o now," he said to Sister presently. "Don't
you want to play? I can finish these."

"I'm not going to stop till they're all done," announced Sister. "Molly
says the only way to get anything finished is to use plenty of
per--perservance!"

Jimmie laughed and glanced at her curiously.

"I guess you mean PERSEVERANCE" he suggested, "Well, Sister, you are
certainly fine help. It begins to look as though I could go swimming
this afternoon after all."

Surely enough, when Mother Morrison called to them that lunch was
ready, they were weeding the last onion row.

"I can finish that in fifteen minutes," declared Jimmie gaily. "You're
a brick, Sister! When you want me to do something for you, just mention
it, will you?"

Sister beamed. She was hot and tired and she knew her face and hands
were streaked and dirty. Brother had spent the morning playing with
Nellie Yarrow and Ellis Carr, and Nellie's aunt had taken them to the
drug store for ice-cream soda. Yet Sister, far from being sorry for her
hot, busy morning in the garden, felt very happy.

"Now you don't mind, do you?" she asked Jimmie anxiously.

"Mind what?" he said, putting the wheelbarrow away in the toolhouse.

"About the butterflies," explained Sister.

"I'd forgotten all about them," declared Jimmie, hugging her.

CHAPTER XVIII

MICKEY GAFFNEY

Brother and Sister were very fond of playing school. They carefully
saved all the old pencils and scraps of paper and half-used blank books
that Grace and Louise and Jimmie gave them, and many mornings they
spent on the porch "going to school."

Neither had ever been to school, and of course they were excited at the
prospect of starting in the fall. Brother had had kindergarten lessons
at home and he was ready for the first grade, while Sister would have
to make her start in the Ridgeway school kindergarten.

"I wish summer would hurry up and go," complained Brother one August
day. "Then we could really go to school."

"Well, don't wish that," advised Louise. "Goodness knows you'll be
tired of it soon enough! Sister, what are you dragging out here?"

"My blackboard," answered Sister, almost falling over the doorsill as
she pulled her blackboard--a gift from Grandmother Hastings--out onto
the porch.

"Come on, Grace, we'll go in," proposed Louise, hastily gathering up
her work. "If these children are going to play school there won't be
any place for us! We'll go up to my room."

"I thought maybe