True to his promise, Doctor Hugh took his family to the high school cafeteria for supper and Jack Welles, who was one of the carvers, served them in fine style. Frank Fenton was manager and he insisted on securing the most desirable table for them, much to Doctor Hugh's amusement and Sarah's ill-concealed disgust.
"Why do you smile and say 'How do you do' to him, Rosemary?" she demanded of her sister hotly. "I think it's untruthful to pretend to like people you don't."
"Well it isn't!" flung back Rosemary, who was tired from standing behind the cake table that afternoon. "It's impolite to stick out your tongue at them the way you do!"
"Let me catch you doing that!" Doctor Hugh warned Sarah. "However, children, let's not have any quarrels on a fair night. How late are they going to keep this up, Rosemary?"
"Only till eight o'clock," Rosemary answered. "We have to go back, now, Hugh, and serve at the tables. Are you and Aunt Trudy coming up?"
"Right away," he assured her. "And we'll bring our pocketbooks."
The fair was an unquestionable success. Shirley's bouquets sold swiftly and her tray was replenished again and again that evening and during the next Saturday afternoon. Sarah convulsed her customers by her business-like manner and she did a thriving trade in gold fish.
Winnie came Saturday afternoon and bought a large cake and another for Mrs. Welles who was kept home by a bad cold. The coveted state of bare tables was attained an hour before the fair was scheduled to close Saturday afternoon, and the Eastshore pupils had the pleasant knowledge that they would have more money to turn over to the hospital than in any previous year.
Spring came to Eastshore with fascinating suddenness. One night it was blustery and cold and householders stoked their furnaces with a sigh for the nearly empty coal bins, and the following morning a South wind blew gently, robins chirped on the lawns that showed a faint green tinge and children appeared in school with huge bundles of pussy willows.
"What do you say to fixing up the garden, Rosemary?" Doctor Hugh suggested, tumbling a sheaf of seed catalogues on the living-room table early in April. "If Mother comes home in June, she'd like to find plenty of flowers growing, wouldn't she?"