"Why, I did that," declared Shirley in her clear little voice that always reminded Winnie of a robin's chirp. "I thought Mother would want to take the cannas to Rainbow Hill with us--we can plant them around the porch there." Doctor Hugh pushed back his chair, his mouth twitching. "Whatever happens this summer, Winnie," he said gravely, "something tells me that you won't be bored." CHAPTER III RAINBOW HILL A white clapboarded house with moss-green shutters and a dark oak "Dutch" door, the upper half of which swung hospitably open--this was Rainbow Hill in the light of the late June afternoon sun. A little jewel of a house set in the center of a close-cropped emerald-green lawn and circled by sturdy old trees, elms and maples that had marked the site of the old homestead and now guarded the "new house" as it had been called ever since it had been built six years before to replace the farmhouse destroyed by fire. "Welcome to Rainbow Hill," said Mrs. Joseph Hildreth, coming out on the red tiled walk as a car swept up to the door and stopped. Mrs. Hildreth, the wife of the tenant farmer, was a young woman with wide-awake blue eyes and an air of capability that struck terror to the souls of the lazy. She was known far and wide as "a hustler" and she had been known to do a large washing and baking in the morning and drive the hay rake in the field in the afternoon on occasions when her husband was short of help. It was a pity her voice was so loud and rasping, but then not everyone is sensitive to voices. "I guess you'll find everything about ready for your supper," said Mrs. Hildreth when Doctor Hugh had introduced Sarah and Shirley and Winnie, the three members of the party she had not met previously. "I brought up a pail of strawberries--they'll be better next week. Mrs. Hammond said you were to have half the garden, same as they did. The butter may be a little soft, but Joe will get you a piece of ice in the morning at the creamery. We weren't sure you'd get here to-day, so I didn't order it." With a few more confidences, directed mainly to Winnie, she went back to her own house--an attractive story and a half bungalow just visible from the side porch, and the Willis family were free to take possession of Rainbow Hill. "Isn't it darling!" Rosemary kept exclaiming. "Aren't the rugs pretty--and the white curtains! Wait till you see the rooms upstairs."