One afternoon the Blue Birds gathered about Mrs. Talmage with a complaint.
“Mother Wings, those Bobolinks will be ’way ahead of us in this fun, unless you get the mothers to meet once in a while to suggest things for us to do,” said Ruth, dolefully.
“And from something I heard Don tell Mete, those fathers have promised to help the Bobolinks do the work, too!” broke in Dot Starr.
“Since Ned has moved his printing stuff to the carriage house his den is vacant—we might use that for our Winter Nest, until we find something better,” suggested Mrs. Starr, after thinking seriously of what had just been said.
“That will be all right, but it won’t boost our work like the boys are being boosted,” fretted Norma.
“I shall have to think of it,” replied Mrs. Talmage, deeply concerned over the discontent of the Blue Birds; but Aunt Selina, who had been a silent listener of the complaint, spoke.
“Are those Bobolinks and the men actually helping the success of the magazine?”
“No, not that we can see; they just use paper and fool away every evening running those machines,” snapped Dot, who generally heard all the doings from her brothers.
“Then they are not getting ahead so fast with success as you seem to think,” replied Aunt Selina, calmly. “The principal things in making a magazine pay are its circulation and the advertising contracts. If these are not being thought of and tried, the Bobolinks are wasting their precious time.”
“But they are so well acquainted with the machines that they say they can print anything!” said Dot.