"Oh, charades are stupid!" Billy hated guessing.
Peggy's pencil was going around in tiny circles. She was thinking very hard. Suddenly she sprang to her feet.
"I know! Ken, let's write a play!"
"A play!" cried the others.
"Yes. I've got it all in my head, now. Barb will help us when she comes home. You know Mother is going to invite Aunt Cora and Uncle Tom Jenkins and the Pennys over for dinner Christmas night; we'll surprise them with the play. Marian and Ted and the Penny girls can be in it! Oh, I've always wanted to act! Won't it be _fun!"_
Peggy's enthusiasm won instant support from the others. Because Peggy and Keineth had recently attended a matinee performance of "The Midsummer Night's Dream," sitting in a box and wearing the new pink dresses, Billy and Alice conceded that they knew more about plays and must manage this. There were hours and hours then spent behind locked doors and Mrs. Lee could hear shrieks of laughter with Peggy's voice rising sternly above it. Now and then she caught glimpses of flying figures draped in pink and white, but because it was Christmas-time and the air full of mystery, she pretended to hear and see nothing.
Barbara returned four days before Christmas, very much of a young lady. Though her manner toward the younger children was at first a little patronizing, after a few hours at home it quickly gave way to the old-time comradeship. As soon as she could Peggy dragged her to her room and read to her the lines of the play which she and Keineth had scribbled on countless sheets of paper. Barbara promised to help. To guard the secret the last rehearsals were held at Marian Jenkins', under Barbara's coaching; and Billy and Ted Jenkins printed the programs on Ted's printing press. "Oh, it's going to be the best part of Christmas," Keineth cried delightedly.
But it was not quite the best, for on Christmas morning, after the children had returned from taking their basket to Tim and his family, Keineth found a cablegram from her Daddy, wishing her a merry, merry Christmas!
Somehow, after that, it seemed as if her joy was complete!
The gifts that the Lee children had found in their stockings had been very simple; beside them the elaborate presents that had come in a box from Aunt Josephine seemed vulgar and showy, although Barbara had cried out in delight at her bracelet. To Keineth and Peggy she had sent tiny wrist watches, circled with turquoise.