f 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?"

"Of course I do," said Rose, with a glad little jump in her bed. "I
think you're just the smartest boy, Russ, to think of it. I won't say