“The whole float,” chuckled Nicky. “Sure we can make them. Ben’s good at ship models.”
Cara was thrilled, she admitted.
“I never had so much fun in all my life,” she told Babs, enthusiastically. “I just can’t wait to see the other girls’ faces when they hear. Them and their black handers,” she choked, swinging around toward Nicky who was at the door.
“Here!” called out one of the twins, “you must wait for tea. It won’t take a minute. Come back here, Nickolas——”
“I gotta go,” sang back the boy who was waiting for nothing, neither tea, cookies, nor even an auto ride. He was flying back to camp with the five-dollar bill crammed into the peach pit.
“Talk about society,” whispered Cara to Babs, as a little later they sipped their tea from the beautiful old china cups, with the deep garnet gold-rimmed bands, “this beats even a house party. Aren’t the twinnies lovely?”
“But wasn’t that a wonderful surprise? To find the model just where it belonged, and to think that any one could ever suspect——”
“Your Nicky,” finished Cara. “That was mean. But we knew, didn’t we?” she insisted loyally, glancing around her happily, for the scene with the old ladies and the doctor was what Ruth would have called “quaint.”
And speaking of Ruth, it was she who led the cheering squad next day at the Community House when first prize was awarded to the Misses Davis’ entry, the ship model of the famous old Columbus boat, the Santa Maria.
Nicky was there but no one saw him. He was perched on the piece of lattice where the vines were so thick he had to tear them apart to peek into the room. And if he had stirred suddenly he might have spilled himself in, for the queer window was built high in the side wall of the room, and it was wide open. No one could possibly have seen Nicky—he had a grandstand seat, only he had to stand up.