"The cottage isn't quite so far away," said Jean. "It would be just lovely to have it, for we never have a place to play in comfortably."
"We're generally disturbing grown-ups, I notice," said Marjory, comically imitating her Aunty Jane's severest manner. "A little less noise, if you please. Is it really necessary to laugh so much and so often?"
"Even Mother gets tired of us sometimes," confided Jean. "There are days when no one seems to want all of us at once."
"I know it," said Bettie, pathetically, "but it's worse for me than it is for the rest of you. You have your rooms and nobody to meddle with your things. I no sooner get my dolls nicely settled in one corner than I have to move them into another, because the babies poke their eyes out. It's dreadful, too, to have to live with so many boys. I fixed up the cunningest playhouse under the clothes-reel last week, but the very minute it was finished Rob came home with a horrid porcupine and I had to move out in a hurry."
"Perhaps," suggested Marjory, "we could rent the cottage."
"Who'd pay the rent?" demanded Mabel. "My allowance is five cents a week and I have to pay a fine of one cent every time I'm late to meals."
"How much do you have left?" asked Jeanie, laughing.
"Not a cent. I was seven cents in debt at the end of last week."
"I get two cents a hundred for digging dandelions," said Marjory, "but it takes just forever to dig them, and ugh! I just hate it."
"I never have any money at all," sighed Bettie. "You see there are so many of us."