This was done. Then, while the five children sat about the board, eating the porridge and cream, on which bananas had been sliced to make it “extra better,” as Ken declared, Carol began to tease first one and then another. “Sylvia,” she accused, “I know, by a sort of laughing look in your eyes, that you know just what the s’prise is to be.”
“Of course she knows, and so do we all,” Dixie put in, “but we won’t any of us tell, not until the clock strikes two. Then it’s going to happen.”
Carol clapped her hands. “Oh! Oh! It’s something that’s going to happen, is it?” Then, whirling unexpectedly and facing her big brother, she challenged: “Ken Martin, I never knew you to tell a lie in your whole life, and so I’m going to ask you. Is the surprise going to happen here in this house?”
“Don’t you tell, brother,” Dixie warned.
The laughing lad sprang up. “I’m off for the Valley Ranch. Won’t be back till lunch.” Then, seizing his hat, he darted away, stopping in the door to say, “Now, if Carol finds out, it won’t be from me.”
Such a merry morning as those three girls had. Jimmy-Boy was too young to understand what the laughter and bantering was all about. At last lunch was over; Ken had returned, and the excitement in that old log cabin was tense, for the two older Martins and their guest were preparing for the surprise trying all the time to hide even the simplest of these preparations from the curious gaze of the one most interested.
At last it was half-past one and time to dress. The three small girls had climbed the ladder to the loft, and Dixie looked often at her small sister, who was donning the very best gingham and buttoning it down the front. Now and then the violet eyes glanced across the room to where Sylvia Clayburn stood arrayed in her pretty pink silk dress, but the sigh of yearning that arose to Carol’s lips was quickly changed to a song.
Tears sprang to the eyes of the little mother, and, kissing the flushed cheek of the small girl who was nine that day, she said softly: “Carol, dearie, how long and beautiful your curls are this year. They hang almost down to your waist now, and they’re so shimmery and silky.”
The younger sister, knowing that Dixie was trying to help her count her blessings, smiled up beamingly, and little Sylvia crossed the room, and, taking one of the truly beautiful curls in her frail hand, she said: “You’d ought to be so happy ’cause you have them, hadn’t she, Dix? My hair looks as though the color’d been all washed out, and it’s straight as anything.”
Carol glanced at the head of her little friend. The pale yellow hair wasn’t a bit pretty, but Dixie was saying: “Sylvia, don’t you mind a thing about it yet. Lots of times hair grows darker. I’ve heard Sue Piggins say that hers was nearly like yours when she was eight and now look at it, a heap of sunny gold.”