no good
ourselves, we're cracked and patched, but when God's love gets a
chance at us we can shine and glow."

"You're a great kid, Pearl," he said.

She laughed delightedly. "I'm like the windy," she said; "God puts
good thoughts in me because I keep turned broadside and catch all
that's comin' my way. Go home now, Bud, and don't ever say you're
discouraged again."

They shook hands again silently through the fence, and parted.

Through the tall elms and balms that fringed the river Bud could see
the Souris slipping swiftly over its shining pebbles, a broad ribbon
of gold coming out of the West, and it seemed as if some of the glory
of the sunset was coming to him on its sparkling waters. His eye
followed its course until it disappeared around the bend. A new
tenderness for it and a new sense of companionship filled his heart.

"Good old Souris," he said, as he turned homeward.

* * *

On the Watson farm there were many improvements being made. The old
machinery that littered the yard had been taken away to the poplar
grove near by, where the boys spent many happy hours constructing
threshing-machines. On Arbour Day, under Pearl's inspection, each
child went to the river flat and dug up a small maple tree, and
planted it in front of where the new house was going to be. Pearl had
the exact location of the new house firmly fixed in her mind before
she had been many days on the farm, and soon had every person, even
Aunt Kate, helping to beautify the grounds. A wide hedge of the
little wild rosebushes which grew plentifully along the headlands,
was set out behind where the house was to stand, to divide the lawn
from the garden, Pearl said, and although to the ordinary eye they
were a weedy looking lot, to Pearl's optimistic vision they, were
already aglow with fragrant bloom. Aunt Kate sent down east to her
sister Lib for roots of sweet Mary, ribbon-grass, and live-forever,
all of which came, took root, and grew in the course of time.

Pearl's dream of a fine chicken-house under the trees began to assume
tangible form when Mrs. Slater came to call, and brought with her a
fine yellow hen and thirteen little woolly chicks. Mrs. Motherwell
came, too, and brought with her a similar offering, only hers were
Plymouth Rocks. Mrs. John Green brought nine little fluffy ducklings
and their proud but perplexed mother, a fine white Orpington. Gifts
like these often accompany first calls in the agricultural districts
of the