CHAPTER X
The May Baskets
JUST as soon as little Katherine had tried her pin-wheels indoors, Henry and Jimsi decided that outdoors where there is wind, pin-wheels would turn much better and faster, so the children jumped into cloaks and caps and made for the garden. It was still too early to go over to see the little lame girl. They all decided to wait and make the crow’s butterfly and bird toys when Joyce could try them, too. But the pin-wheels were really out-door toys and one had to run about to make them go.
Katherine had two pin-wheels, one in each hand. One was blue and pink and the other was made of flowered paper with green paper inside. Henry had a red and brown pin-wheel that he had made very large indeed. Jimsi’s pin-wheel was an attempt to be “different,” she said. She had tried to cut the edges in scallop. There was also a rosebud cut from wall paper, and it came at the center of her pin-wheel under the pin. They all had great fun running about the garden in the crisp winter morning air, each trying to see which pin-wheel would turn best. Katherine’s flowered pin-wheel, it was agreed, was a huge success. Then, Jimsi’s broke. She had to go indoors to mend it and when she came out, she had her Magic Book rolled up tight under her arm. “We can go over to see Joyce, Mother says,” called Jimsi from the door-step. “Hurry up!”
So off they trotted.
As Jimsi had forgotten all about the crow’s surprise when she and Joyce were busy making stencils and embroidery patterns, it was perfectly unexpected for Henry and Katherine to appear behind Jimsi that morning when the door opened and let the children into the room where the little lame girl’s chair was rolled into the bow-window beside the big table. Why, at first Joyce just stared and then, laughing, she held out a hand to each. “Oh, I know now who you are! You’re Katherine and Henry,” she beamed. “But I didn’t know you were coming. Jimsi never told me there was going to be such a lovely party!”
“Oh,” Jimsi laughed. “Your patterns and things were so interesting, I forgot to tell you crow promised me a big surprise. I forgot all about it till I went back to Aunt Phoebe’s. In the afternoon, I went down to The Happy Shop and I found that crow had brought Mother and Henry and sister Katherine for the surprise.”
“Well, well!” laughed the little lame girl, “and you didn’t suspect at all?”
“Not a weeny bit!”
“And it was a surprise for me, too,” declared Joyce. “Now, what are we going to do to have fun this morning?”
Little Katherine held out her two pin-wheels. “You can make these,” she suggested.