“Oh, but you know I like to get things done. The rest said they wouldn’t pack till morning as they might want some of their things this evening, but I have put aside exactly what I shall need and can stuff them in the last thing.”
“Isn’t that just like Mary Lee?” said Daniella. “She is so orderly that I believe she’d be standing ready dressed with a hand satchel if the house caught on fire.”
“Oh, I always keep my bag ready packed,” replied Mary Lee in a matter-of-fact way. “I can snatch it up at any minute.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Daniella laughed and nodded at Miss Helen.
Here Jo came in. “Hurry up, girls,” she said. “We have something on hand to do right after dinner.”
“Hurry up yourself,” Nan told her. “You’re a great one. Here we have nearly finished our dinner and you have just come in. What is the special rush?”
“We’re going to get things to deck the hall.”
“They will all have to be taken right down again,” said Mary Lee practically.
“Well, ’Lish can do it after we go. We don’t have to consider anything but the putting up.” She hurried through with her meal and rushed out to join the others who, with the boys, were waiting to set out for the woods. The boys were armed with hatchets ready to chop off green boughs for decorations, leaving the girls to gather leaves already turning, and the red berries of the wild rose.
With armfuls they returned to the big cabin where they made a veritable bower to the contempt of ’Lish whom they called upon for nails and string. “Fool nonsense, I call it,” he muttered, “fetchin’ all that there truck to litter up the place. Some folks ain’t got a mite of common sense. Why can’t they leave things be? I can’t see as it’ll make their wittles taste any better to have the place look like a bé-zar.” However, he was willing enough to help, for it was his way to grumble a little and then be all the readier afterward.