“It was a good party,” Jean said happily. “We got acquainted with all our neighbors, and now I feel as if I could go ahead and organize something.”
15. The Haunted House
The following Saturday had been set as the first day for the girls to meet at Woodhow. Lucy was the first to arrive, as she lived nearest, and she brought with her Anne and Charlotte.
Hedda and the two girls from the old Ames place, Ingeborg and Astrid, arrived together and helped Kit and Doris plan the tennis court. Below the terraces the lawn lay smooth and even out to the south wall, but it had been decided to sacrifice a slice of the hay field across the road rather than the garden, and Matt had ploughed up a good-sized oblong of land for them, harrowed it smooth, and then the girls had pondered over the problem of rolling it. It must be rolled flat, wet down, and rolled again until it was fit to use.
“We could fill a barrel with sand, and roll that,” Doris suggested.
“Got something better than that,” Buzzy said. “Over at Mr. Peckham’s they’ve got a road roller. Mr. Peckham’s the road committee in Elmhurst township—”
Kit caught him up. “The whole committee, Buzzy?”
“Ain’t he enough? Ought to see him get out and clean up with those boys of his. He’ll let us take it, I’m sure, and it will roll that court down as smooth as can be. I’ll go after it this afternoon when I finish with the potato patch.”
The house being too far away from the site of the tennis court, the girls had to fill buckets with water from the brook and pour them over the harrowed ground. It was hard work in the hot sun. “I’m half dead,” exclaimed Doris.
“Cheer up, kid,” Kit told her briskly. “Think of the result and what fun it’ll be to play out here.”