“We can find one, probably,” replied his brother, untroubled. “We haven’t settled about the entertainment yet. And there are two or three other things we haven’t got to. Starling’s going to have his garden all fixed up, and he’s going to cover the old arbor with branches and hang Chinese lanterns in it and have little tables and chairs there for folks to sit down and eat ice-cream and cake.
“And that reminds me, Polly. Do you suppose that Miss Comfort would make some cakes for us?”
“Why, yes, Nid, but—but you’d have to buy them. I don’t think you ought to expect her to donate them.”
“We meant to buy them, of course, Polly. And we wondered if your mother would make some of those dandy cream-puffs.”
“I’m sure she will. How many would you want?”
“I don’t know. You see, there’s no way of telling how many will come. There are three thousand people in Orstead, but that doesn’t mean much, does it? The ‘Messenger’ editor’s agreed to put in an advertisement for us for nothing, and there’ll be notices all around town in the windows: we got the man who prints the school monthly to do them for just the cost of the paper. So folks ought to come, shouldn’t you think?”
“Oh, I’m sure they will!” agreed Polly, and Mae echoed her. “But it’ll be dreadfully hard to know how much cake and ice-cream and refreshments to order, won’t it?”
“Fierce,” agreed Ned. “I suppose the best way will be to reckon on, say, three hundred and order that much stuff. Only, how do you tell how much three hundred will eat?”
“Why, you can’t! Besides, Nid, three hundred people would only bring in seventy-five dollars!”
“In admissions, yes; but we’ve got to make them buy things when we get them in there. If every one spent a dollar inside—”