"Oh, Tom, you dear!" exclaimed Cornelia Mary. "The very thing! I suppose every one of our neighbours has old furniture in their woodsheds and attics they would be glad to get rid of."
Sally clapped her hands and tried to speak. She had barely time to open her mouth before Cornelia Mary had finished a request.
"Oh, Tom, will you go with us? We'll hitch Bess to the lumber wagon and you drive. Will you?"
Tom considered a moment, as became his dignity, before replying. "I'll go on one condition. If mother and father and Mrs. Brown will let us all stay home from school, we'll begin to-morrow morning."
"Oh, let them," begged Cornelia Mary, "do say yes."
Permission was given, to the great surprise of Master Tom.
"But he's such a tease," objected Sally.
"You're only half-acquainted with Tom," declared his sister. "He has streaks of real goodness, and when he says he'll help, he always does it."
Bess must have thought picnics had begun early when Tom, Cornelia Mary, and Sally scrambled into the lumber wagon the following morning. They laughed so much, and acted so generally foolish, the old horse turned her head several times, as if she couldn't understand the occasion for such hilarity.
"We must ask for left over rolls of wall paper," suggested Cornelia Mary. "Jake and father promised to open the house to-day. They are going to put up the stove and build a fire. Mother says that old crazy man was neat as wax, and that the relatives left the house in perfect order after the funeral."