"But you like it, don't you Charley?"
"Yes. Goodness knows why. Certainly I don't want to turn out a Healy, or a Hough—or even a female Kiesing. Jesse did a poem about it all."
"A good one?"
"Good—yes. And terrible. One of his sledge-hammer things. He calls it 'Merchandise.' The girls, of course."
They stopped at a corner drug store and had ice cream sodas. Charley was to spend the night at the Prairie Avenue house. She had a brilliant thought. "Let's bring a chocolate soda home to Aunt Charlotte." They ordered two in pressed paper cartons and presented them at midnight to Aunt Charlotte and Jeannette. Jeannette, looking like a rose baby, ate hers in a semi-trance, her lids weighted with sleep. But great-aunt Charlotte was wide-awake immediately, as though a midnight chocolate ice cream soda were her prescribed night-cap. She sipped and blinked and scraped the bottom of the container with her spoon. Then, with an appreciative sigh, she lay back on her pillow.
"What time is it, Lottie?"
"After midnight. Twelve-twenty."
"That's nice," said Aunt Charlotte. "Let's have waffles for breakfast."
The mice were playing.
It was Lottie's idea that they accomplish the spring house cleaning in three volcanic days instead of devoting a week or more to it, as was Mrs. Payson's habit. "Let's all pitch in," she said, "and get it over with. Then we'll have a week to play in." Mrs. Payson was to remain ten days at French Lick.