while belligerent Tobias was
still arguing the question with stubborn Peace, Vinie returned with
Humpy still at her heels. She had hurried, and her breath came quick and
fast, but before she had reached her place in the line-up again, she
called excitedly, "That pretty girl is right. We're all too dirty to
suit Mrs. Moody and Mrs. Carter."

"Wh--at?" shrieked the brothers and sisters, wheeling about in
consternation to face their new accuser,--one of their own kin.

"Well, I asked 'em honest true, just like she said to do, and after a
bit they owned up that it wasn't the milk they didn't like, but the
looks of us was too much."

Ophelia stared dully at the small sister for a long moment, then
suddenly slumped down in the tall grass and wept. Tobias, Antonio and
Augustus all followed suit, and even baby Nadene lifted her voice in
lament, though she did not know what she was crying about.

Surprised, awed and troubled, Peace drew near to the fence and pressed
her face against the lattice work to watch this unusual performance; but
Vinie, after one contemptuous glance at the snivelling group, turned
energetically away toward the little green shack across the field, still
holding fast to Humpy's grimy fist.

"Where you going?" demanded Antonio, peeping at her from under his arm
as he lay sprawled in the clover.

"I ain't got time to bawl," she flung back over her shoulder. "I
promised to go home and clean up Humpy and me. Then Mrs. Carter's going
to give me two cents to go to the store for her."

Peace watched the two little figures trudging off across the meadow, and
then she said thoughtfully, "She's right, and I b'lieve you could get
back all your milk customers if you'd everyone clean up once and _stay_
clean. Why don't you try?"

Antonio lifted his head, looked at his twin and began slowly to struggle
to his feet. Augustus joined him, then Tobias, and finally Ophelia. She
looked timidly toward Peace, and asked meekly, "Don't you s'pose Ma
would scold?"

"What for? Washing your faces? No, I don't. She's a funny mother if she
does. It's easier work to sell milk than to do washings, and I should
think you'd try to help her all you can so she won't get sick and die
and all of you have to go to an _orphant_ asylum."

The round-eyed children gazed at her in affright, then swiftly made off
through the tall grass in Vinie's wake.

They did not return that day or the next; and Peace had concluded that
they were a