“Oh, no—it isn’t far,” said Winona, “and it won’t be late when I get back. Besides, I’ll have Florence and the doggie.”
“Very well,” said her mother. “And don’t try to cook things that are too gorgeous, my dear, because we haven’t as much money as the Bryans, and it might turn out to be very expensive.”
“I’ll remember,” said Winona, starting off with her little sister beside her, and Puppums careering wildly about them both. But it was one of the things that never did worry the Merriams, whether or not they had as much money as their neighbors. The three children and the dog, as their friends said, “always did seem to be having such a good time!” They were handsome and light-hearted—that is, the children were. Puppums was more remarkable for brains than beauty, as Tom said; being part pug, part bull-terrier and part fox-terrier, with a dash of retriever suspected in his remote ancestry. However, as long as he had his own way and plenty of bones and enough laps to sit on, neither his looks nor anything else worried the Puppums dog. His family had intended to give him a very fine name, but as Puppums he started when he was a small, wriggling mongrel-baby, and to nothing but Puppums would he ever deign to answer. So the family made the best of it. It was a way they had, anyway.
Florence began to career around her sister very much as the dog was doing, singing at the top of her voice meanwhile. So, as Winona did not have to talk, she began to think. What her mother had said about their not having so much money as the Bryans set her to wondering, not about herself, but about Adelaide Hughes. She had noticed that Mrs. Bryan seemed to want Adelaide to make friends with the other girls, and that Adelaide herself was very apt to leave the first advances to them. And the reason, she supposed, was that Adelaide felt she was too poor to keep up with them, or so Tom had said.
“But I don’t ever feel as if I had to keep up with Helen, and she has twice as many dresses and twice as much money to spend as I have,” meditated Winona. “I wonder if I could ask Adelaide about it without hurting her feelings. I will if I get the chance.”
About this time Winona and her caravan reached the Bryan house, and Florence ran ahead so quickly to ring the bell that Winona had to run, too, to be there when the door opened.
“I’ve brought my family, Mrs. Bryan!” said Winona. “I hadn’t any choice—they simply would come. It’s really your fault for being so popular with them.”
“Your family’s very welcome!” said Mrs. Bryan. “If it’s willing to be useful. What about it, Florence,—will you run errands for us if we want you to?”
“Course I will!” said Florence, flinging herself bodily on Mrs. Bryan and hugging her hard. “I want to work!”
“Puppums wants to help, too,” said Helen.