"I wasn't really making fun of you, and I'm dying to hear," said Amy.
"Tell ahead, Margery; hurry up," added Jack.
Thus urged, Margery sat up, putting down her feet, upon which she had been sitting, and smoothing her skirt to do honor to what she had to reveal.
"I was thinking," she began, "that we might form a club, we four."
"Like the A. G. L.?" asked Amy.
They had banded themselves into an Anti-Gum League, and wore its badge, designed and made by Jack, which consisted of a piece of gum stuck on a bent pin on the centre of a wooden disk, and preceded by the word "No," in large red letters, which of course made the badge read: "No Gum." The only trouble was that the gum frequently fell off, and had to be renewed, and it required chewing in order to mould it soft enough for the pin to enter. The duty of preparing the gum for the badges was unanimously appointed to Jack, and honor forbade his chewing longer than the flavor lasted, which was an agreeable circumstance, and one that made him entertain secret doubts as to his being a worthy member of the league.
"No, not like the A. G. L.," said Margery, replying to Amy's question. "The A. G. L. has a noble end, for chewing gum is a bad habit; but this would be more of a club, and only be for fun, though I think it would improve us."
"Oh, what is it anyway?" cried Trix impatiently.
"There's a big tree down in the orchard," said Margery, "and it's hollow. I thought we might each take a character, and use that name for our letters, and Jack could fix up a box with partitions in it, and we could put it in the hollow tree, and we'd have——"