"Dad's tray is all ready, Mother mine," Jean replied, sitting up on the tall wood box behind the stove, "I'm just waiting for the scones to bake, and Kit's fixing a beautiful jelly omelette. Mother, dear, you never saw anything so funny as these precious inhabitants, but they're all gold, just the same, and I like them. And we're going to have a lawn party here and invite all the warring factions. Isn't that nice? All the folks that aren't on speaking terms with each other we've asked to serve on the committee, so they'll have to come here for tea and chat sociably and neighborlike with each other."
CHAPTER XIII
COUSIN ROXY TO THE RESCUE
"We've forgotten to write Mr. McRae and tell him how much we like the house," Helen said a few days later.
"He doesn't know anything about the house, or care either," protested Kit, struggling with some raspberry canes that needed disentangling and tying back against the woodshed boards. "He's never even seen it. Do you suppose he has the least bit of sentiment for it the way we have or Piney has? I wouldn't bother to write to him."
"Oh, I would," Helen answered serenely. She was down on her knees in the clover diligently hunting four-leaved ones. "It isn't his fault that he's never seen the place. Maybe we could coax him back."
"We don't want to coax him back. It must be our one endeavor to keep him right out there in Saskatoon forever. We must tell him the cellar's damp and the roof leaks and the whole place has gone to rack. If we don't he may come East and take it away from us, and we want to save up and buy it and give it back to Piney and her Mother and Honey."
"What's Honey's real name?" asked Doris irrelevantly. "I never thought to ask him. Somehow it does seem to suit him, doesn't it?"
"He wants to study electrical engineering or else be a rancher," Kit said. "I never asked him what his real name is. You're awfully inquisitive, Dorrie."
"What do all boys see in ranches, I wonder. Back at the Cove, Otis Phelps always wanted to be a cowboy and he's got to be a lawyer, his father says."