"No, but I did think maybe it had skipped your mind just for a minute."
"Well, it hasn't. What does your Fourth of July money have to do with the Home children and white aprons?"
"White aprons ain't in it—only that one I should like to give Lottie, but that can be any day. What we want to do is share our fire-crackers with the Home children, 'cause the Lady Boards don't allow for such things in raising money to take care of the Home, and so the children won't have any to celebrate with, 'nless their fathers bring them a few, and mostly the fathers are too hard up for that. Allee and me have dollars and dollars in our bank just to cluttervate our love of country with, and we thought this would be a splendid chance to—"
"Spread the d'sease," finished Allee, as Peace paused for want of words to express her ideas.
"It ain't a disease, Allee Greenfield! To make 'em happy—that's what I meant to say."
"A very worthy object, my dear."
"Then you like it and won't kick?"
"If you have considered the matter carefully and want to share your Fourth of July with the Home children, I am perfectly willing, girlies, and will do all I can to help you succeed."
"That's what we wanted to know, grandpa," she cried gleefully. "You'll have all kinds of chances to help, too, 'cause I've just thought of ice-cream and watermelon—if they are ripe by that time—and ice-cream anyway, with a nice picnic dinner to go with the fire-crackers and Roming candles. Some of 'em have never had but two or three dishes of ice-cream in all their lives. Think how tickled they will be! P'raps my Lilac Lady will invite them all over to her house to celebrate, 'cause it always seems so much nicer to go away somewhere for a picnic, even if 'tis only a few blocks. And the stone house has great wide lawns, bigger'n ours, though I like ours best on account of the river, even if we haven't all the lovely flowers which Hicks has planted in his gardens."
Thoughtfully the President lifted the shade behind the couch and looked out across the smooth velvet turf, sloping gently to the river bank in one long, even stretch, broken by an occasional posy-bed, and liberally dotted with giant oaks and stately lindens. It was an ideal spot for a picnic or lawn social such as Peace had described; and Japanese lanterns suspended among the branches and hung about the wide verandas would make it a veritable fairyland for the little folks of the Home, whose gala days were so few and far between.