“And for ourselves, too,” put in Betty, who had many plans in her busy brain.
“Aren’t you going to help make it for anybody, Ben?” asked Miss Ruth.
“O,—yes,” replied Ben, with the air of one who did not tell all of his secrets.
“He can make the beautifulest things,” said Alice, ever ready to praise her brother.
“I’ll make a few tops and some kites for those little chaps,” Ben said modestly, slowing his steps in order to walk with the others, for here the wood-path widened. “I used to think I would be a carpenter when I grow up, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“What do you want to do, Ben?” asked Miss Ruth, looking at the lively-faced boy whose head came almost to her shoulder.
Ben was a steady-minded, faithful lad, but he had a great imagination. “I am going to do the way they do in fairy stories,” he said; “I am going to get an old witch to help, and go to an island where there is a hidden treasure and come back and spend it. And I shall have a pony and a guinea pig and a garden of my own, and then I shall make the King a great many presents, and marry the Princess and have plenty of people to amuse me and read to me, and I shall go to bed when I choose and eat all the candy I want and have turkey every day, and I shall conquer all the world,—all except the Americans,—and my mother will be Queen—” Here Ben stopped for want of breath rather than for want of imagination.
“That is enough to take away one’s breath, Ben,” remarked Miss Ruth. “What do you want to be, Alice? You must all tell.”
“I want to be a nurse and take care of the convalescent children,” Alice said shyly.
“You will be a princess if you are my sister,” exclaimed Ben.