"Why is he in love?"

The question kept repeating itself to Rosie as she sat on the porch steps while day slowly faded and twilight deepened into night. Mrs. O'Brien and Jamie came out after a time and Rosie talked to them about the country, telling them of all the marvels of farm and roadside. But through it all her mind kept reverting to the problem which had met her so promptly on her return.

"When you know Mis' Riley," she told her mother, "then you understand Jarge from start to finish. She's jolly and kind and she'll do anything in the world for you if she likes you. And, my! how she works! Jarge's father is all right, but all he does is talk. No matter what there is to do, he always wants to stop and talk. In the mornings he just nearly used to drive Mis' Riley and me crazy. I can tell you we were always busy and he ought to have been, too, and he did used to get real tired just talking about all he had to do. Of course Grandpa Riley was awful good to me and Geraldine and I don't like to say anything about him, but I understand now why Jarge has to save so hard and why poor Mis' Riley has to work so hard. And I know one thing: when Jarge does go back to the farm and take hold of things, he and his mother'll make that old farm pay. They're not afraid of hard work, either of them, and they've both got good sense, too.... Say, Dad, what do you think of Ellen the way she treats Jarge?"

"Ellen?" Jamie O'Brien's tilted chair came down with a thud and Jamie cleared his throat to answer. "How would you want her to be treating him?"

"Well, I don't want her to treat him like a dog! Jarge is too good!"

"Don't you be worryin' about Jarge," Jamie advised. "It's just as well for him that Ellen does treat him so." To Rosie this seemed a subject for further discussion, but not to Jamie. He balanced back his chair and relapsed into an abstracted silence from which Rosie's protests were unable to arouse him.

It had been a long and exciting day and Rosie was tired. If she had not felt that George would be expecting to see her when he got in from his run, she would have said good-night early and slipped quietly off to bed. But George would be expecting her. In the morning they had had very few words together and Rosie knew that there were a hundred things about the farm and about his mother that George wished to hear. So she stifled her yawns and waited.Talk flickered and went out. At last Jamie O'Brien tapped his pipe on the porch rail and, going in, said: "Good-night, Rosie. It's mighty fine to have you back." In a few moments Mrs. O'Brien followed Jamie and Terry followed her.

One by one the street noises grew quiet. Mothers' voices called, "Johnny!" "Katie!" "Jimmie!" and children's voices answered, "All right! I'm a-comin'!"; doors slammed; lights began to twinkle in bedroom windows. Rosie's little world was preparing for sleep. Every detail of that world was familiar to her as her mother's face. Like her mother's face, heretofore she had taken it for granted. Tonight, coming back after a short absence, she saw it anew with all the vividness of fresh sight and all the understanding of lifelong acquaintance. It was her world and, with a sudden rush of feeling, she knew that it was hers and that she loved it. Now that she was back to it, already her weeks in the country seemed far off and vague.... Had she ever been away?

George came at last. He looked thin and worn and he seated himself quietly with none of his old-time gaiety.

"Well, Rosie," he began, "how does it seem to be back?"

Rosie sighed. "I had a beautiful time in the country, Jarge, but I'm glad to be back—honest I am."

"But don't you miss the quiet of the country? I don't believe you'll be able to sleep tonight with all the noise."

Rosie laughed. "Jarge, you're like all country people. You think the country's quiet and it's not at all. It's fearfully noisy! It's like living on a railroad track! Why, do you know, the first night I was there, I was hours and hours in going to sleep—I was so scared!"

"Scared, Rosie? What were you scared about?"

"The racket that was going on. I didn't know what it was at first. Then Grandpa Riley came out and told me it was only the locusts and the tree-toads and the frogs. For a long time, though, I didn't see how it could be."

George lay back and laughed with something of his old abandon. "If that don't beat all! So they scared you, Rosie?"

"And chickens, Jarge! Why, chickens are the noisiest things! If they are not squabbling with each other, they're talking to themselves! And ducks—ducks are even worse! Jarge, do you know, I call a street like this quiet compared to the country!"

George's laugh grew heartier. "If that ain't the funniest thing I ever heard!"

"It's true, Jarge!" Rosie was very serious but her seriousness only added to George's mirth.

"All right, kid, have it your own way. But it's kind of a new idea: the city's quiet and the country's noisy, is that it?""Oh, I don't say the city's exactly quiet." Rosie picked her words carefully. "All I mean is, you don't notice the noises in the city like you do the noises in the country. The city noises are not such strange noises."

"Oh! That's it, is it? I see!" and George slapped his knee in lusty amusement.

"Jarge," Rosie began slowly, "there's something I want to talk to you about."

"Well, here I am. There'll never be a better time."

"It's about Ellen, Jarge."

George's laugh stopped abruptly.

"I don't like to say anything about her, Jarge, because she's my own sister...." Rosie paused and sighed. "You're in love with her, Jarge, aren't you?"

"Yes, Rosie, I'm afraid I am. And I'm afraid I've got it bad, too."

"Jarge dear, tell me one thing: why are you in love with her?"

George shook his head. "Search me. I don't know."

"But, Jarge, she ain't the kind of girl you ought to be in love with."

"That so?" George's voice showed very little interest.

"Why, you ought to be in love with a nice girl, Jarge—I mean a girl that would love you and pet you and save your money and take good care of you. That's the kind of girl you want, Jarge."

"Is it?" George's tone was still apathetic.

"Sure it is. Now, Jarge, look at the whole thing sensibly. What do you want with a girl like Ellen? She doesn't think of any one but herself and all she's after is getting beaux and spending money. What would you do with her if you had her? Why, she'd clean out your savings in two weeks, and then where would you be and where would your mother be and where would the farm be?"

George sighed heavily. "I suppose you're right, Rosie, but that don't seem to make any difference. I don't know why I want her, but I do. I want her so bad I lay awake nights and I ain't never laid awake before in my life. No use talking, Rosie, it's Ellen or no one for me."

"But, Jarge dear, why can't you be sensible? You're sensible in other things."

"See here, Rosie, you don't know what you're talking about!" George spoke sharply but not unkindly. "A fellow don't fall in love with a girl because he wants to or because he ought to or because she'd make him a good wife. I don't understand why he does; I don't know a thing about it. He just does and that's all there is to it!"

"But, Jarge," Rosie persisted, "if he knows it ain't best for him, I should think he just wouldn't let himself fall in love."

"Didn't I just tell you a fellow himself has nothing to do with it!" For a moment George lost his temper, then he laughed a little sheepishly. "I don't blame you, Rosie, for not understanding. It sounds terrible foolish and I guess it is foolish. But it's how we're made and that's all there is about it. Some of these days you'll get caught yourself and then you'll understand."

George reached over and gave Rosie's hand a confidential little squeeze. Rosie did not return the pressure. She even drew her own hand away a little coldly.

"It's all very well, Jarge Riley, for you to pretend that falling in love is so terribly mysterious, but I want to tell you one thing. I know better! It's as common as onions! Why, everybody does it! I guess I've seen 'em—out in the parks and on the street and in the cars and everywhere! And, besides that, I can tell you something else: if they'd only use a little common sense when they are in love they wouldn't make such fools of themselves. Yes, Jarge Riley, and you're just the very person I mean! There you are, wanting to make love to Ellen and what do you do? The very things that make her laugh at you! If you'd use one grain of common sense you'd get on with her as well as the rest of the fellows. But no, says you, a man can't possibly use common sense in love! Jarge Riley, you're as silly as a chicken and what's more, since I've been in the country, I know exactly how silly chickens are!""Why, Rosie!" George was too much taken back by Rosie's tirade to do more than gape in helpless astonishment.

"I mean just what I say!" Rosie assured him severely. "I was sorry for you at first, but now I don't pity you at all. If you're going to be stubborn, you don't deserve to be pitied."

"Well, Rosie, what do you want me to do?"

George's tone was so conciliatory that Rosie's manner softened. "All I ask you, Jarge, is to be sensible."

George sighed and laughed. "Sounds easy, don't it? Now you think it would be sensible for a farmer like me not to think any more about a girl like Ellen. That's it, ain't it?"

Rosie answered promptly: "Yes, Jarge, that would certainly be the most sensible thing you could do."

"Rosie, that's the one thing I can't do, whether I'd like to or not. I'm sorry, though, because I don't want you to think I'm only stubborn."

It was Rosie's turn to sigh. "You're an awful hard person to help, Jarge. You pretend you're perfectly willing to be sensible, yet the minute I tell you how you draw back." Rosie sighed again.

"But at least, Jarge, you might be sensible in other things." She turned on him with sudden energy. "And do you know, Jarge, if you were sensible in other things, I think you might easy enough make Ellen like you! Why not?""Ain't I sensible in other things?" George spoke a little plaintively.

"I should say not! Everything you do gives Ellen another chance to laugh at you and make fun of you. Take the other night at the Twirlers' dance. Now if you had gone about that thing right you could have made Ellen and all the other girls just crazy about you. You needn't think Ellen wouldn't like to have a beau that can lick everybody in sight. She would. Any girl would. But all you did was make her mad."

George groaned. His prowess at the Twirlers' was not a pleasant memory. When he spoke, his tone was a little sullen. "What is it you want me to do?"

"I only want you to act sensible."

"Well, then, tell me this: how's a born fool to act sensible?"

"When he don't know how to act sensible himself," Rosie answered, "there's only one thing for him to do and that is to take the advice of some one who does know."

George laughed. "Meaning yourself, Rosie?"

"Sure I mean myself. I don't mind saying that I consider myself very far from a born fool. I'm not a bit ashamed of being sensible. Janet McFadden always says that I'm not very smart but that I've got lots of common sense. Danny Agin thinks so, too. He often consults me about things." Rosie nodded complacently.George chuckled. "I'm with Janet and Danny all right. I always did swear by you, Rosie!"

"Then why don't you do as I tell you?" Rosie faced him squarely. "It would be very much better for you!"

For a moment George looked at her in affectionate amusement. Then his face grew serious as her own. "All right, Rosie, I will. You're right: I have made a bad mess of things with Ellen. It couldn't be worse. So here's my promise: for the rest of the time I'm here, I'll do just exactly as you say."

Rosie beamed her approval. "And I promise you, Jarge, you won't be sorry!"

In all formality they shook hands over the bargain.

"Now then," George began briskly, "what's the first thing I'm to do?"

Rosie hesitated. "I haven't exactly thought it out yet."

"Huh! So it ain't so awful easy even for you to be sensible!" He peeped at her slyly.

"I want to think things over carefully," Rosie explained, "and I want to ask Danny Agin's advice." George gave a grunt of protest, so Rosie hastened to add: "Of course I won't use your name. I'll just put the case to Danny in a sort of general way and, before he guesses what I really mean, he'll be telling me what I want to know. Oh, I wouldn't mention your name for anything!"George chuckled. "I'm sure you wouldn't!" He stood up. "Well, good-night, kid. It's time for both of us to get to bed. And say, Rosie, I'm awful glad you're back. I've had a bad time since you've been gone. Everything's went wrong. Now you're back, I feel better already.... Good-night."

They were all glad she was back! In the sunshine of so much appreciation, Rosie's heart felt like a little flower bursting into bloom.