“The girls are as bad as the boys, Mother,” said Mr. Steele, shaking his head. “What I wanted to say,” he added, raising his voice, “was that we ought to invite these little chaps—these brothers of Sadie Raby—to come up at night to see our show.”
“Oh, let’s have all the fresh airs, Pa!” cried Madge, eagerly. “What a good time they’d have.”
“I—don’t—know,” said her father, soberly, looking at his wife. “I am afraid that will be too much for your mother.”
“Mr. Caslon has some fireworks for the children,” broke in Ruth, timidly. “I happen to know that. And Tom was going down to buy ten dollar’s worth more to put with what Mr. Caslon has.”
“Humph!” said Mr. Steele.
“You see, some of us thought we’d give the little folk a good time down there, and it wouldn’t bother you and Mrs. Steele, sir,” Ruth hastened to explain.
“Well, well!” exclaimed the gentleman, not very sharply after all, “if those Caslons can stand the racket, I guess mother and I can—eh, mother?”
“We need not have them in the house,” said Mrs. Steele. “We can put tables on the veranda, and give them ice cream and cake after the fireworks. Get the men to hang Chinese lanterns, and so forth.”
“Bully!” cried the younger Steeles, in chorus, and the visitors to Sunrise Farm were quite delighted, too, with this suggestion.