ook bad"
again at one o'clock, Pearl promulgated a rule, and in this Aunt Kate
rendered valuable assistance, that no one would be excused from
school on account of sickness unless they could show a coated tongue,
and would take a tablespoonful of castor oil and go to bed with a
mustard plaster (this was Aunt Kate's suggestion), missing all meals.
There was comparatively little sickness among the Watsons after that.

Aunt Kate was a great help in keeping the household clothes in order.
She insisted on the children hanging up their own garments, taking
care of their own garters, and also she saw to it that each one ate
up every scrap of food on his or her plate, or else had it set away
for the next meal. But in spite of all this Aunt Kate was becoming
more popular.

Thus relieved of family cares, Pearl had plenty of time to devote to
her lessons and the progress she made was remarkable. She had also
more time to see after the moral well-being of her young brothers,
which seemed to be in need of some attention--at least she thought so
when Patsey came home one day and signified his intention of being a
hotel-keeper when he grew up, because Sandy Braden had a diamond as
big as a marble. Patsey had the very last Sunday quite made up his
mind to be a missionary. Pearl took him into her mother's room, and
talked to him very seriously, but the best she could do with him was
to get him to agree to be a drayman; higher than that he would not
go--the fleshpots called him!

Jimmy became enamored of the railway and began to steal rides in
box-cars, and once had been taken away and had to walk back five
miles. It was ten o'clock when he got home, tired happy. He said he
was "hungry enough to eat raw dog," which is a vulgar expression for
a little boy nine years old.

Even Danny began to show signs of the contamination of the world, and
came swaggering home one night feeling deliciously wicked smoking a
liquorice pipe, and in reply to his mother's shocked remonstrance had
told her to "cut it out."

Those things had set Pearl thinking. The boys were growing up and
there was no work for them to do. It was going to be hard to raise
them in the town. Pearl talked it over with Mr. Burrell, the
minister, and he said the best place to raise a family of boys was
the farm, where there would be plenty of employment for them. So
Pearl decided in her own mind that they would get a farm. It would
mean that she would have to give up her chan