That afternoon the B. C. & L. A. gathered in force. Even Tom Davis, brother of Bertha and Agnes, asked for a half-day’s vacation and helped Algernon whitewash. Bert had impressed Max into carpentering, and the work of bookcase-building went on noisily inside the shed. The girls sat on the weedy patch of ground outside, sewing sash curtains.
“It would be quicker to make them on the machine at home, but not nearly so much fun,” 54 said Agnes. “How many books did you and Bert gather up this morning, Dot?”
“Fifty-three volumes besides Miss Ainsworth’s. Those were already over here in the shed. Where is Archie?”
“He and Winifred are coming. They were going to bring a rug Win’s mother said we could have, and two lamps.”
“They will enjoy carrying them over this hot afternoon!” said Bess, deftly hemming a curtain. “But it can’t be so bad as this morning. Girls, we had a perfectly dreadful time. It was all on account of that terrible little Swinburne boy. You see, we thought we’d take the big Penfield boat, instead of the canoes, and just as we were pushing off, that child stepped into the boat from the dock and announced serenely that he was going boating-ride. He did look dear, and quite clean, and we all knew that it was hard to make him change his mind, so we let him come. He sat very still and was as good as gold till we had got a long way from home, and then he began.”
Catherine sighed appreciatively. “I can imagine, Bess dear. But do tell us.”
“You can’t imagine. Nobody could. He talked a blue streak. And the things he said! He asked what he was made of, and how God got the eyes in. He told about somebody’s having a tooth out and went into dreadful details. And then he got 55 off on a worse tack, and asked Archie where his wife was, and when Archie said he wasn’t married, he sighed and looked so sorry, and said: ‘Wasn’t you ever marwied, Archie? Not even once?’ He simply spoiled our morning. It wasn’t so much what he did say, as what we thought he might be going to. We had to turn around and come home long before we wanted to, just on account of that child.”
“If you had only thought to have Win sing to him,” said Catherine. “He will drop off to sleep with the least assistance, even when he seems widest awake, and Win’s lullabies are irresistible. There! that’s the last curtain. And there come Archie and Win with a donkey-cart, and–why, what do you think they have? It can’t be just a rug and two lamps.”
Every one broke off work to go to meet the donkey-cart, a low, long, box affair, with Winifred and Archie on the seat, and a quantity of furniture and boxes in the back.
Algernon, still holding a brush, took the donkey by the bridle and backed him up.