place—or cleaning up a post that's let its standard own." She laughed, half-nervously. "You have the name for being a real moral influence where you go."
Tempest's answering laugh was constrained.
"I didn't come over here to be abused, Miss Chubb," he said.
"Why" Miss Chubb proceeded to set out the bread-pans with a celerity born of much practice. They did not seem to aid her in her completion of the sentence, and she turned to the back door as three black-eyed, black-haired, mahogany-skinned heads thrust themselves in, whimpering. Then she slammed a pan down in sudden desperation.
"I wish there were no Saturdays in the week. I certainly do! What has got you children this morning? Some of you have been under my feet all day. What's wrong, Annie? Jane, did you make Pauline cry any more?"
The children sidled in, with fingers in mouths and eyes glancing through the elf-locks which Miss Chubb had brushed and plaited into neatness a few hours since. From their whispers, punctuated by covert peeps at Tempest, the fact was elicited that David Mikwas had fallen out of the swing on top of Pauline. Miss Chubb examined bruises; sent the two elder children out again, and gave Pauline a dab of dough to play with. Then she returned to her work with a sigh that seemed to come straight through her thin body from the toes.
"Mr. Barnes always goes off for the whole day, Saturdays," she said. "I don't blame him. I should if I was teaching the alphabet and simple division all week. But those children do choose to have all their accidents on Saturdays, and Miss Hemming isn't much use with them. Pauline's been left here all summer, too, poor little mite. That father of hers ought to do something for her, Sergeant. I—I mean"
"Never mind." Tempest laughed. "It's too new yet, isn't it? Job Kesikaw is her father, Barnes told me. A clever trapper, and he must be making a good living. Doesn't he pay anything for Pauline's up-keep?"
"Never a penny. And the way he treated Florestine
