"This is a whopping big yard," said Mabel, looking disconsolately at two dandelions and one burdock in the bottom of a bushel basket. "There doesn't seem to be any place to begin."
"I'm going to weed out a place big enough to sit in," announced Bettie. "Then I'll make it bigger and bigger all around me in every direction until it joins the clearing next to mine."
"I'm a soldier," said Marjory, brandishing a trowel, "vanquishing my enemies. You know in books the hero always battles single-handed with about a million foes and always kills them all and everybody lives happy ever after—zip! There goes one!"
"I'm a pioneer," said Jean, slashing away at a huge, tough burdock. "I'm chopping down the forest primeval to make a potato patch. The dandelions are skulking Indians, and I'm capturing them to put in my bushel-basket prison."
"I'm just digging weeds," said prosaic Mabel, "and I don't like it."
"Neither does anybody else," said Marjory, "but I guess having the cottage will be worth it. Just pretend it's something else and then you won't mind it so much. Play you're digging for diamonds."
"I can't," returned Mabel, hopelessly. "I haven't any imagination. This is just plain dirt and I can't make myself believe it's anything else."
By supper time the cottage yard presented a decidedly disreputable appearance. Before the weeds had been disturbed they stood upright, presenting an even surface of green with a light crest of dandelion gold. But now it was different. Although the number of weeds was not greatly decreased, the yard looked as if, indeed, a battle had been fought there. Mr. Black, passing by on his way to town, began to wonder if he had been quite wise in turning it over to the girls.
At four o'clock the following morning, sleepy Bettie tumbled out of bed and into her clothes. Then she slipped quietly downstairs, out of doors, through the convenient hole in the back fence, and into the cottage yard. She had been digging for more than an hour when Jean, rubbing a pair of sleepy eyes, put in her appearance.
"Oh!" cried Jean, disappointedly. "I meant to have a huge bare field to show you when you came, and here you are ahead of me. What a lot you've done!"