The Gay farm looked more dilapidated than ever to Rosemary's eyes and the little attempt at a flower bed, in the center of the long, dried grass before the house, only made the general effect more hopeless. Rosemary walked around to the back door and knocked. Louisa answered, carrying June in her arms. "I thought maybe you'd gone back to Eastshore," said Louisa dully, "but Sarah and Shirley said no, your brother was visiting for his vacation." "Yes, Hugh did come," answered Rosemary honestly, "and we went somewhere with him nearly every day, if only over the farm. I would have liked to bring him to see you and Alec, but I was afraid--I thought--" "Mercy, I'm glad you didn't!" the idea seemed enough to frighten Louisa. "I wouldn't want a stranger coming here." "Louisa, do you know Miss Clinton?" asked Rosemary suddenly. "She lives all by herself and she is so lonesome." She had a hazy thought of suggesting that Louisa might be willing to go and see Miss Clinton--Louisa needed friends as badly as the little wheel-chair woman did--but the girl's answer was not encouraging. "She lives in that little yellow house," said Louisa. "She may be lonely, but she has enough money to live on and no one need be pitied who can keep out of debt." "Oh, Louisa!" Rosemary drew nearer in concern. "Haven't you the money for the interest?" "Not a cent," said Louisa bitterly. "The little we did have saved toward it, we had to spend on a pump. The old one gave out and you can't get along without water, no matter what else you can do without." Rosemary glanced toward the shining new pump--so obviously new and shiny that it made everything else in the kitchen look shabbier by contrast. "There ought to be _some_ way to get money when you need it," she said earnestly. "There isn't," Louisa informed her. "Don't you suppose I've thought and thought? No matter how much you need it, there isn't any money to get--and if there was, you wouldn't need it because it would be there to get," and Louisa laughed rather hysterically. "That may not make good sense," she added, "but I can't help that; it is true." CHAPTER XXII SARAH HAS AN IDEA Rosemary walked home slowly. Louisa, worn out by worry and work, had yielded to the luxury of a good cry and though, when she had wiped her eyes, she declared she felt much better and more cheerful than for a week. Rosemary was not convinced. A glimpse of Alec, thin and brown, with the same worried look in his nice clear eyes, had not helped to convince her. It was plain that both Louisa and Alec were expecting the foreclosure of the mortgage on the farm and anticipating the separation of the family. "I couldn't stand it," said Rosemary earnestly to a chipmunk, who shook his head in sympathy. "I couldn't stand it, if Sarah and Shirley and I had to go live in different houses. Suppose we didn't have Mother and Hugh and Winnie!"