“They try to,” Arthur answered, “but they never do so well as Dicky.”
“You ought to see their nose-pinchers,” Rosie laughed. “They can’t stand up straight. And their boxes and steamships are the wobbliest things.”
“I’m going to get all kinds of stuff for things we make for the fair,” Maida said reflectively. “Gold and silver paper and colored stars and pretty fancy pictures for trimmings. You see if you’re going to charge real money you must make them more beautiful than those for which you only charged nails.”
“That’s right,” Dicky said. “By George, that will be great! You go ahead and buy whatever you think is right, Maida, and I’ll pay you for it from what we take in at the fair.”
“That’s settled. What do you whittle, Arthur?”
“Oh, all kinds of things—things I made up myself and things I learned how to do in sloyd in school. I make bread-boards and rolling pins and shinny sticks and cats and little baskets out of cherry-stones.”
“Jiminy crickets, he’s forgetting the boats,” Dicky burst in enthusiastically. “He makes the dandiest boats you ever saw in your life.”
Maida looked at Arthur in awe. “I never heard anything like it! Can you make anything for girls?”
“Made me a set of the darlingest dolls’ furniture you ever saw in your life,” Rosie put in from the floor.
“Say, did you get into any trouble last night?” Arthur turned suddenly to Rosie. “I forgot to ask you.”