The last two weeks of July were an unbroken "hot spell." Eastshore was ordinarily comfortable in the summer time but the heat wave that gripped the country made itself felt and not all the pleasant effect of wide lawns and old shade trees could counteract the hot, humid nights and the blazing, parched days. An occasional thunder shower did its best to bring comfort, but the heat closed in again after each gust, seemingly more intense than ever. It was a trying test for tempers and dispositions and the Willis household began to develop "nerves." "I should think you children could manage to remember to shut the screens doors behind you," remarked Doctor Hugh one morning at the breakfast table. "If there is one thing positively unendurable, it is flies in the house!" Winnie put down the cream pitcher beside his cup of coffee with an emphasis that threatened to spray him with its contents. "You'd better be speaking to Sarah," she said grimly. "I'm about wore out, arguing with her. She won't let me use the fly-batter at all and why? Because it is cruel to kill the dear darling little flies that tramp all over our food with their filthy feet!" Rosemary giggled. She sat in Aunt Trudy's place, cool and neat in a blue gingham dress, her charming bobbed head making a pretty picture silhouetted against the light of the window behind her. The warm weather had reconciled Rosemary to the loss of her hair. Aunt Trudy often pleaded a headache mornings and Rosemary took her place at the silver tray and poured her brother's coffee. "Don't let me hear any more such nonsense," said he sternly now. "Keep the screens closed, Winnie, and kill any flies that get in. Sarah, you are not to interfere in any way--and don't scowl like that." For reply Sarah kicked the table leg to the peril of her glass of milk and Shirley's. "You'll find yourself sent away from the table in another minute," her brother warned her. "Eat your breakfast and behave yourself." "You'll be sorry when I'm dead," said Sarah, her voice plaintive with self-pity. Shirley thought the moment auspicious to make a reach for a hot biscuit. Over went her glass of milk and her fat little hand landed in the butter dish. The telephone bell saved her, as far as Doctor Hugh was concerned, and when he came back to tell Rosemary that he would not be home till dinner time and to give her a list of the time and places when he could be reached during the day, Winnie had removed all traces of the accident. "I guess you must think I'm a washing machine," she grumbled after the doctor had gone. "That's the tenth clean runner we've had on the table this week. If we were using table cloths every meal I'd have to give up--no living woman could keep this family in table cloths!" "Sarah, are you going to make the beds this morning?" asked Rosemary, on her way to sweep the porch, a duty she had assumed.