“Oh, the tests are all easy but the next one,” cried Edith Whiton, “that is not a cinch by any means: how to remove a cinder from the eye—”
“Or any other foreign substance!”
“We have to know all the primary colors, too,” went on Edith.
“Pshaw, any kindergarten kid knows that,” spoke the Encyclopedia, who up to this moment had taken no part in this flow of information, “but to tie a bundle properly, that means hard labor.”
“Yes, indeed,” added Jessie Ford quickly, “one has to have an awful lot of practice to do that. I worked so hard tying up bundles at home for every one in the house that Father suggested I apply for a position as bundle-wrapper at some department store. And I would have, just for a joke, if I hadn’t succeeded in making every one for whom I tied a bundle give me five cents—and I made a dollar.” Her eyes gleamed reminiscently.
“You have forgotten about the trees!” called out the Sport.
“Yes, we have to name three kinds of trees, three flowers and three birds.”
“Easy!” chimed the girls in unison.
“But the hardest—that was for me—” exclaimed Grace (Nathalie bent forward eagerly, for somehow she did like Grace), “was to earn or to save fifty cents and put it in the bank.” There was a general shout at this, for, as Helen explained in an aside to Nathalie, Grace was the richest girl in the Pioneer group. She had a beautiful home, her own automobile, her own allowance, and yet she was always hard up.
“She’s awfully generous, you know, and doesn’t know how to count her pennies,” she added wisely, “the way we girls do, because we have to. But she’s learning.”