There sat smiling Mrs. Hart, with knitting in hand, a delightful odor of coffee in the air, and a sign over her table which said “Coffee two-cents.”
“Let’s have some,” said Jack; “how good it smells!”
“Since you went out, Miss Alice,” said Mrs. Hart, as she poured the two cups, “a big package of coffee—ten pounds at the least—and another of sugar has most mysteriously appeared;” and she nodded towards the grocer’s part of the house, to indicate the giver.
“Why, what have you to do with it?” asked Jack, looking sharply at Alice.
“She!” exclaimed Mrs. Hart. “Don’t you know? She got it up; it’s all her doing—everything in this room.”
“No, no, Mrs. Hart,” protested Alice, “I didn’t give a single thing.”
“Except your time and the plan, and everything,” said Mrs. Hart warmly.
“What does it mean? Tell me, Alice,” asked Jack; and she told him. “And the room is for you, Jack, and the other boys; and every evening there’ll be a bright fire and hot coffee, and Mrs. Hart to make it, and I hope—oh, I do hope—you’ll come here and have a good time every night,” she ended.
Jack was touched. “Ally, you’re a trump! and I’ll do it sure.”
And he did. At first when the story got out, all the boys came from curiosity to see what one girl had done; and after that they continued to come because it was the pleasantest place in town and all their own.