I'm planning on eight tents all together, and there'll be
ever so many things people will want to buy. Do you suppose, mother, that
Mr. Peckham would let Sally manage anything like that up here? She's just
dying to do something besides housework all her life."

"But where would you put her, dear?"

"Put her in another tent, if we couldn't do anything else, but I'll bet a
cookie the boys down there at the mill could throw together a perfectly
dandy little slab shack with birch trimmings. They could either have it
down by the mill or put it right here at the crossroads. Sally could put
in all kinds of supplies, kodaks and phonographs and post-cards and
candy."

"Better put in a few canned goods, too, and staples," added Cousin Roxy.
"I declare, I'd kind of like to have a hand in that myself. I'd put Cynthy
to work right away at home bakery goods. Kit, I do believe, child, you've
started something that may waken Gilead out of its Rip Van Winkle
slumber."

Kit thought so too before she had half started the winter's work. Shad
became a tower of strength when it came to painting the old furniture.
They took one of the large upper chambers that was unoccupied, and set up
a stove to keep it warm. Helen called it the atelier, but it was more like
a paint shop before Shad finished.

Jean did her share by sending up some stencils she had designed herself
for the backs of the chairs and panels in the chests and headboards.

"They look just exactly like the painted furniture you see in the New York
shops," Cousin Roxy declared, the first time she inspected the results.
"When the Judge and I were down before Christmas, I saw a little
dining-room set that looked kind of cute, although it wasn't anything but
plain gray with a few morning-glory vines trailing over it. I think you've
done splendidly, girls. You've set your hand to the plow and started some
fine deep furrows. But just remember, it's a long way around a ten-acre
lot, so faint not in the heat of the day."

Kit herself attacked the problem of winning over the Peckhams to her idea
of Sally's taking charge of a little store at the crossroads. Sally
herself sat with wide anxious eyes on the extreme edge of a black
haircloth armchair, while her mother said over and over again it was
utterly impossible.

"Why, I couldn't get along without Sally, especially in the summer, with
all the fruit to put up and the young ones home from school."

"But, Mrs. Peckham," pleaded Ki