ugh. I had to pick some of them out of the can
with my fingers, because they wouldn't come out."

"Then we're all serene again," said her brother cheerfully. "And now
it is after eleven and high time you were asleep."

Sarah gave him a quick, shy kiss at the head of the stairs and
vanished into her room. She was always chary of caresses and her
mother declared that she could count the times Sarah had voluntarily
kissed her.

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