needn't say anything about that to the chil-
dren. I guess Jim has heard all that gossip?"

When I nodded, she pulled my hair and told
me I knew too much, anyhow. We were good
friends, Frances and I.

I ran home to tell grandmother that Lena
Lingard had come to town. We were glad of
it, for she had a hard life on the farm.

Lena lived in the Norwegian settlement
west of Squaw Creek, and she used to herd
her father's cattle in the open country be-
tween his place and the Shimerdas'. When-
ever we rode over in that direction we saw
her out among her cattle, bareheaded and
barefooted, scantily dressed in tattered cloth-
ing, always knitting as she watched her herd.
Before I knew Lena, I thought of her as some-
thing wild, that always lived on the prairie,
because I had never seen her under a roof.
Her yellow hair was burned to a ruddy thatch
on her head; but her legs and arms, curiously
enough, in spite of constant exposure to the
sun, kept a miraculous whiteness which some-
how made her seem more undressed than other
girls who went scantily clad. The first time I
stopped to talk to her, I was astonished at her
soft voice and easy, gentle ways. The girls out

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v?