“Papa has a wooden building up there,—sort of a shanty, where he stores the furniture every winter,” went on Pauline. “It is near to Mr. Arnesten’s cottage, and Mr. Arnesten sees to things when papa is away.”
“Are the Arnestens all the neighbors you have, Pauline?”
“Yes, unless you count the Wassons. But the Wassons are three miles away, on papa’s bee-ranch. We’ll go to see them, Molly, when you’re at the camp.”
“Oh, that’ll be delightful!” Molly pushed her heavy auburn hair away from her face, a habit of hers when things pleased her.
“Right after breakfast every morning, Molly, we’ll put on our sunbonnets,—you can borrow auntie’s,—and we’ll march over to Mr. Arnesten’s for the eggs, and see him feed the chickens. He has turkeys besides, and one proud old gobbler that struts about as if he owned all the gold mines of California.”
“Didn’t you say the Arnestens had a little girl, Pauline?”
“Yes, Olga, the old-fashionedest little soul! She has eyes just the color of a grindstone, but her lashes are yellow, and her skin is yellow too. She used to trudge over with buttermilk last summer.”
“Then the Arnestens have a cow?”
“I should say they do! It’s always breaking into the garden and eating up the pease. We mind that, because Mr. Arnesten supplies us with vegetables.”
“And with chickens too, I suppose, Polly?”