The day came at last. We had from Thursday evening until the next Monday afternoon. (What a trying day Sunday was. Do you think it was very, very wicked counting our jacks and nuns, and seeing how much they would bring?)
The dining-room table Mamma let us have, and a string running across the room made a splendid trapeze, where the nuns flirted and danced with their jacks, the tea-kettles bubbled and the acorn baskets turned somersaults. Oh! ’twas just shocking! And the acorn dolls that kept watch over the fancy articles didn’t behave a bit better. They bowed and curtseyed until their heads bobbed off. Even the brave potato-man, who was marshal of the day, could scarcely sit still on his potato-horse. Perhaps they felt good because they were going to raise the A. M. A. debt.
And it was just as Mabel and Olive had said: Miss Haynes did buy a jack and Miss Leonard a nun, and Miss Ilsley and Miss Pratt both took dolls. Then those who had jacks wanted nuns and those who had nuns must have jacks, and no one could resist the acorn dolls, their heads rolled off so easily. Our buttonhole bouquets, too, were just one cent, and little Ruthie Chadbourne’s papa and mamma thought missionary candy very good for her, so they bought ever so many little scallop-shells full at five cents apiece.
Miss Hunter, of Greenwood, was here, and had to buy out of politeness, and when it was all over Mamma bought us out—that was, we are quite sure, out of kindness. We had forgotten to say that Father and Mother had come home. They had to come to help buy the things, you see. Now that it is all over, we want you should know what a happy time we had, and send you our pennies to raise the debt with. Your friends and co-workers,
Three Little Riggs Children
And Their Three Riggs-Warner Cousins.
P. S.—We have forgotten all about our chocolate creams.
Santee Agency, Neb., September, 1886.