ways annoyed Mrs. Jackson exceedingly.

It was as yet too early to light the fire or go for the cows. Ted
crept softly to a corner in the garret and took from the wall an old
brown fiddle. It had been his father's. He loved to play on it, and
his few rare spare moments were always spent in the garret corner or
the hayloft, with his precious fiddle. It was his one link with the
old life he had lived in a little cottage far away, with a mother who
had loved him and a merry young father who had made wonderful music on
the old brown violin.

Ted pushed open his garret window and, seating himself on the sill,
began to play, with his eyes fixed on the glowing eastern sky. He
played very softly, since Mrs. Jackson had a pronounced dislike to
being wakened by "fiddling at all unearthly hours."

The music he made was beautiful and would have astonished anybody who
knew enough to know how wonderful it really was. But there was nobody
to hear this little neglected urchin of all work, and he fiddled away
happily, the music floating out of the garret window, over the
treetops and the dew-wet clover fields, until it mingled with the
winds and was lost in the silver skies of the morning.

Ted worked doubly hard all that forenoon, since there was a double
share of work to do if, as Mrs. Jackson said, he was to be gadding to
picnics in the afternoon. But he did it all cheerily and whistled for
joy as he worked.

After dinner Mrs. Ross came in. Mrs. Ross lived down on the shore road
and made a living for herself and her two children by washing and
doing days' work out. She was not a very cheerful person and generally
spoke as if on the point of bursting into tears. She looked more
doleful than ever today, and lost no time in explaining why.

"I've just got word that my sister over at White Sands is sick with
pendikis"--this was the nearest Mrs. Ross could get to
appendicitis--"and has to go to the hospital. I've got to go right over
and see her, Mrs. Jackson, and I've run in to ask if Ted can go and
stay with Jimmy till I get back. There's no one else I can get, and
Amelia is away. I'll be back this evening. I don't like leaving Jimmy
alone."

"Ted's been promised that he could go to the picnic this afternoon,"
said Mrs. Jackson shortly. "Mr. Jackson said he could go, so he'll
have to please himself. If he's willing to stay with Jimmy instead, he
can. _I_ don't care."

"Oh, I've _got_ to go to the picnic," cried Ted impulsively