wear shabby dresses that button down the front and make everybody laugh at me.”

There was much truth in this. Their beautiful mother would have been quite willing to mortgage the ranch if only she and her children could be dressed in silk and furbelows.

Before Dixie could reply, the cabin-door again opened, and in came a boy who was at least a head taller than Dixie. His frank, freckled face was smiling. He was carrying a pail. “Dix,” he said gleefully, “we’re going to have a real crop of apples this year. I’ve been down to the creek-bottom to see how the trees are doing. Maybe they’ll fetch in money enough so that you can buy that new stove you’ve been needing so long.”

Carolina tossed her curly head as she thought, “Stove, indeed, when I need a new dress.” But she said nothing. The apples weren’t ripe yet, and she could bide her time.

They were soon seated around the table, chattering eagerly about the new teacher who had arrived at Woodford’s the day before, but whom, as yet, they had not seen.

“What you ’spose she’ll be like?” Ken asked as he helped himself to the rich creamy goat’s milk, and then turned to pour more of it into the big bowl for his little brother, who had been hungrily clamoring for porridge.

Carol sniffed. “I don’t like new teachers,” she informed them in a manner much older than her years. “They’re always startin’ somethin’ different.”

“You mean that new teachers don’t like you,” Ken put in with brotherly frankness. “They would, though, if you’d ever study, which I reckon you never will.”

“You’d ought to learn all you can, Caroly. We all ought to,” the little mother modified, “’cause as soon as we’re old enough, we’ll want to be earning our own living so we won’t always be poor and scrimping like we are now.”

Carolina tossed her curls.

“’Twon’t be needful for me to earn my livin’,” she said proudly. “Mrs. Piggins says I’m the kind that always marries young, and I’m goin’ to marry rich, too.”

Ken exploded with amused laughter.

“Hear the baby prattle!” he teased. “You’d better be thinkin’ about your dolls, seems like to me.”

The all-too-easily-aroused temper of the younger girl flared.

“Ken Martin, you know I haven’t played with dolls, not since I was seven years old, and now I’m eight.”

The violet eyes flashed and the pretty lips quivered.

The heart of Ken always melted when he saw tears.

“Oh, I say, Caroly,” he begged. “Don’t get a mad on. Honest Injun, cross my heart, I won’t tease you any more——er——that is, not again this morning, anyhow,” he added, wishing to be truthful.

Then, knowing from past experience that the best way to dry up tears was to interest the doleful one in something different, he exclaimed as though he had suddenly thought of it: “Girls, what’ll we give as a present for new teacher? The fellows were all sayin’ yesterday what they’re goin’ to give.”

The ruse worked like a charm. Carol looked across the table at her brother with eager interest.

“That horrid Jessica Archer says there’s nobody in the school as is going to give new teacher as handsome a present as she is. Her mother took her over to Reno to pick it out. Jessica says as all the other pupils will give country presents, but hers’ll be city.”

“Huh!” grunted the older brother. “What’s that little minx goin’ to give teacher that’s so fine? That’s what I’d like to know.”

The curls were shaken as the owner of them replied: “She won’t tell. It’s a secret, but she’s boastin’ as it cost more’n all the other presents put together’ll cost.”

“Well, dearie, like as not she’s right,” the older girl said soothingly. “Jessica Archer’s father’s the richest man anywhere in these mountains. You know how folks call him a sheep-king.”

Then, as Dixie was always trying to have her charges see things in the right way, she continued: “Anyhow, it isn’t the money a present costs that counts. It’s the love that goes with it.”

Selfish Carol was not convinced. “I’d rather have a blue silk dress without love than I would another ol’ gingham like this one with—”

She was interrupted by Ken, who burst in with: “Oh, I say, Dix, I’ve just thought of the peachiest present. You know that little black-and-white kid that came a while ago.”

The girls had stopped eating, and were listening with eyes as well as ears.

“Yeah, I know, b-but what of it?” Dixie inquired.

The boy’s words fairly tumbled out in his excitement.

“I bet teacher’d like him for a present. I bet she would. Like as not, comin’ from New York City the way she does, she’s never had a goat for a pet, and this one’s awful pretty, with that white star on his black forehead.”

Dixie looked uncertain. “It would be different, but—” she started to protest, when noting her brother’s crestfallen expression, she hastened to add, “Come to think of it, now, a little goat might be lots of company for new teacher, she being so strange and all.

“You go get the goat, Ken, and saddle Pegasus while I tidy up the kitchen and dress Jimmikins. Then we’ll all be ready to start for school.”

“I’ve got an ol’ red ribbon that’ll look handsome on that little goat’s neck,” Carol told them. “That’ll make it look more presentish, seems like.”

“Of course it will, dear. Go get it and give it to Ken, though I guess maybe you’d better tie the bow. You’ve got a real knack at making them pretty.”

The little mother always tried to show appreciation of any talent that might appear, however faintly, in one of her precious brood.

A moment later all was hurry and scurry in the homey kitchen of that old log house, for this was a red-letter morning in the lives of the four little Martins.

CHAPTER TWO
NEW TEACHER

And the new teacher, what of her? She had arrived by stage the night before, after a long journey across the country to Reno by train, and from there over rough roads of the wonderful Sierra Nevada mountains, and, just at nightfall, she had been deposited, bag and baggage, in front of a rambling old road-house known as Woodford’s Inn. It had been too dark for her really to see anything but the deep abyss of blackness below, that was the cañon through which she had just ridden, and the peaks of the rugged range towering above her, the dazzling stars that seemed so much nearer than they had in the East, and the lights of the comfortable and welcoming inn toward which the stage-driver was leading her.

Mrs. Enterprise Twiggly, the innkeeper’s wife, a thin, angular woman, whose reddish-gray hair was drawn tightly back, and whose dress was economical in the extreme, as it boasted neither pleat nor fullness, appeared in the open door, and her greenish-blue eyes appraised the guest at a glance. Long training had taught Mrs. Enterprise Twiggly to know at once whether to offer a new arrival the best bedroom or the slant-walled one over the kitchen.

The sharp, business-like expression changed to one of real pleasure when the innkeeper’s wife beheld the newcomer. She advanced, with a bony work-hardened hand outstretched. “Well! I declare to it, if I’m not mistaken, and I never am, this here is the new teacher. I am Mrs. Enterprise Twiggly of the Woodford’s Inn. Like as not you’ve heard