"I've helped at fairs," said Grace.
"And once I helped my aunt at a tea she gave the village children," said Mary.
"I'll do everything I can, though I never saw a fair or a bazaar," said Polly. "Tell us more about it, Aunt Ada."
"Tell her all you know, girls," said Aunt Ada. "I must go now. You will not be afraid to stay alone till I get back, will you?"
Her nieces assured her that they would not, and she left them in quite a state of excitement, for, sad as the occasion was, they could not help anticipating the pleasure of the bazaar. "We will have such a lovely time getting ready for the sale," said Molly. "We have had them here before, and they are lots of fun. I know what I am going to do. I'm going to the wood-pile and strip off a whole lot of birch bark to make things of."
"What kind of things?" asked Mary.
"Oh, all sorts of things; napkin rings and picture frames and boxes."
"Oh!" Mary was interested. She had never seen such things except those that the Indian peddlers brought around to the cottages, and never did one appear over the brow of the hill, bowed under the burden of his baskets, that she did not run for her purse, and by now had quite an array of gifts for her English friends. To add to these a supply of birch-bark souvenirs which she could make herself was a prospect truly delightful. "It is very convenient that a quarter is about the same as a shilling," she remarked, "but I can never remember that a penny is two cents; it seems as if an American penny should be the same as an English one."
"I should think you would be glad it isn't," said Polly, "for when you are counting at the rate of our pennies you have twice as many as you would have English ones."
"Well, I don't know," said Mary thoughtfully. "I had a whole pound when I reached here, and Uncle Dick had it changed into American money. I thought I had such a number of pennies and I found they were only cents, but then one can buy a great many things here for a cent that one would have to pay a penny for at home, especially sweets."