Rosemary and Sarah were more than repaid for their long, cold walk, by the evident pleasure the boys took in their warm drink and the two fat doughnuts apiece they had brought them. They knocked off work fifteen or twenty minutes earlier in order to see the girls home before dark, but the next afternoon the doctor's car came and picked up the sisters and the empty coffee can so that the workers lost no time.
For nearly a week, the boys shoveled steadily after school hours, sticking to the job long after the first novelty had worn away. Bill McCormack declared that they were the best "gang" he had ever hired and the Plummers Lane residents ceased to regard them as a joke and began to exchange sociable comments and quips with them, though never descending to the plane of familiarity that included a shovel. Rosemary and Sarah, and now and then Shirley, carried coffee and doughnuts, or hot cocoa and cakes, each afternoon and Doctor Hugh willingly stopped for them in his car. Even the weather ceased to consent to co-operate for after one heavy snow, it cleared and the streets made passable, remained that way till after Christmas.
The most important subject of discussion in the Willis household, along the lines of Christmas preparations, was the box to be sent the little mother in the sanatorium.
"I think we ought to make her something!" announced Rosemary.
"Well, what?" asked Sarah. "I most know she'd love to have one of Tootles' kittens, but I don't suppose we could mail that, could we?"
"Praise be, you can't," said Winnie who had overheard. "Those kittens will be the death of me yet, and what they'd do to sick folks in a sanatorium, I'm sure I don't know and don't want to."
"What'll we make Mother?" urged Shirley, pulling Rosemary's belt.
"I know—a kimona," said Rosemary triumphantly. "That won't be hard, because we'll have only two seams. Mother will love to have something we made her, instead of a gift we just went down town and bought. What color do you think would be pretty, Sarah?"
"Red," said Sarah promptly.
"Pink," begged Shirley. "Make it pink, Rosemary."