Dolly didn't know what sleeping in an open tent meant, but she smiled in response and soon the three girls went downstairs together.
Mr. and Mrs. Rose were bustling around, happily engaged in unpacking and arranging books and pictures and various trifles to make the big living-room more homelike.
"Looks a little bare now," said Mr. Rose, as he placed his smoking set in position near his own particular easy chair, "but in a day or two we'll have it looking like a little Paradise on earth. Just you wait, Miss Dolly, till you see this desert blossom like a rose,—like a whole Rose family, in fact!"
"These things help a lot," and Mrs. Rose deftly arranged half a dozen sofa pillows on a big inviting-looking couch.
"And to-morrow we'll put up a swing, and the hammocks, won't you, Daddy?" said Genie.
"Course I will, chickabiddy," and Mr. Rose whistled in gay contentment as he took books from their boxes and arranged them on the table.
When supper was announced, Maria informed the family that she hadn't been able to manage the flap-jacks that night.
"But you-all sho'ly will hab 'em for breakfast, dat you will,—you suttinly will. But you see huccum I jes' didn't hab de proper contraptions unpacked for 'em to-night."
"That's all right, Maria," said Mr. Rose, good-naturedly; "we don't mind what we have to-night. To-morrow we'll get a good fair start. Sit down, children, we'll manage to make out a supper."
The supper was sort of a makeshift of sardines and herring and crackers, with coffee for the older people.