They fed them scientifically, and with care. Mr. Bray was at the pens every two hours all day--or oftener. At night, two jugs of hot water went into the brooders, and the little biddies never seemed to miss having a real mother.
Luckily Lyddy had chosen a hardy strain of fowl and during the first fortnight they lost only two of the fluffy little fellows. Lyddy saw the beginning of a profitable chicken business ahead of her; but, of course, it was only an expense as yet.
She could not see her way clear to buying the kitchen range that was so much needed; and the days were growing warmer. May promised to be the forerunner of an exceedingly hot summer.
At Hillcrest there was, however, almost always a breeze. Seldom did the huge piles of rocks at the back of the farm shut the house off from the cooling winds. The people who came to enjoy the simple comforts of the farmhouse were loud in their praises of the spot.
"If we can get along till July--or even the last of June," quoth Lyddy to her sister, "I feel sure that we will get the house well filled, the garden will help to support us, and we shall be on the way to making a good living----"
"If we aren't dead," sighed 'Phemie. "I _do_ get so tired sometimes. It's a blessing we got Mother Harrison," for so they had come to call the widow.
"We knew we'd have to work if we took boarders," said Lyddy.
"Goodness me! we didn't know we had to work our fingers to the bone--mine are coming through the flesh--the bones, I mean."
"And I know I have lost ten pounds. I'm only a skeleton. You could hang me up in that closet in the old doctor's office in place of that skeleton----"
"What's _that_, 'Phemie Bray?" demanded the older sister, in wonder.
'Phemie realized that she had almost let _that_ secret out of the bag, and she jumped up with a sudden cry:
"Mercy! do you know the time, Lyd? If we're going to pick those wild strawberries for tea, we'd better be off at once. It's almost three o'clock."
And so she escaped telling Lyddy all she knew about what was behind the mysteriously locked green door at the end of the long corridor of the farmhouse.
Harris Colesworth, on his early Sunday morning jaunts to the swimming-hole in Pounder's Brook, had discovered a patch of wild strawberries, and had told the girls. Up to this time Lyddy and 'Phemie had found little time in which to walk over the farm. As for traversing the rocky part of it, as old Mr. Colesworth and Professor Spink did, that was out of the question.