



Produced by Al Haines.





                               *GREENACRE
                                 GIRLS*


                                   BY

                           IZOLA L. FORRESTER



                   THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
                      CLEVELAND, O. NEW YORK, N.Y.




                          _Copyright, 1915, by
                       George W. Jacobs & Company
                          All rights reserved_



               _Printed in the United States of America_




                               *CONTENTS*

CHAPTER

I  The Finger of Providence
II  The Motherbird and Her Robins
III  Breakers Ahead
IV  The Queen's Privy Council
V  Kit Rebels
VI  White Hyacinths
VII  The Land o' Rest
VIII  Spying the Promised Land
IX  The Lady Managers Choose a Name
X  Settling the Nest
XI  Ma Parmelee's Chicks
XII  Gilead's Girl Neighbors
XIII  Cousin Roxy to the Rescue
XIV  The Lawn Fete
XV  Kit Pulls Anchor
XVI  Guests and Ghosts
XVII  Billie Meets Trespassers
XVIII  Harvesting Hopes
XIX  Ralph and Honey Take the Long Trail
XX  Roxana's Romance




                           *GREENACRE GIRLS*



                              *CHAPTER I*

                       *THE FINGER OF PROVIDENCE*


"It does seem to me, folkses," said Kit warmly, "that when anyone is
trying to write, you might be a little quiet."

The three at the end of the room heeded not the admonition.  Doris was
so interested that she had almost succeeded in reclining like a Roman
maiden on the library table, trying to see over Helen's shoulder.  Jean
was drawing up the plan for action.  The list of names lay before her,
and she tapped her pencil on her nose meditatively as she eyed it.

"Now, listen, Jean," Helen proposed.  "This would really be a novelty.
Let's have a Cupid for postman and not give out our valentines until
after the games.  And just when we've got them all seated for supper
have the bell ring, and a real postman's whistle blow, and enter Cupid!"

"It's too cold for wings," Doris interposed mildly.

"Oh, Dorrie, you goose.  He'd be all dressed up beautifully.  Buster
Phelps is going to be Cupid, only we were going to have him sit in front
of a Valentine box and just hand them out. We'll put a little white suit
on him with red hearts dangling all over him, and curl his hair
angelically."

"You'd better have red heart favors too, Helen," Jean added; "something
that opens and shuts, with something else inside for a surprise. And
we'll put red crepe shades on all the electric bulbs.  Could we get
those, do you think, girls?"

"We can get anything if Dad and Mother are home by that time," answered
Helen.  The rest were silent.  Kit, sitting at her mother's desk beside
the wide bay window, looked up and frowned at the stuffed golden
pheasant on top of the nearest bookcase.  Outside snow was falling
lightly.  The view of the Sound was obscured. A pearly grayness seemed
to be settling around the big house as if it were being cut off from the
rest of the world by some magic spell.

"Hope Dad's feeling all right by now," Kit said suddenly, pushing back
her thick, dark curls restlessly.  "They sail from Sanibel Island the
8th.  Wasn't it the 8th, Jean?"

"Oh, they'll be home in plenty of time," Jean exclaimed.  "Here we all
sit, having the silent mullygrumps when he's better.  Mother said
positively in her last letter that he had improved wonderfully the
previous week."

Helen stared at the long leather couch on one side of the open
fireplace.  It was over four weeks since her father had lain on it.
Throughout the winter there had been day after day of unremitting
weakness following his breakdown, and somehow she could not help
wondering whether the future held the same.  She rose quickly, shaking
her head with defiance at the thought.

"Let's not worry, girls.  If we all are blue when he comes, he'll have a
relapse."

Then Jean spoke, anxiously, tenderly,--her big dark eyes questioning
Kit.

"What about Mother?"

"We're all worried about Mother, Jean.  It isn't just you at all," Kit
spluttered.  "But you can be just boiling inside with love and
helpfulness, and still not go around with a face like that!"

"Like what?" demanded Jean haughtily.

"Don't fight, children, don't fight," Doris counseled, just as if she
were the eldest instead of the youngest.  "Remember what Cousin Roxy
says about the tongue starting more fires than the heart can put out.
You two scrap much more than Helen and I do."

"Well, I think," said Helen sedately, "that we ought to remember Mother
just as Jean says. She's almost sick herself worrying over Dad, and
there she is, away down in Florida with just the White Hen to talk to."

Jean smiled, thinking of the plump little trained nurse, Miss Patterson,
so spick and span and placid that the girls had declared they expected
her to cluck at any moment.  They had nicknamed her the White Hen, and
it surely suited her.  Even though no Chantecler had arrived yet to
claim her, she was the White Hen,--good-tempered, cheerful, attending
strictly to business always, but not just what one might call a lovable
companion.

"She's too chirpy for anyone who has responsibilities," Jean said.

"Note Jean when she has responsibilities," Kit proclaimed.  "Jean's been
playing Mrs. Atlas and carrying the rest of us around on her shoulders.
And look at her!  Where is the merry smile of old, fair sister?"

Jean smiled rather forlornly.  It was true that she had shouldered most
of the responsibility since they had been left alone.  Cousin Roxana had
arrived only a few days previous to the departure of Mrs. Robbins, and
it had been rather a formidable task suddenly to assume a mother's place
and run the home.

"Oh, I'm all right," she said.  "It's only that everything seems to be
coming at once.  The valentine party and Kit's special effusion for
Lincoln's Birthday."

"Class symposium on 'Lincoln--the Man--the President--the Liberator'--"
Kit ran it off proudly.  "Little classics of three hundred words each.
You just ought to see Billie Dunbar's, Jean.  He's been boiling it down
for a week from two thousand words, and every day Babbie Kane asks him
how he's getting along.  And you know how Billie talks!  He just glowers
and glooms and this morning he told her, 'It's still just sap.'  He's a
scream."

"Kit, don't," laughed Jean in spite of herself. "If you get ink spots on
Mother's best suede desk pad, you'll find yourself a little classic."

Kit moved the ink well farther back as a slight concession, and
suggested once more that the rest of the family try their level best to
keep still about their old party while she finished her symposium.

"You know," Helen began with a far-off look in her eyes, "I think we're
awfully selfish, and I mean all of us, not just Kit--"

"Thanking your royal highness," murmured Kit.

"Here's Dad coming back home after five weeks' absence, and we don't
know really whether he's better or worse--"

"Helen, don't be a raven quothing things at us," pleaded Jean.

"But it's perfectly true.  He needs rest above everything else, Miss
Patterson told me so; and here we're planning for a party the minute he
gets home."

"Dad says always to go right ahead and have a good time, that it makes
him happier to know we are happy."

Kit frowned again.  She had straight dark brows set above wide gray
eyes, and her frown was somewhat portentous.  At fifteen she was far
more energetic than Jean at seventeen.  No matter what fate might
deliver to her she would always find a quick antidote for any manner of
trouble.  With her short curly hair, she seemed more like the boy of the
family, like her father himself, cheery, optimistic, fond of all outdoor
life.  It was a saying in the Robbins family that Kit might neglect the
weeds a bit in her special garden of life, but the general landscape
effect would always be artistic and beautiful.

Privately, now that the family were facing a crisis, Kit felt far more
competent to act as the head pro tem. than did Jean.  The main trouble
was, as Helen had said, that Kathleen needed a brake to check her
official impetus.

"Anyway, the invitations are all out now and Mother knows we're going to
have the party because I wrote her all about it, and she sent back word
that she didn