According to her promise to take the girls to the market with her, Florence called Peggy and Jo Ann the next morning as soon as she awoke. It was only half-past six, but the sun was already making a geometric pattern across the floor where it shone through the iron bars of the window.
Jo Ann was impatient to start the minute she had finished dressing. Yesterday she had looked forward to the trip only because it would be interesting, but now she was eager to find a store where she could buy the rope she needed for exploring the mysterious window. She knew that it would be difficult to make this purchase without Florence’s finding out about it, but if she could only find where to get the rope she could return later, alone, and buy it.
“Oh, hurry up, Peg,” scolded Jo Ann as she stood in the doorway, waiting. “You’ve primped long enough. We’re just going to market—no one’ll see you.”
“But what’s the hurry?” calmly inquired Peggy as she patted the waves of her auburn hair into place. “It wouldn’t hurt your appearance any if you spent a little more time primping, as you call it.”
“Well, if I were as fussy as you are——” Jo Ann began; then, leaving the sentence unfinished, she disappeared into the hall. There was no use arguing with Peggy. She just wouldn’t hurry—every hair must be in place.
A few minutes later, when Peggy and Florence joined her in the hall, Jo Ann asked with a meaning glance toward Felipe, who was waiting with a split-cane basket on his arm, “Do we have to take him along?”
“Why, yes; he always goes with me to carry the basket,” explained Florence in surprise.
“I’ll carry the basket for you, and we won’t need him,” Jo Ann volunteered quickly.
Florence shook her head vigorously. “You’re not a servant, Jo. I wouldn’t think of letting you carry the basket. That would never do.”
“Oh, well—all right, then. Just as you say.”