“Never mind, Maggie, it does seem foolish, but I want them to have their fill of it.”
“Fill—it’s sloppin’ over they are already. Howly Saints—hear that thunder! They’ll not be stayin’ out long to that music I’m thinkin’.”
Mrs. Halford smiled and settled down to her sewing after one parting look at the camp under the gooseberry bushes.
It was truly a comical sight. The old umbrellas swayed uneasily above the green domes below and they could catch glimpses of the gossamer-clad figures, including a generous exposure of bare feet and legs in the leafy gloom beneath.
Maggie came to the sitting-room door a few moments later in the last throes of astonishment.
“And what do you think they be doing now? It’s radin’ they be—radin’! It’s swimmin’ they’ll be doin’ soon I’m a thinkin’!”
Maggie returned to her post indignant at such carryings on.
The rain was coming down steadily. Water was pouring off the eaves in great streams, branches were dripping, and some chickens huddled in a fence corner in the adjoining yard were so dejected that not even an aspiring tail-feather pointed heavenward. The streets were almost deserted and the few passers-by hurried along wet and forlorn. Mrs. Halford began to wonder a little anxiously how long the gooseberry campers would stick it out. She began to have painful visions of sore throats and bronchitis or at the best colds, caught from sitting on the wet ground. She was also fearful lest Mrs. Morton might not approve after all.
“Have you got plenty of boiling water, Maggie?” she called. Hot drinks and hot foot baths could surely be relied upon to ward off colds, she reassured herself, if they didn’t stay too long. She wondered if they were really enjoying it.
The children were beginning to wonder themselves, though not for worlds would either Chicken Little or Katy have confessed to the other that this rainy day playhouse was not all she had fancied.