After supper they had a great time deciding where to keep the yokes. Rob wanted them hung up on the wall.
"They look just as pretty as the antlers old Mr. Pine has upon the wall in his house," said Rob; "and we can't ever have any antlers, unless we shoot a deer ourselves. Mr. Pine said a man offered him fifty dollars for them; but he wouldn't take it. I think our yokes look just about as pretty."
"Oh, Rob!" exclaimed Nelly, "how can you talk so? They are not pretty a bit; and you know it!"
"I don't either!" said Rob: "I do think they're pretty; honest, I do."
While they spoke, Mrs. March was hanging one of the yokes on the wall, by a bit of bright red tape, tied in the middle. She hung it quite low, between the door and the south window. Then she hung Nelly's sun-bonnet on the nail above it, and Nelly's little red shawl over one end of the yoke.
"There," she said, "you are right, Rob. It makes quite a pretty hat-rack."
"So it does," said Mr. March. "Now we'll put the other one up the other side the door; and that shall be Rob's, to hang his coat and jacket on."
"My jacket isn't pretty, though, like Nell's shawl," said Rob, wistfully. "Why don't men wear red jackets in this country? In that book of Jan's ever so many of the men have red jackets on, with silver buttons; and they're splendid. Jan has one too in the chest; but he doesn't wear it here, because it would make the folks laugh, he says: it is so different from other clothes here. He put it on for us while Ulrica was showing Nelly the little girl's gown. It did look queer; it came down most to his knees, and had great flaps on the side, and big silver buttons on the front, as big as dollars. But it was splendid: a great deal handsomer than the uniform the Mayfield guards wore."
When Billy came home from Mr. Pike's, Lucinda told him about the yokes which Jan had made for the children to wear, to carry their baskets and pails on. Billy listened with a disturbed face.
"Miss March'll never let 'em wear 'em: will she?"