But although their intentions were of the best, this could not be done. The cabin--as dry as a stack of straw--could not be saved. The pails were passed from hand to hand as rapidly as possible, but the fire had gained such headway that it was impossible to quench it until the cabin was in complete ruins. "You be mighty glad, Mammy June," said Mr. Armatage, finally giving up the unequal battle, "that you are saved yourself. And you wouldn't have been if this little Bunker hadn't seen the fire when he did." "Bless him!" groaned the old woman, hugging Russ to her side in the car. "If my Ebenezer had been home it wouldn't never have happened, Mistah Armatage." She harped upon this belief incessantly as they finally drove back to the big house. The fright and exposure quite turned Mammy June's brain for the time. She was somewhat delirious. "S'pose my Ebenezer come home and find de cabin in ruins. He mebbe will think Mammy June burned up, and go right off again. And he might come any time!" The old woman talked of this even after they put her to bed and a doctor who chanced to be at Mrs. Armatage's party had attended her. The fire, and her bodily illness, had prostrated the old woman. The end of that Christmas party was not as pleasant as the beginning. It was long after midnight before even the children were in their beds and composed for sleep. The party broke up at an earlier hour than might have been expected. Rose slept in the room with Phillis and Alice Armatage. Just as she was dropping to sleep and after her companions were already in dreamland Rose saw the door of the room pushed open. The moon had risen, and Rose recognized Russ's tousled head poked in the open door. "What do you want?" she demanded in a whisper. "Oh, Russ! there isn't another fire, is there?" "No! Hush! I just thought of something." "What is it?" asked Rose in the same low tone that Russ used. "We can do something for Mammy June." "We can't cure her rheumatism, Russ," said Rose. "Even the doctor can't do that in a hurry. He said so." "No. She's worrying about her boy. That boy with the funny name. Sneezer." "Yes, I know," said Rose. "She is afraid he will come back and find the cabin burned and go away again without her knowing it," said Russ gravely, tiptoeing to his sister's bedside. "Yes. Mother says it's real pitiful the way she takes on," sighed the little girl. "Well, Rose, you and I can help about that," said Russ confidently. "How can we?" she asked, in surprise. "We can write a sign and stick it up on a pole down there by the burned cabin. We'll make a sign saying that Mammy June is up here at the big house and for Sneezer to come and see her." "Oh, goody!" cried Rose, but still under her breath. "That's a fine idea, Russ." "Don't say anything about it to anybody," warned her brother, eager to make a secret of the plan that had popped into his head. "We'll write that sign early in the morning and go down there and stick it up. Want to?"