“Oh, girls!” Betty Burd cried with shining eyes. “We surely can find the way; that is, if mumsie is willing. I had the darlingest play-house in the South. Papa was an architect and he planned it himself. There were three rooms in it, and one of them was the home of Mother Goose. I wasn’t very old then, but I shall never forget the joy in my heart when I first beheld that room. It was like stepping into a Mother Goose picture-book and being able to skip about in it. Then, when papa died and we came North to keep house for Uncle George, I just couldn’t bear to part with those Mother Goose things, so mumsie packed them in a big box and brought them along, and ever since they have been up in the attic.
“Of course I am too old to play with those things now, but wouldn’t I just love to fit up a play-house with them for those poor little orphans! We’ll do it, too, if mumsie is willing.”
Betty’s mother gladly gave her consent, and the following Saturday found the Sunny Seven in the orphanage garden. The little cottage had been thoroughly cleaned, much to the delight of Rosamond Wright, who did not care to attend another scrubbing-party.
The two orphans, Eva Dearman and Amanda Brown, at Adele’s invitation, came out to help, and how happy they were to be included!
“I do wish that the Mother Goose box would come, so that we might begin to unpack it,” Betty Burd declared impatiently.
“Bob said that he would bring it over just as soon as his morning work was done,” Bertha explained.
“Here he comes now, and Jack Doring is with him!” Doris Drexel called. The girls crowded to the sunny window and looked out at the driveway; then Adele threw open the door as Bob leaped to the ground. Pretending to be a cartman, the boy exclaimed in a rather poor imitation of Irish brogue, “Good day to yez. And where will yez be afther havin’ the baggage put?”
“Oh, Bob!” Betty Burd cried. “Weren’t you an angel to bring it over for us!”
“Of course he’s an angel, and so am I, too, for that matter!” Bertha exclaimed.
“Oh, I quite forgot that ‘Angel’ is his name,” Betty gayly replied. “But do please bring the box right in and set it in the middle of the floor.”