"I see it is a drop-box," remarked Trix dryly, getting square on the account of the previous night.
"O Jack, have you broken them?" cried Amy, while Margery stood still in mute anguish.
"Guess not; no, they're all right," replied Jack, gathering up his burdens. "Aren't they just James dandies?"
The girls, who had renounced slang with gum, pronounced them "lovely" and "beautiful." One was a starch-box, divided through the middle into an upper and lower section, the upper partitioned into three pigeon-holes, each numbered, and the lower half made into two divisions, likewise numbered. The box was painted a wood brown, with the words "Post-Office" in white over the top, and the numbers were also white.
Jack had wanted to paint the box red, but Amy had convinced him that it would be in greater danger of discovery in such a bright color, and he had yielded to prudence.
The second box was red, however, for Jack had literally stood to his colors in this case, maintaining that all Uncle Sam's drop-boxes were red, and Blissylvania's must be no exception to the rule.
This had a slit cut in the top large enough for letters to pass through, and was not less admired than the post-office.
"But how shall we get parcels in?" asked Margery, and Jack explained that for this it was only necessary to lift the lid, which would not be fastened. Every one found this arrangement perfectly satisfactory, and the office was nailed into the tree by Jack at the cost of only one bruised finger, while the girls executed a sort of war-dance around him in irrepressible satisfaction.
The drop-box was fastened on a stump ten or twelve feet from the office, which made it still more like a real post-office, for, as Margery explained, the postmistress could play she was a postman collecting and bringing in the mail when she took the things out of the drop-box, and needn't pretend she was postmaster till she began sorting them at the apple-tree.
Nothing could have been more encouraging than the morning operations, but in the afternoon the H. T. C. and the town of Blissylvania narrowly escaped a catastrophe that would have been like an earthquake, sweeping the fair city from the earth.