All this was two years before this Thanksgiving; and now Mother Brimmer and the successful business firm and Roly Poly were to have a party!
After the breakfast dishes were cleared away, the boys hurrying off to the shop, as they anticipated a rushing trade for the day, the old kitchen began to assume the aspect of getting ready for some great festivity, while it smelt of spices and boiling sweets clear out beyond the lilacs and down to the front gate. Every passer-by must have known that it was Thanksgiving, and suspected pies and such other accompaniments of the national holiday at once.
The stoning of raisins and buttering of cake-pans fell to Rosy to do, who was excused from shop duty for the morning to help the mother in her unwonted tasks; and patiently the little girl performed it all, secretly planning, as she waited on the busy housewife, taking the thousand and one necessary steps in and out the buttery and pantry, if one of her little wood-gardens remained unsold in the shop, to take it to dress the dinner-table on the morrow.
“They can’t all be sold,” thought Rosy, almost wishing for the moment that there was not quite such a demand for them. “If the red partridge-berries could only stay at home, what a party we would have!”
But when Cornelius ran in to dinner, Jack staying behind to mind the shop, he shouted out gleefully, “Rosy, every single one of your gardens is gone, and we could have sold two more if we’d had ’em!” Rosy gave a great sigh, and then reproached herself for even wishing it otherwise.
“Rosy’ll make more money than any of us,” declared Cornelius, generally called “Corny,” between his mouthfuls. “How I wish I’d thought about fixing up roots and ferns and such things in old cracked saucers.”
“But you help me,” cried Rosy. “I couldn’t even dig the roots without you, Corny.”
“And me, too!” cried Roly Poly, or Primrose, which was her real name. “I always go with you, Rosy, you know,” and she laid down the little bone she was slowly picking to regard her sister gravely.
“So you do!” cried Rosy and Cornelius together. “I’m sure we couldn’t ever get along without you, Pet;” whereat the baby of the family felt happy, and smilingly resumed her bone once more.