“I can't think of anything just this minute,” answered her mother with a gentle smile, “but if you will bring Freddie in out of the hot sun, and get something to amuse him near here, I'll try to think.”
“Oh! do, please. And mind, mamma, it must be something for me to do without—not you.”
Marty ran down the yard to where Freddie, with red face and without his hat, was rushing up and down playing he was a “little engine.”
“Freddie,” she called, “don't you want to come and make mud pies?”
This was a favorite amusement of the small boy, and instantly the little engine subsided into a baker. Marty led him up near the porch, where there was a nice bed of mould—“ clean dirt,” Mrs. Stokes called it—and they were soon hard at work on the pies.
Marty enjoyed this play as much as Freddie, and it was some time before she thought of asking,
“Mamma, have you thought of anything yet?”
Mrs. Ashford smiled and nodded.
“What is it?” exclaimed Marty, bounding up on the porch.
“I don't know whether you will like the plan or not, but it is the only thing that occurs to me. Your school coat will be too short for you next winter, and I was going to get you a new one. But the old one could be altered so that you might wear it. I have some of the material, and could piece the skirt and sleeves and trim it with braid. As it always was a little too large for you about the shoulders, it would fit next winter well enough that way. Doing that would save about five dollars as near as I can calculate.”