out!'" She
laughed into her hands as if it were a great joke.

"They do nothing but talk," said Angelina.

Next day the camp had a surprise. Along came the nurses and men
with badges to help them. Into shack after shack they went,
inspecting the food supplies. Rose-Ellen, staying home with sick
Jimmie, watched a nurse trot out of the Serafini shack, carrying
long loaves of bread and loops of sausage, alive with flies,
while Mrs. Serafini shouted wrathfully after her. Into the
garbage pail popped the bread and sausage and back to the shack
trotted the nurse for more.

That night the camp buzzed like a swarm of angry bees, with
threats of what the pickers would do to "them fresh nurses."

Grandpa, resting on his doorsill, said, "You just keep cool.
They got the law on their side; we couldn't do a thing. Besides,
if you'll hold your horses long enough to see this out, you may
find they're doing you a big kindness."

The people went on grumbling, but they covered their food, since
they must do so or lose it. And they had to admit that there was
much less sickness from that time on.

"Foolishness!" Mrs. Serafini persisted, unwilling to give in.

Yet Rose-Ellen, playing with Baby Pepe, discovered that her hot
old swaddlings had been taken off at last. Perhaps Mrs. Serafini
was learning something from the nurses after all.

"If you could show me the rest of my aflabet, Rose-Ellen," Jimmie
begged, "I could teach Pedro."

"But, goodness!" Rose-Ellen exclaimed. "You never would let us
teach you anything, Jimmie. What's happened to you?"

"Well, it's different. I got to keep ahead of Pedro," he
explained, and every night he learned a new lesson.

[Illustration: Rose-Ellen teaching Jimmie]

Of all the family, though, Jimmie was the only contented one.
Most of the trouble centered round Dick. He was fourteen now,
and not only his voice, but his way, was changing. Through the
day he picked hops, but when evening came, he was off and away.

"He's like the Irishman's flea," Grandma scolded, "and that gang
he's running with are young scalawags."

"Dick hasn't a lick of sense," Daddy agreed worriedly. "I'll have
to tan him, if he keeps on lighting out every night. That gang
set fire to a hop rack last week. They'll be getting into real
trouble."

"Dick thinks he's a man, now he's earning his share of the
living," Grandpa reminded them. "When I was his age I had chores
to keep me busy, and when you were