"Pine needles!" exclaimed James. "How could you work with them? I should think they'd come bristling out all the time."
"They were needles from the long-leaved pine that grows in the South. I got them in North Carolina when Mother and I were there the winter before."
"And you sold a lot of them?" ventured Helen, who was not quite sure that it was polite to ask such a question but who was eager to know just how Dorothy had managed.
"It was easy," explained Dorothy simply. "Mother and I were in a town in Illinois last winter. Mother was teaching embroidery in an art store, so she got acquainted with the ladies who were getting up a bazar at Christmas time and they let me sell my things there on commission."
"On commission? What's that?" asked Ethel Blue to Helen's relief, for she did not like to acknowledge that she did not know.
"On commission? Why, I made a table full of baskets and when they sold them they kept one-tenth of the price for their commission. It was like paying rent for the table you see and a salary to a clerk to sell it. That's the way Mother explained it to me," ended Dorothy rather shyly, for James was staring at her with astonishment that a girl and not a very old girl either should know as much as that about business.
"Hullo, here comes Roger," he exclaimed. "Let's hear what he's been up to," and he left the porch by his usual method—over the rail—and joined his new friend before he reached the house. As they strolled off the girls heard scraps of conversation about "baseball," "first and second crew" and "sailing match."
"Are you all going to the Amphitheatre this evening?" asked Margaret as the Mortons prepared to leave.
"I think Mother will let us go to-night because it's our first night and we're crazy to see everything," replied Ethel Brown, "but she says we've got to go to bed early here just as we do at home or else we'll get thin instead of fat this summer."
"Mother lets me go whenever there are pictures," said Margaret. "Often there are splendid travel lectures that are illustrated. I love those. And once in a while I go to a concert in the evening, but usually I go to the afternoon concerts instead."