try to bribe people to stay a little longer." "I'm going to see her," Rosemary said, as she filled the water glasses. "I told her I'd come--it isn't far to go and I have plenty of time. Can I do anything more, Winnie?" "Nothing except to tell your mother dinner is ready," was Winnie's grateful reply. "You are the handiest child, sometimes, Rosemary, and I declare I don't know how I should have got dinner on the table to-night without a bit of a lift. I hate to be late, too, when Hughie is here." "I hope Jack comes up to talk to-night," said Rosemary as they sat down at the table. "I want to know if it is fun to earn your own living. I'm going to try it myself some day." CHAPTER XIX JACK--HIRED MAN It wasn't all fun, Jack assured her when, soon after dinner, he came toiling up the grass path and mounted the porch steps wearily. "I never was so tired in my life," he declared. "Gee, I thought I was 'hard' enough--I've been fishing lots since school closed and that isn't a lazy man's work especially if you wade upstream. I've hiked miles and I've worked in the garden at home; but at this minute I have three hundred and ninety-eight muscles creaking in my machinery that I never knew before existed."