“The cousins get Christmas cards, and that’s all they do get,” interrupted Laurie, decisively. “That’s all they ever give us, and I’d rather spend my money on something that’ll really—really benefit some one. I guess Dad’ll send us some more money, too, for Christmas. We can do it, all right. I’ve got nearly seven dollars right now. I haven’t spent hardly any money this month.”
“All right. Some day soon we’ll go downtown and find out how much it’s going to cost and what we’ll need and everything. I say, we can get Bob to help us, too!”
“Rather! And three or four other fellows, I guess. Every one likes the Widow, and George says there will be five or six fellows here during recess. He was here last year, and he says he had a dandy time.”
“Let’s get George this afternoon and get the thing started. We can find out the—the area and ask the man how much we’ll need.”
“Sure! And we can buy it and store it at Bob’s. Then all we’ll have to do will be carry it over the fence. I’ll go down and see if I can find him. Look here, Neddie. Why don’t we do it before Christmas and make it a sort of Christmas present? Say we worked hard all day Thursday and Friday—”
“Great! Only if it snowed—”
Laurie’s face fell. “Gee, that’s so! I suppose we couldn’t do it if it snowed. Or rained. Or if it was frightfully cold.”
“They say it doesn’t get real cold here until after New Year’s,” said Ned, reassuringly. “But of course it might snow or rain. Well, we’ll do it in time for Christmas if we can. If we can’t, we’ll do it for New Year’s. I’ll bet she’ll be tickled to death. I say, though! We never found out about the color!”
“I did,” answered Laurie modestly. “I asked Polly. She said white.”
“White! Geewhillikins, Laurie, that makes it harder, doesn’t it? We’d have to put on two coats!”