“I don’t need a new stove,” Dixie said emphatically. “My goodness me, come to think of it, I wouldn’t have a new stove for anything, now that I’ve spent two hours and twenty-five minutes polishing the old one. It looks so fine. I’m sure it will feel heaps more self-respecting, and I shouldn’t wonder if it would bake better, too.” Then her eyes brightened with the light of inspiration. “Ken Martin, we’ll give it a chance to show what it can do right this very minute. You fetch in that basket of apples you had for a sample, and I’ll make an apple pudding, the kind you like so much, and we’ll celebrate.”
“Celebrate? For what?” Ken looked up curiously. Was there no end to the cheerfulness of this sister of his?
Dixie was groping about in her mind for something over which they might rejoice. “Oh, we’ll celebrate because we have a new teacher,” she announced triumphantly, and the next thought made her clap her hands joyfully. “Ken Martin, if it’s what you’d like to do, I wish you’d go right over to the inn and invite Miss Bayley to lunch.”
Their beautiful mother had always called the noon meal lunch, although Pine Tree Martin could never remember, and had always called it dinner.
Ken rubbed his sleeve over his eyes and looked up eagerly. “Then you really aren’t so terribly disappointed about the apples?”
“Disappointed? Goodness, no! I’d feel sort of mean selling that old stove of ours that’s been so faithful all these years just for scrap-iron, and, what’s more, I feel sure all this is a blessing in disguise.” Dixie had risen and was smiling down at her brother, who also rose.
“Say, Dix,” he said, “you’re as good as a square meal when a fellow’s hungry.” Then he laughingly added, “But, if not selling the apples is a blessing, it sure certain is well disguised.”
“Most things are blessings soon or late,” Dixie said. “Now, Ken, you go and tell Miss Bayley we’re sort of celebrating, and we’d feel greatly honored if she would come.”
Then into the house Dixie bounced to share her joyous plan with Carol. “Oh, how I do hope teacher will come,” that little maid said. “Then we’ll be first to have her, and won’t I crow over that horrid Jessica Archer though?”
“You’d ought not to feel that way about anybody, Carol, dear,” the older girl admonished as she sat on the doorstep and began to pare apples. “If folks are horrid-acting, they are to be pitied, because they can’t be happy inside. Now, if you like, you may set the table with the best cloth and china while I make the pudding and put some potatoes in to bake.”