“They were not too high,” Isabel said, with a sigh of recollection. “It took pecks and pecks of those pink shells to make the curtains. Kate and I worked on them for two months at odd times.”
“And the tableaux helped out besides. Wasn’t Crullers funny?”
“Forget the past,” Polly ordered. “The future is bobbing right up under our noses, and says ‘attend to me.’ We gave four entertainments—”
“I don’t think they were entertainments, Polly, do you? I think they were fantastic gatherings,” interposed Isabel in her precise way. “The Friendship Fair, where we sold everything that friends could possibly think of—”
“You’re exaggerating, Isabel,” Ruth put in, stolidly. “We just sold airy trifles that people buy to show other people they are remembering them.”
“Same thing,” pronounced Polly. “Have some more shortcake, children, and don’t waste time arguing.”
“The long and the short of it all is this,” said Ruth, who was treasurer of the outing club, and could therefore speak with authority. “Out of the monthly entertainments, fairs, and other things that we have given through the winter, we have cleared about $124.00. Of course Kate Julian helped out too, before she went home, and all the mothers helped, and Polly’s grandfather, but I think we’ve done mighty well.”
“It won’t fill the toe of the stocking when it comes to paying for a real vacation for us girls, Ruth,” Polly returned. “It’s April now, and we must make up our minds where we wish to go, and then work for it with all our might.”
“Now then, how’s the board of lady managers to-day?” demanded a deep voice outside the arbor, and the gray head of the Admiral looked in at them smilingly.