At the close of this letter, everybody just laughed. It was so funny! But everybody was very anxious to try the scrapbooks, so they didn’t wait for morning. Henry made himself one that very night after dinner. His was made of beautiful red paper. It was most handsome! He made one for Mother and one to take home to Father from the crow. He made one, too, for baby Katherine to put picture cards into. Oh, I tell you Henry worked hard. He said he’d make one for Jimsi to carry to the little lame girl, but Jimsi said she thought Joyce might enjoy the fun of making her own. So Henry started to make himself another—when bed-time came! He declared he’d finish it in the morning. It was a very splendid scrapbook—or it was going to be—made with three whole sheets of nice fresh wrapping paper cut to be eight by fifteen inches. But he went off to bed to dream of it. Oh, Caw Caw knew what children like to play!
They all said, “Good-night, Crow,” after they had kissed Aunt Phoebe and Mother good-night, and then all went to dream of Caw Caw making magic plays with the sample book of wall paper.
CHAPTER IX
The Pin-Wheels, Birds, Butterflies
THE next morning bright and early before breakfast, Henry was downstairs in The Happy Shop busy with the finishing of last night’s scrapbook. It had a handsome cover of dark wall paper with a design of large and splendid flowers and leaves colored purple and red and green and dull blue. To tie the cover on, Henry was using strands of raffia of the same shades. Aunt Phoebe did basketry and had quite a big basket full. The children were always welcome to use it. He was so interested that he just said, “Oh, hello, Jimsi!” when Jimsi came down later, just before the breakfast hour. She had come as soon as she was dressed for she wanted to look in the mail-box and see if there was a crow letter there. Henry had quite forgotten to look. He thought of nothing at all but his grand scrapbook.
Jimsi reached for the crow mail-box. Sure enough, there was a letter in it. Hurrah! “Oh, look, Henry!” she exclaimed. “See!”
Henry jumped up and came to examine the mail-box, and he took the little blue envelope out. Oh, it was for baby Katherine this time! Nothing for Jimsi! Nothing for Henry!
They dropped the letter back into the box again. “Won’t it be fun to see her when she finds it?” laughed Jimsi. “I wonder what’s in Katherine’s letter?”
“Katherine can’t use scissors very well,” Henry suggested doubtfully. “She can cut some, but not very well. She’s learned some things in kindergarten. I hope the crow has told her something that you and I can do, too. I have made enough scrapbooks for now and I can’t begin to stick my stamps and things in till I go home, Monday. What are you going to use your scrapbook for, Jimsi?”