“Then I jumped out from behind the door and cried: ‘April fool!’
“‘So it is,’ she said; ‘an’ it’s a fine one you’ve given me; I’ll not forget it of you.’
“After breakfast mamma was just going to get Baby to sleep, and some one came to see her on business. She asked me to keep him till she could get back. I took him, and rocked and sung to him, and he went to sleep. I laid him down in his crib, and then hid to see what mamma would do. I heard her hurrying upstairs and into the room. Then she stopped and stared. I stepped up softly behind her and kissed her, and said, ‘April fool!’ She thought it was a nice one.
“Uncle Guy came in and asked mamma to mend his glove when she had time. As quick as I could I got my thimble and needle and silk and mended the glove; and when he came in again in a hurry and said: ‘Well, I can’t wait now for it to be mended,’ he drew it on and said, ‘Why, it is mended.’ Then I called out, ‘April fool, Uncle Guy!’
“‘O, you little rogue!’ he said; ‘I’ll pay you up.’
“Well, then I mended Frank’s sails to his boat when he started to do it and papa called him away, and”—
“What did you do for your father?” asked Marjie Day.
“Oh! papa said he must hunt up some papers in the library at lunch-time, so I looked them up and laid them on his plate, and when he said: ‘Why, how did these get here?’ I said: ‘April fool!’ And that’s all,” added Helen, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes.
“Well!” exclaimed Carrie Andrews, “if that don’t beat the Dutch.”
“Wasn’t it a good way?” asked Helen, almost crying.