n't it great to be at home, children?" Jack exclaimed triumphantly.
But Frieda had flown to look after her chickens and Jean was shaking
hands with old Zack, who was building the frames over her violet beds.

"This bandage is cutting my arm off, Olive," Jack went on, noticing
Olive's wistful face as Jack said the word "home." "Won't you come in
and fix it for me, please? I am going to make you and Jean and Frieda
wait on me all I can, now we are away from Aunt Sallie's. Of course I
had to pretend my arm didn't hurt over there, because I knew that that
abominable Laura Post and Dan Norton would say 'serves her right,' every
time I had a twinge of pain."

Jack was talking nonsense to keep Olive from thinking and as the two
girls passed under the arch of the door, Jack kissed her lightly. "Good
luck to Ranch Girl Number Four. May you live long and prosper at Rainbow
Lodge," she whispered.

CHAPTER XI.

BREAKING THE NEWS.

JEAN and Jack came down the wide sunlit hall with their two heads close
together. It was three days since their return from the house party to
their own home.

Outside a half-opened door they stopped. "Listen, Jack," Jean whispered,
swallowing a giggle. "They have been doing it every single day."

"If three fifths of a number is fifteen, what is the number?" Frieda's
voice read slowly and solemnly. She paused fora long moment. "The number
is fifteen, isn't it Olive? The sum said so."

Jean would not have swallowed her giggle this time, except that Jack
pinched her on the arm. "Do be quiet, Jean," she entreated. "You will
hurt their feelings."

"No, Frieda," Olive explained patiently. "You see one fifth of fifteen
is five--"

Jack knocked lightly on the door. "May we interrupt the school a minute,
please?" she begged. "I have to go away in a little while with Jim and
I do want to see what is going on. I think it is perfectly sweet of you,
Olive, to be trying to teach Frieda. It makes Jean and me awfully
ashamed."

Olive laughed shyly: "Oh, I am not teaching," she answered, "Frieda and
I are just studying together. There are such a lot of things I ought to
know so you won't be ashamed of me, and I am trying to learn the few
that I can. Frieda likes to study too."

Frieda was chewing the end of her stubby pencil and making queer figures
on a crumpled piece of paper. Her little round face wore such a virtuous
and studious expression that Jack laughed. Jean went over and pulling
Frieda'