Rainbow Hill   By: Josephine Lawrence (1897?-1978)

[Frontispiece: "THIS THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE BEEN ON A FARM?" HE ASKED.]

RAINBOW HILL

By

Josephine Lawrence

Author of

ROSEMARY

Illustrated by

Thelma Gooch

NEW YORK

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

Rainbow Hill

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I PLANS II LOOKING FORWARD III RAINBOW HILL IV FIRST IMPRESSIONS V DAYS OF DELIGHT VI WINNIE IS NERVOUS VII AN ADVENTURE FOR SARAH VIII STORM SIGNALS IX ONE WISH COMES TRUE X AN EVENTFUL DAY XI ALL SERENE AGAIN XII NAPOLEON BONAPARTE XIII THE GAY FAMILY XIV THE GAY FINANCES XV THE POOR FARM XVI SARAH'S SURPRISE XVII WILLING AND OBLIGING XVIII A NEW FRIEND XIX JACK HIRED MAN XX A LITTLE GIRL LOST XXI DOWN LINDEN ROAD XXII SARAH HAS AN IDEA XXIII BONY JOINS THE CIRCUS XXIV TRULY A SACRIFICE XXV UP TO MISCHIEF XXVI SOMETHING TO REMEMBER XXVII SUMMER'S END

RAINBOW HILL

CHAPTER I

PLANS

Doctor Hugh leaned back in his swivel chair and looked anxiously at his mother.

"I don't believe you realize how incessant the noise will be," he urged. "Every morning hammering and sawing and the inevitable shouting and argument that seem to attend all building operations, especially when the job is one of alteration, like this."

"I shall not mind the noise, dear," said Mrs. Willis tranquilly. "Let me see the plans again."

She held out her hand for the blue prints and four interested heads immediately bent above them, Rosemary being tall enough to look over her mother's shoulder and Sarah and Shirley pressing close to her side.

"I don't see how anyone can tell a thing from that," Rosemary complained. "There's nothing but white lines."

The doctor smiled, but his glance was on the frail, almost transparent hands which held the roll of paper flat on the desk.

"I suppose you thought that carpenters worked from photographs of completed interiors, or illustrations in interior decoration catalogues," he suggested good naturedly. "You see before you, Rosemary, a most practical conception of two offices and a reception room. Mr. Greggs will rip out one side of the house and add them on as a wing and when the joining is painted over you'll think those rooms were built when the original house was."

"Well all right," conceded Rosemary, "I suppose Mr. Greggs knows. Anyway, it will be fun to have something going on. Vacation certainly isn't very exciting."

"I want to see them rip the house," announced Sarah with intense satisfaction.

"I think I owe it to Mr. Greggs almost as much as to Mother, to have you at a safe distance before the ripping begins," said Doctor Hugh a little grimly. "Somehow I have the feeling, Sarah, that the best laid plans of architects may go awry when you're about."

"Huh!" retorted Sarah, abandoning blue prints for her favorite goatskin rug on which she flopped in an attitude more comfortable than graceful.

Shirley, too, wearying of the unfamiliar, turned to the delights of the iron wastebasket into which she tried to wedge her plump self with indifferent success and a great crackling of paper.

Doctor Hugh began to sharpen a pencil with meticulous care, his dark eyes behind their glasses apparently intent on the task in hand. But the more discerning of his patients, and every nurse who had served on his cases, could have told you that Doctor Willis always saw most when he appeared to be quite absorbed.