tgrown them. My feet are
getting big fast."

"But if they are in pay for the strawberry picking, you won't take them?
Is that it?"

"I s'pose I will have to take them after Gail's lecture," Peace sighed
dismally, "but I'll never put 'em on--never!"

Delighted with her candor and rebel spirit, he said, after a brief
pause, "Well, now, I mean them for a Christmas present, Peace, and I'd
like mighty well for you to wear them. If they are too small, come next
summer, I will get them changed for you. Will you take them?"

"Y--e--s."

"And be friends?"

Peace hesitated. "Friends are square with each other, ain't they?"

"I reckon they are."

"Then I don't see how we can be friends," she said firmly.

"Why not?" His face was blank with surprise; and his wife, who had been
a silent spectator of the scene, laughed outright.

"'Cause you owe us a dollar and a half for picking strawberries last
summer, and if you don't pay it, you ain't square with us, are you?"

"Well, I swan!" he mumbled. Then he, too, laughed, and thrusting his
hand into his pocket, drew out a handful of silver. "Here are six silver
quarters, a dollar and fifty cents. That settles our account, doesn't
it?"

"Yes."

"And I've treated you on the square?"

"Yes."

"And you will come sit on my lap?"

"I don't s'pose it will do any hurt," she answered grudgingly, for she
had not yet adjusted herself to this new friendship with her one-time
enemy, but she went to him slowly and permitted to lift her to his knee.

"There, now," he said, settling her comfortably. "That's more like it!
Now that I have settled my account with you, tell me what you are going
to do about the money you owe me?"

"Dave!" interposed little Mrs. Hartman, but he laughingly waved her
aside.

"What money that I owe you?" gasped poor Peace, the rosy color dying
from her face.

"Didn't you dump twenty boxes of my strawberries into the chicken yard
last summer?"

"Y--e--s."

"Those berries sold for twenty cents a box. Twenty times twenty is four
dollars. You spoiled four dollars' worth of berries, Peace Greenfield.
Are you being square with me?"

The child sat dumb with despair, and seeing the tragedy in the great,
brown eyes, Mrs. Hartman again said, remonstratingly, "Dave!"

"Hush, Myra Ann," he commanded. "This is between Peace and me. If we are
to be friends, we must be square with each other, you know."

There was a desperate struggle, and then Peace laid the