“Hum,” thought Tom on his way down-stairs. “I didn’t think she’d be so awfully pleased with a little thing like that. Maybe I could saw her out a little chair on my jig-saw—I wonder?”
And in a few minutes there was a strange, buzzing sound down cellar, that kept time to the hum of Madame Bettina’s tiny sewing-machine upstairs. For it was Madame Bettina that had to make the sheets and pillow-cases and net curtains, and all the things which are hardly in a carpenter’s line.
“How can I make a telephone?” puzzled Betsey. And she gazed thoughtfully at her box of beads.
“Aha!” exclaimed Mr. Betts suddenly, taking two large silver beads from his box.
“Ho-ho!” he laughed, rummaging excitedly in the closet where he kept his smooth pieces of kindling wood.
“Yes, Mr. Delight,” he remarked calmly, “I will personally see to it that the telephone is put in the very first thing, so you won’t lose an important call.” He began to paint a small piece of wood a rich, deep brown, with water colors.
“Another small piece of wood for a battery box,” murmured Betsey, whanging away at an obstinate nail. “The two silver beads for bells, a two-pointed tack to hold the receiver—a green cord—a roll of black paper stuck into a black bead for a receiver—. Now, what on earth for a speaking tube?”
Speaking of tubes! Mr. Betts triumphantly took the cap from his tube of paste, and with one resounding rap of his hammer, nailed it securely in the exact center of the new telephone!
“Hullo, up there!” called a deep voice at the foot of the stairs.
“Come up, come up!” called Betsey, running to open the door for her father. “See the telephone.”