"Oh, Mumsie, I love this place already," whispered Jean contentedly, snuggling close to her mother's side.
"Do you, dear?" Mrs. Robbins smiled down into the eldest robin's face. For some reason she always waited for Jean's judgment and opinion.
"Yes, I do, because it isn't really a farm and still we can have a garden and sell the hay and get out wood and raise all we need for ourselves. I don't think we can do much else the first year, can we, Cousin Roxy?"
"If you do all that you'll be getting along finely. I'm going to start you off chicken raising with a lot of little ones from my incubator. You can buy all you want for ten cents apiece, and if you get about fifteen last year pullets and a rooster, you've got your barnyard family all started."
"Oh, I want to be mother to the incubator chickens; may I, please?" begged Doris instantly. "I think one of the saddest things in life is to be hatched without a mother."
"Sympathetic Dorrie," laughed Kit, catching her down on the grass and rolling her. "She's going to adopt all the chickens and goodness only knows what else."
"I'm going to keep bees," Helen announced serenely, with a certain aloofness in her manner quite as if she had stated that her chosen occupation was one befitting a damsel of high degree. "I've always wanted bees ever since I read Maeterlinck's 'Life of the Bee.' I want a garden close and bees that bring me home the honey from the clover fields and meadows fair."
"Lovely," Jean exclaimed, hugging her knees, and rocking to and fro contentedly. "You always select such royal occupations, Helenita. I shall be the middleman of the farm. I am going to find markets for all that my princess sisters raise. I'll make the castle pay expenses and that's more than most castles do. I want a horse and some sort of a wagon."
"Don't get anything foolish," admonished Cousin Roxana. "Either a good low buggy with a top for bad weather, and a good deep space at the back to tuck things away in, or else a covered democrat's nice too, and you can put in an extra seat in them if you like. I guess a democrat's the best thing for you after all."
"Until we get our roadster," supplemented Helen. "I know Mother'll never get along way up here without some kind of a car, will you, Mother dear?"