“Shucks, now! Well, I hereby invite ye, one and all, to come up here jest whenever ye like, and raise hob.”
“Good!” cried Maisie. “I just love to raise hob! Let’s come next week, girls, when those other nuts are ripe.”
“Do, now jest do!” said the old man, delightedly. “This old place don’t get sight of chick nor child very often. Must ye be goin’ now? Well, mind now, ye’re to come agin next week. Make a day of it, and bring more of yer young friends. I’ll see to it that Sary makes ye some good old-fashioned doughnuts, and apple turnovers.”
“Look here, Uncle Jim, I’ve an idea,” and Ethel ran to him and laid her hand impressively on his arm.
“Fer the land’s sake, Ethel, ye don’t say so!” and Uncle Jim shook with laughter at his own wit. “A little gell like you with an idea! Sho, sho, now. Come, out with it! It might fester!”
“Now don’t you tease me. But it’s just this. S’pose we come up here on Hallowe’en and have a witch party.”
“My patience! what an idea for a little gell to have! Now, lemme see,—lemme see.”
“No, that’s too much trouble for you, Uncle Jim,” said Grace. “You oughtn’t to have proposed it, Ethel.”
“No, now, wait a minnit, Gracie. Don’t you be too hasty. ’Tain’t no trouble at all, I wasn’t thinkin’ of that. I was thinkin’ if I could make things nice and perty fer you young misses. That’s the trouble. I’m plain, you see, plain, and—”
“Now, that’s just what we want, Uncle Jim, just the plain house, and orchard. We’ll do all the fixing up, ourselves.”