he tinkle of a bell in the barnyard,
and, leaping out of bed, she rushed to the window with wildly beating
heart. There in the yard, tied to the old watering-trough, stood a
plump, pretty Jersey cow! Peace rubbed her eyes, pinched her arm to
make sure she was not still dreaming, and then startled the whole house
awake with a whoop of joy: "She has come, she has come! The cow has
come! My tramp isn't a robber or a beanstalk at all!"

CHAPTER XI

GARDENS AND GOPHERS

"Have you got any more corn or potatoes to drop, or onion sets to cover,
or radishes and beans and turnips to plant, or wheat or barley to
scatter, or--or anything else to do?" Peace panted breathlessly one warm
Saturday afternoon late in May.

"No," smiled Gail, looking tenderly down into the flushed, perspiring
face. "You girls have worked faithfully all day, and now you can rest
awhile. Mike is coming next week to finish the planting."

"Can--may we fix our own gardens, then? Mr. Kennedy gave me a whole lot
of seed the gove'nment sent him to plant, but he can't, 'cause he's
going to Alaska."

"Government seed! What kinds?"

"Cucumbers and beets, and parsley and carrots and--"

"But, child, we have all of those in our big garden now. I thought you
wanted your little plot of ground for flowers?"

"I do. One of these packages is sweet peas."

"Oh, dearie, I guess you have made a mistake. Mr. Kennedy wouldn't have
any use for sweet pea seed."

"Hope said that was the name on the package."

"Well, then I suppose they are, though I never heard tell of the
Kennedys raising flowers before. Sweet peas ought to be planted along a
fence. We will have Mike dig a little trench just inside the front yard
fence, and plant the peas there."

Peace's face fell, but she offered no objections to the plan, and Gail
straightway forgot all about it. Not so with the enthusiastic, youthful
planter, however; and, while the older sister was bustling about the hot
kitchen, the curly, brown head was bobbing energetically back and forth
in the front yard, where she and Cherry were digging a trench as fast as
they could turn the sod with an old broken spade and a discarded
fire-shovel; while Allee followed in their wake, dropping the seed into
the freshly-turned earth and carefully covering them again.

"Mercy, but this yard is big!" sighed weary Peace, as she began digging
along the third and last side. "Have you got enough left to stick in
here, Allee?"

"T