“Don’t worry about that,” replied the other girl. “This is right in my line. I’m going to get more fun out of the old tea-house than I expected.”
“Well, we got more furniture than I ever thought we would,” said Ethel, “and we’ve spent only a hundred and thirty of the two hundred dollars. That’s seventy dollars to the good on this item, Marj.”
“The paint must come out of that yet,” reminded Marie Louise. “But that won’t cost much.”
The days that followed were even busier for the girls than they had anticipated. For the rest of the week the place reeked with the odor of the successive coats of paint which they applied to the furniture. Under the direction of Marie Louise, they finished it in a pale cream-colored enamel, and she decorated it with a charming pansy design. It was work they enjoyed doing; for they took great pride in seeing the bare, unfinished pieces being converted into furniture as beautiful as any they had seen in the shops.
Mrs. Hadley and Ethel made scrim curtains for the windows; and John, poking about one day in the cellar, found a full set of made-to-order screens for the doors and windows, which he freshened up with paint and put in place. He also procured two boards which he cut in the shape of tea-kettles, and which Marie Louise painted and decorated with a large pansy in the center of each, and lettered to read:
THE PANSY TEA-ROOM.
John planted two posts outside the hedge by each entrance of the drive and hung the signs in conspicuous positions.
By the time that the two weeks of preparation were up, the outside of the place presented the well-kept appearance of a beautiful home, and inside was cozy and charming. Both the girls and the boys had enjoyed the work, and were pleased with the results. Indeed, they felt sorry for Daisy Gravers, who arrived after everything was in readiness for the opening day.
The good news that she brought with her added another drop to their already brimming cup of happiness. Mrs. Trawle, the baby’s mother, was out of the hospital now, and able to take care of little Betty herself, though not yet strong enough to earn any money towards their support. And so the scouts faced their opening day with only one anxiety: the fear that the tea-room would not have the patronage they hoped for, that it would not warrant their expenditure of the four hundred dollars they had borrowed. But in this, as in all of their other undertakings, they lived up to the law that a Girl Scout is cheerful, and hoped for the best.