“Yes—no—I think it’s the one where we tried to take that runaway horse. Seems to me that looks like a leg down there.”
It was a curious effect to watch the films as they eagerly held one after another up, for the different parts came out in a ghostly, unattached way. Here one lonely-looking leg was plainly to be seen. Then a head, and again a branch of a tree or an arm.
“But look at this one,” cried Cricket, surveying one in deep disgust. “Isn’t this the smallpoxiest-looking thing?”
It was pretty liberally sprinkled with dark spots, but one of them was unmistakably Johnnie-goat’s head and horns.
“This must be the one we took on top of Johnnie-goat and the twins, shouldn’t you think? I do believe it is them—it is they—which is right?”
“I do believe it is,” answered Eunice, ignoring the grammatical appeal. “It’s spotty enough to be anything. It’s certainly like Kenneth and his cat, for I can see Johnnie-goat behind the trees.”
“So we can. Look at this one, Cricket. What we thought was mamma’s bonnet or a runaway horse isn’t either. You held it upside down. See! it’s this one where papa was getting out of his buggy. What we thought was mamma’s bonnet is papa’s foot. I guess they are ready for the last tray now. Go on with the directions.”
Long after five o’clock, two very sober and tired-looking children emerged from the bathroom closet, and proceeded to set things to rights.
“Do you know,” said Eunice, breaking a long silence as they cleared trays and wiped off the table, “the book says it only costs five cents apiece to get the things developed at a photographer’s. Don’t you really think it would be worth while to save up our money for a time and have some done? Of course we could learn to do it all right after a time, but—”
“Yes,” broke in Cricket emphatically, “I do. I don’t vote to stay in every Saturday afternoon and develop smallpoxy pictures, with smelly old chemicals and nasty, sticky films, and put my eyes out with red calico lamps. This picture of papa is the only single one that is going to be half-way decent; and the horse looks more like the ghost of a rhinoceros than anything else. That post sticks up by his nose just like a horn.”