"No; they're dining with the Quelquechoses--those bright-faced,
freckled cousins of his," Alix answered.

"I don't know that I've got anything up there to eat!" Peter said,
gloomily.

"Ooo--say!" Alix said, brightening suddenly with her incorrigible
childishness of expression. "Kow's got eggs and cream, hasn't he?
I'll make that new thing I was telling you about--it's delicious.
Oh, and an onion--" she broke off in concern.

"He has an onion," Peter admitted. "What dish?" he asked,
interested in spite of himself, as Alix fell into a rapturous
reverie.

"Well, you fry a chopped onion," Alix began, "and then you have a
lot of hard-boiled eggs--" In another moment they were deep in
culinary details.




CHAPTER VIII


Martin's work was in the Contra Costa Valley, and he and Cherry
had a small house in Red Creek, the only town of any size near the
mine. Red Creek was in a fruit-farming and dairy region and looked
its prettiest on the spring evening when Cherry saw it first. The
locusts were in leaf and ready to bloom, and the first fruit