"So we are! so we are!" shouted Rob, running up so fast that the pails on the rods of his yoke swung back and forth high up in the air. "We are the four-armed boy and girl of Rosita. They'll want us for a show. Four arms on a boy are as wonderful as two heads on a calf."
How Mr. March did laugh! The children's fun was contagious. He seized Rob's yoke, and tried to put it on his own shoulders; but it was as much too small for him as Nelly's had been for her mother. Then he sat down on the fence, and examined the yokes carefully. They were beautifully made out of very slender young aspen-trees, which could be easily bent into place. The wood was almost white, and shone like satin: Jan had rubbed it so long.
"He says when the white gets dirty he will paint them for us," said Nelly: "all bright colors, as they have them in Sweden. But while they keep clean they are prettier white."
Ulrica had put a soft cushion of red cloth at the place where the yoke rested on the neck behind; also, on each rod just where the hands grasped them. Mrs. March examined them carefully.
"This is beautiful cloth," she said: "I wonder where the woman got it."
"Oh! she has a big roll of it in a chest," said Nelly. "I saw it; and a big piece of beautiful blue, too. It was made in Sweden, she says; and she has a queer gown, which was her little girl's that is dead, all made of this red and blue cloth, with—oh!—millions of little silver buttons sewed on it, all down the front. She wanted me to try it on; but I did not like to. It was too small, too: not too short; I think it would have come down to my feet. Do little girls in Sweden wear long gowns, like grown-up ladies, mamma?"
"I don't know, dear," said Mrs. March.
"She has some of the little girl's hair in the same chest; and she took it out and held it close to mine."
"Yes," said Rob: "I didn't want her to. How did we know she was clean?"
"Oh, for shame, Rob!" cried Nelly: "they're all as clean as pins; you know they are. But I didn't like her to do it, because it made her cry."