Though the rest of us did not fare as royally as Robin, there was some trifle for each one;—Ernie had seen to that.
“I had just fifty cents to spend on the entire family,” she explained. “Don’t you think I managed well?”
There were also a number of pretty gifts from Mrs. Burroughs, the score of Robin Hood from Meta for me, and a really portentous jackknife with three blades and a corkscrew attachment from Geof for Ernie.
“How jolly!” she cried, hopping about on her little pink toes. “I need never borrow Hazard’s again, and I can pull all Robin’s cod-liver oil corks! Hurr-oo!”
After breakfast came church. Haze volunteered to stay with Bobsie, so that mother, Ernie, and I might go. But just as we were leaving the house whom should we meet on the front stoop but Geoffrey, bearing his much-heralded present for Robin,—a really handsome nickel-plated cage in which crouched a pair of tiny white mice!
“The darlings!” chortled Ernie. “I can’t leave ’em! I can’t!”
So she deserted mother and me, and followed Geof to the nursery. And when we returned from service some two hours later, the three enthusiasts were still gloating.
“Look, Elizabeth!” exulted Ernie. “We’ve let ’em out of the cage, and they are quite tame!”
“I’m going to call them Open, O Buds, O Open, and Sweet Fern,” remarked Robin, in sentimental accents. “Nobody helped me think of those names. Aren’t they pretty?”
“See, Aunt Peggy,” says Geof. “There’s a wheel to the cage, so they can get plenty of exercise, and the man I bought ’em of told me we might expect a family about every three weeks.”