“I’ll start in right away,” Joanne promised rather half-heartedly, “though I hate to do things like that.”
“You should be glad to do it for a good cause like this.”
“Maybe I shall be when I get waked up to it. Is the programme all arranged?”
“I think so. Miss Dodge is working hard over it. The violin numbers are to be the chief attraction, of course. We girls are to sing a spring chorus, you know that of course, for we have been rehearsing for ages. We are to dress in pale green; the soloist in pink and white; it will be rather pretty, I think. The Boy Scouts have offered to act as ushers.”
“Do you mean the violinist is to dress in pink and white?” asked Joanne slyly.
“Of course not, silly. I mean the singing persons. Claus is to take one solo, Miriam Overton another. Mirry has a nice voice if she is fat. Miss Chesney will be at the piano. The tickets will be ready in a day or two, so you’d better get busy, Jo.”
Joanne did get busy and in her impetuous way made short work of selling her tickets, for the Pattisons took three and Mrs. Barry five instead of the four counted on, saying that she hoped Mrs. Marriott would be one of her party. The remaining two Joanne lost no time in selling to her grandparents, therefore, though she was the last to enter the selling list, she was the first to dispose of her tickets.
“I never saw anything like you,” complained Winnie; “you sweep through a thing like a cyclone. I no sooner announce that I have begun a thing than you breeze in and tell me you have finished.”
Joanne laughed. “I vas always yust like dot,” she answered. “You don’t set sufficient value upon my imaginative qualities. When I am going to attack a problem I always plan what I would do if my first effort failed. For instance, if I hadn’t sold those tickets right hot off the bat, I knew exactly where I would go next. In my mind’s eye I saw Mrs. Barry turning me down because of some previous engagement or something like that, and I was all ready to fly off to some of Grad’s navy friends who would do anything for him or for me because I am his granddaughter.”
“Dear me, I always said you were lucky in your grandparents,” sighed Winnie. “Here I have four tickets I can’t get rid of and look at you.”