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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brother and Sister, by Josephine Lawrence
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Brother and Sister
+
+Author: Josephine Lawrence
+
+Posting Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #4784]
+Release Date: December, 2003
+First Posted: March 18, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROTHER AND SISTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BROTHER AND SISTER
+
+
+BY
+
+JOSEPHINE LAWRENCE
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+  "BROTHER AND SISTER'S SCHOOLDAYS"
+  "BROTHER AND SISTER'S HOLIDAYS"
+
+  BROTHER AND SISTER SERIES
+
+  BY JOSEPHINE LAWRENCE
+
+  1. BROTHER AND SISTER
+  2. BROTHER AND SISTER'S SCHOOLDAYS
+  3. BROTHER AND SISTER'S HOLIDAYS
+
+
+
+
+BROTHER AND SISTER
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     I. THE MORRISONS
+    II. GRANDMA HASTINGS
+   III. SISTER IN MISCHIEF
+    IV. PARTY PREPARATIONS
+     V. DICK'S BUTTONS
+    VI. RALPH'S PRESENT
+   VII. MORE PRESENTS
+  VIII. THE PARTY
+    IX. OUT IN THE BARN
+     X. THE HAUNTED HOUSE
+    XI. JIMMIE'S SURPRISE
+   XII. A LITTLE SHOPPING
+  XIII. A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT
+   XIV. TWO IN TROUBLE
+    XV. TROUBLE AGAIN
+   XVI. MISS PUTNAM COMPLAINS
+  XVII. MAKING UP WITH JIMMIE
+ XVIII. MICKEY GAFFNEY
+   XIX. A VERY SICK DOLL
+    XX. PLANS FOR MICKEY
+   XXI. BROTHER AND SISTER PAY A CALL
+  XXII. MICKEY OWNS UP
+
+
+
+
+BROTHER AND SISTER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE MORRISONS
+
+
+"Brother," said Mother Morrison, "you haven't touched your glass of
+milk. Hurry now, and drink it before we leave the table."
+
+Brother's big brown eyes turned from his knife, which he had been
+playing was a bridge from the salt cellar to the egg cup, toward the
+tumbler of milk standing beside his plate.
+
+"I don't have to drink milk this morning, Mother," he assured her
+confidently. "Honestly I don't. It's raining so hard that we can't go
+outdoors and grow, anyway."
+
+Louise, his older sister, said sharply. "Don't be silly!" but Ralph,
+who was in a hurry to catch his train, stopped long enough to give a
+word of advice.
+
+"Look here, Brother," he urged seriously, "better not skip a morning.
+Your birthday is next week, isn't it? Well, if you're not tall enough
+by Wednesday morning, you can't have the present I bought for you last
+night. Too short, no present--you think it over."
+
+He stooped to kiss his mother, tweaked Sister's perky bow of
+hair-ribbon, and with a hasty "Good-bye" for the others at the table,
+hurried out into the hall. They heard the front door slam after him.
+
+Spurred by Ralph's mysterious hint, Brother drank his milk, and then
+the Morrison family scattered for their usual busy day.
+
+Brother and Sister were left to clear the breakfast table. They always
+did this, carrying out the dishes and silver to Molly in the kitchen.
+Then they crumbled the cloth neatly. Molly declared she could not do
+without them.
+
+"What do you suppose Ralph is going to give you?" speculated Sister,
+carefully folding up the napkin Louise had dropped, and slipping it
+into the white pique ring embroidered with an "L." "Maybe it's a train?"
+
+"No, I don't believe it's a train," said Brother slowly, crumbling a
+bit of bread and beginning to build a little farm with the crumbs. "No,
+I guess maybe he will give me a tool-chest."
+
+"Come on, and bring the bread tray," suggested Sister practically. She
+never forgot the task in hand for other interests. "Mother says we
+mustn't dawdle, Roddy, you know she did. It's my turn to feed the
+birds, so I'll crumb the table. Could I use your saw if you get a
+tool-chest?"
+
+Brother answered dreamily that he supposed she could. He watched Sister
+and her crumb-brush sweep away his nice little bread-crumb fences,
+while he planned to build a real fence if Ralph's present should turn
+out to be the long-coveted tool-chest.
+
+When Sister had swept up every tiny crumb, she and Brother went out to
+scatter the bits of bread to the birds who, winter and summer, never
+failed to come to the back door and who always seemed hungry.
+
+This morning there were robins, starlings, a pair of beautiful big blue
+jays, and, of course, the rusty little sparrows. Each bird seemed to be
+pretending to the others that he was looking for worms, and each one
+slyly watched the Morrison back door in hopes that two small figures
+would presently come out and toss them a breakfast of breadcrumbs.
+
+Sister flung her crumbs as far as her short arm would send them, and
+managed to hit an indignant old starling squarely in the eye. He glared
+at her crossly.
+
+"Birds don't mind getting wet, do they?" said Brother, as the sparrows
+hopped about in the driving rain and pecked gratefully at the crumbs.
+"Let's hop the way they do, Betty."
+
+Sister obediently hopped, looking not unlike a very plump little robin
+at that, with her dark eyes and bobbing curls. Only, you see, she and
+Brother were much heavier than any birds, and they made so much noise
+that Molly came to the door to see what they were doing.
+
+"Another rainy day and the two of you bursting with mischief!" she
+sighed good-naturedly. "Will you be quiet for an hour if I let you make
+a dough-man while I'm mixing my bread?"
+
+Brother and Sister loved to make dough-men, and so while Molly kneaded
+her bread, they worked busily and happily at the other end of the
+table, shaping two men from the bit of sponge she gave them and quite
+forgetting to scold about the unpleasant weather which kept them
+indoors.
+
+Their real names, you must know, were Rhodes and Elizabeth Morrison.
+Rhodes was six, and Elizabeth five, and sometimes they were called
+"Roddy" and "Betty," but most always Brother and Sister.
+
+This was partly because they were so many Morrisons.
+
+There was Daddy Morrison, who was a lawyer and who went to town every
+morning to a busy office that seemed, to Brother and Sister, when they
+visited him, to be all papers and typewriters.
+
+There was dear Mother Morrison, who was altogether lovely, with brown
+eyes like Brother's, and dark curly hair like Sister.
+
+There were Louise and Grace, the twins; they were fifteen and went to
+high school, and were very pretty and important and busy.
+
+Then there was Dick, the oldest of them all, and Ralph, who went to law
+school in the city, and Jimmie, who was seventeen and the captain of
+the high school football team.
+
+Counting Brother and Sister, seven children, you see, and as Molly
+truly said, "a houseful." Molly had lived with Mother Morrison since
+Louise and Grace were babies, and they would not have known what to do
+without her. She was as much a part of the family as any of them.
+
+The Morrison house was a big, shabby, roomy place with wide, deep
+porches and many windows. There was a large lawn in front and an old
+barn in back where the older boys had fitted up a gymnasium with all
+kinds of fascinating apparatus, most of which Brother and Sister were
+forbidden to touch.
+
+The Morrisons lived in Ridgeway, a thriving suburb of the city, where
+Daddy Morrison, Dick and Ralph went every day.
+
+And now that you are introduced, we'll go back to Brother and Sister
+making dough-men in Molly's kitchen.
+
+"What makes my dough-man kind of dark?" inquired Sister, calling
+Molly's attention to the queer-shaped figure she had pieced together.
+
+Sure enough Sister's dough-man, and Brother's, too, was a rather dark
+gray, while the bread Molly was mixing was creamy white.
+
+Mother Morrison, coming into the kitchen carrying Brother's rubbers and
+raincoat, saved Molly an explanation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+GRANDMA HASTINGS
+
+
+"Where are you going Mother?" asked Brother, when he saw the rubbers.
+
+"I'm not going out," smiled Mother. "You are going for me, dear. These
+are your rubbers and coat--hop into them and run across the street to
+Grandma's with this apron pattern."
+
+"Will you bake my dough-man, Molly?" begged Brother, struggling into
+his coat and taking the small parcel Mother gave him. "Is Betty coming?"
+
+"Not this time," answered his mother. "It is raining too hard. Yes,
+Molly will bake your dough-man and you may eat him for lunch. Run along
+now."
+
+Grandmother Hastings lived almost directly across the street from the
+Morrison house and she was putting her beautiful Boston fern out to get
+the rain when Brother tramped sturdily up her side garden path.
+
+"Bless his heart, he's a regular little duck!" cried Grandma, giving
+him a tremendous hug.
+
+That is the way grandmothers are, you know, whether they live across
+the street from you and see you every day, or whether they live miles
+away and come to visit you Christmas and summer times. A grandmother is
+always glad to see you.
+
+Grandmother Hastings was short and plumpy and her white hair was curly
+and her eyes were blue. She had pink cheeks and wore a blue dress and a
+white apron with a frilly bib, and altogether, Brother thought
+privately, she looked very nice indeed.
+
+"I'm very glad to get that pattern," she told him, patting the long
+leaves of the fern and spreading them out to catch the rain. "I've a
+magazine you can take back to Mother, dearie, and an old fashion book
+Sister will like for paper dolls. Come into the sitting-room while I
+find them for you. Take off your rubbers, child."
+
+Brother followed her into the house and there Aunt Kate swooped upon
+him and tickled him as she always did. Aunt Kate was a school teacher.
+In summer she tutored backward pupils. She was on her way to give a
+lesson now and in a few minutes she went away merrily into the driving
+rain. That left Grandmother and Brother to entertain each other.
+
+"Do you know what Ralph is going to give me for a birthday present,
+Grandmother?" Brother asked, dropping flat on his stomach to play
+jungle with the tigerskin that lay before the fireplace. "He says if
+I'm not tall enough I can't have it. But he's bought it all ready--he
+said so."
+
+Brother, you see, would be six years old in a few days. He couldn't
+help thinking a great deal about his birthday.
+
+Grandmother and Brother had no secrets from each other, though
+sometimes they planned surprises for the other members of the family.
+
+"No, I don't know what Ralph plans to give you," admitted Grandmother.
+"Don't try to find out, dearie. It is much nicer to be surprised. Why,
+you know you wouldn't have a bit of fun next Wednesday if you knew what
+your presents were to be."
+
+Brother was willing to be surprised, because Wednesday wasn't so long
+to wait. Still he thought he would like to know what Ralph's present
+was. Ralph was his dearest brother, and he had a happy knack of always
+giving Brother and Sister exactly what they wanted. Louise and Grace
+were apt to make them presents which were useful, like pretty socks and
+hair-ribbons for Sister, and gloves and handkerchiefs for Brother, but
+Ralph never did anything like that.
+
+"I've dropped a stitch in my knitting," said Grandmother suddenly.
+"Brother, I wonder if you could run upstairs and bring me my glasses? I
+think they are on the bureau in my room."
+
+Brother ran upstairs and went into Grandmother's pretty bedroom. There
+were white and silver things on her bureau and a little gold jewel box
+and several bottles of different colors. But, though Brother looked
+carefully, he could not find the glasses.
+
+He went out into the hall.
+
+"Oh, Grandma!" he called. "Your glasses aren't on the bureau."
+
+"Dear, dear," sighed Grandmother. "'Let me see, where can they be? Do
+you know, Brother, I'm afraid I have left them in my black silk bag on
+the closet shelf. Can you get it, or shall I come up?"
+
+"I can get it," answered Brother confidently. "You wait, Grandma."
+
+The closet shelf was pretty high, but Brother carried a chair to the
+closet door and by standing on it he was able to reach the shelf.
+Goodness, what was more, he could see the things on the shelf.
+
+And they were bundles!
+
+One--two--three--Brother counted three mysterious paper bundles, tied
+with brown string.
+
+Now you know if you had a birthday due most any minute and your head
+was full of the presents you hoped to receive, and you saw three
+bundles on the shelf in your grandma's closet, you know you would
+probably do just what Brother did; poke your finger into the top
+bundle. Brother poked. Then he prodded. The top bundle slipped and
+carried the other two with it. Brother was brushed off the chair and
+three bundles and one boy landed in a heap on the floor.
+
+"Brother!" cried Grandma, who had come up to see what kept him so long.
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+"No'm," answered Brother, rather foolishly. "I was just feeling these
+bundles, Grandma, to see--to--see----"
+
+"Whether they were birthday presents?" smiled Grandma. "Well, dearie,
+they are nothing but blankets tied up to send to the cleaners. I'm
+glad, for your sake, they were, for you might have hurt yourself,
+otherwise, as it is, they were soft and thick for you to fall on."
+
+"I'll get the glasses now," murmured Brother hastily.
+
+He climbed up on the chair again and this time found without any
+trouble the black bag which held Grandma's glasses.
+
+"Mother is waving a handkerchief--that means she wants you," said
+Grandmother, glancing from the window. "Scoot along, dear, and don't
+think too much about the birthday till it comes. Here are the
+magazines. And here's a drop-cake for you."
+
+Brother paddled down the steps, went halfway to the front hedge, and
+then turned.
+
+"Oh, Grandma!" he shouted. "Do you know what I think Ralph is going to
+give me? I think it's a tool-chest!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SISTER IN MISCHIEF
+
+
+"I hope it's like this to-morrow!"
+
+Brother stood on the front porch, flattening his nose against the
+screen door and sniffing the fragrant June sunshine.
+
+Ever since his unsuccessful attempt to find out from Grandma Hastings
+what Ralph's present was to be, it had rained. That was three days ago,
+so you may be sure the whole Morrison family were very glad to see the
+sun again. Especially as the very next day was Brother's birthday.
+
+"Brother, I'm going down town to buy the favors for your party,"
+announced Louise, who sat in the porch hammock crocheting a sweater.
+"Wouldn't you like to go with me?"
+
+Brother thought he would.
+
+"Take me?" begged Sister, falling over the small broom she carried, in
+her eagerness to be one of the party. "It's my turn, Louise, honestly
+it is."
+
+"Well, you see, I can't very well take you both," explained Louise
+kindly. "Mrs. Adams is going to call for me with her car, and it
+wouldn't be polite to ask her to take two children; and as it is
+Brother's birthday, he ought to be the one to go--don't you think so?"
+
+Sister nodded, though her lower lip trembled suspiciously. And when
+Mrs. Adams drove her shiny automobile up to the curb, and Louise and
+Brother were whisked away in it, two big tears rolled down Sister's
+round cheeks.
+
+"Why, honey!" Grace, the other twin sister, swinging her tennis
+racquet, came through the hall and saw the tears. "What you crying
+for?" she asked. "Everyone gone and left you? I'll tell you what to
+do--you go out in the kitchen and take a peep at what is on the table
+and you won't feel like crying another moment."
+
+"What is it?" asked Sister cautiously.
+
+She wasn't going to stop crying and then find out she had been cheated.
+
+"You go look," answered Grace mysteriously.
+
+So sister started for the kitchen and Grace ran off to her game of
+tennis with Jimmie.
+
+The kitchen was in perfect order and very quiet. Molly was upstairs
+making the beds, and Mother Morrison was planning the party with
+Grandmother Hastings.
+
+"Oh!" said Sister softly as she saw what was on the table. "Oh, my!"
+
+For right in the center of the white-topped table, on a large pink
+plate, perched Brother's birthday cake! It was a beautiful cake,
+perfectly round and very smooth and brown.
+
+"But the icing!" said Sister aloud. "There's no ICING! I s'pose Molly
+didn't have time."
+
+If Sister had stopped to think, she would have remembered that all the
+birthday cakes Molly made--and she made seven every year for the
+Morrisons, and one for Grandmother Hastings--were always iced with pink
+or white or chocolate icing.
+
+But, you see, she didn't stop to think, and when she discovered a bowl
+of lovely creamy white stuff on the small table between the windows,
+this small girl decided that she would ice the cake and save Molly the
+trouble.
+
+There was a little film of water over the top of the bowl, but Sister
+took a wooden spoon and stirred it carefully, and the water mixed
+nicely with the white stuff, so that she had a bowl filled with the
+smoothest, whitest "icing" any cook could ask for.
+
+"I'll get a silver knife to spread it with," said Sister, who had often
+watched Molly, and knew what to do.
+
+She brought the knife from the dining-room and had just put one broad
+streak of white across the top of the cake when Molly came down the
+back stairs and saw her.
+
+"Sister!" cried Molly. "What are you doing with my cold starch?"
+
+"I'm icing the cake," answered Sister calmly. "You forgot it, I guess."
+
+Poor Molly grabbed the bowl from Sister's hands.
+
+"Can't I leave the kitchen one minute that you don't get into
+mischief?" she scolded. "This isn't ICING--it's STARCH for Mr. Jimmie's
+collars. I'm going to make a beautiful chocolate icing for the cake
+this afternoon and write Brother's name on it in white frosting."
+
+"Oh!" said Sister meekly.
+
+"Go on upstairs, do," Molly urged her. "I've my hands full today
+getting ready for the party; can't you find something nice to do
+upstairs?"
+
+Thus sped on her way, Sister reluctantly mounted the stairs to the
+second floor.
+
+"I could play jacks with Nellie Yarrow," she said to herself. "Only
+she's lost her jackstones and I can't find mine. What's that on Dick's
+bureau?"
+
+Ralph and Jimmie roomed together, but Dick had a room of his own, and
+though Sister was strictly forbidden to meddle with his things, they
+had a great attraction for her. She could just see the top of Dick's
+chiffonier from the floor and now she dragged a chair up to it and
+climbed up to see what the shining thing was that had caught her eye.
+
+It was a gold collar button, and Dick, she found, had a box of pearl
+and gold buttons that Sister was sure she had never seen before. She
+played with them, tossing them up and down and watching them glitter,
+until a sudden thought struck her.
+
+"They'd make lovely jackstones," she whispered. "I could use 'em and
+put them right back. I know Nellie has a ball."
+
+Dick had several new ties, and Sister had to admire these before she
+could leave the chiffonier. Finally she slipped the box of pretty
+buttons in her pocket and jumped down. She put the chair where she had
+found it, and ran downstairs and through the hedge that separated the
+Morrison house from that of Dr. Yarrow's.
+
+"Nellie, oh, Nellie!" called Sister. "Come on, let's play jackstones."
+
+"Haven't any," answered Nellie Yarrow, a little girl a year or so older
+than Sister. "All I have left is my ball."
+
+"Well, get that and we can play," Sister told her. "I've found
+something we can use--see!"
+
+Nellie admired the collar buttons immensely and thought it would be
+great fun to play with them. She ran and got her ball and the two
+little friends sat down on the concrete walk to play jackstones,
+heedless of the hot morning sun.
+
+Sister had won one game and Nellie two, when they heard Louise calling.
+
+"Sister! Sister! Where are you? If you want to help fix the fishpond,
+you'll have to come right away."
+
+Sister stuffed the buttons in her pocket and ran home, eager to see
+what Louise and Brother had bought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PARTY PREPARATIONS
+
+
+When Mother Morrison had suggested a fishpond for the party, Louise and
+Grace had protested.
+
+"Oh, Mother!" they cried. "That's so old!"
+
+"But the children like it," said Mother Morrison mildly.
+
+"It's fun," urged Brother. "It's fun to fish over the table and catch
+something!"
+
+Sister, too, had asked for the pond, so it was decided to have one.
+Louise and Grace might not care for such things at their birthday
+parties, but this, as Sister said, was "different."
+
+"We bought bushels and bushels," Brother informed Sister as she bounded
+through the hedge and up to the front porch. "Little colored pencils,
+and crayons, and games, and dolls, and oh!--everything!"
+
+Louise, whose shopping bag was certainly bulging with parcels, laughed
+merrily.
+
+"We bought all the little gifts for the fish-pond and for the--there! I
+almost told you." She clapped her hand over her mouth and laughed again.
+
+"For the what?" teased Sister. "Tell me, Louise--I won't tell."
+
+"No, Mother said no one was to know," declared Louise firmly. "Now all
+these packages you may open, and after lunch I'll help you tie them up
+again and fix the pond. But these other parcels go upstairs to Mother's
+room and no one is to touch them."
+
+She tumbled half the contents of her bag on the porch floor and then
+ran upstairs with the rest.
+
+"Let's look at them," said Sister eagerly. "What's the matter, Roddy?"
+
+"I was thinking," explained Brother, making no move to open the
+packages. "We saw a little boy down town and his foot was all tied up
+in a rag, and I know it hurt him 'cause he limped."
+
+"Maybe he sprained his ankle," said Sister. "Like Dr. Yarrow's cousin,
+you know."
+
+"It wasn't his ankle--it was his foot," insisted Brother. "And I told
+Louise Mother said we mustn't go on the ground without our sandals, and
+she said she guessed the boy didn't have any sandals; she said he
+prob'bly didn't have any shoes, either."
+
+"Nor any stockings--just rags?" asked Sister in pity. "I like to go
+barefoot, Roddy, but I like my new patent leather slippers, too."
+
+"Maybe he has some for Sunday," comforted Brother, trying to be
+hopeful. "Everybody has to wear shoes on Sunday."
+
+"Yes, of course they do," agreed Sister, who had never heard of a boy
+and girl who didn't wear shoes on Sunday and every day in the week
+except when they were allowed to go barefoot as a great treat.
+
+The tempting packages were not to be forgotten one moment longer, and
+they decided to "take turns" opening them.
+
+"Isn't it fun!" giggled Sister. "What do you s'pose Mother is going to
+make you, Roddy?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Brother absently. "I keep thinking about
+Ralph's present. He says that he thinks I'll be tall enough to have it
+by tomorrow."
+
+"Did you drink all your milk for breakfast?" asked Sister anxiously.
+
+Ralph was most particular about the children's milk. He insisted that
+they couldn't grow properly without enough milk, and as both were
+anxious to grow tall, Brother and Sister usually drank their milk
+without fussing.
+
+Brother had finished his to the last drop that morning, he said, and
+when they were called in to lunch presently, he drank another glass so
+that he would surely grow enough to please Ralph.
+
+"And now we'll do up the fishpond presents," said Louise, when they had
+finished lunch.
+
+She and Grace both helped, for Mother Morrison was busy in the kitchen
+with Molly, and of course none of the brothers were home during the day
+except Jimmie, and he was usually busy out in the barn where the
+gymnasium was.
+
+You have probably "fished" in a fishpond yourself at parties, and know
+what it is. Little gifts are placed somewhere out of sight, and each
+small guest is given a fishing rod and line with a hook at the end. He
+dangles this over the back of a sofa, or over a table, and when he
+draws it up there is a "fish," or the present, attached to it.
+
+Louise had plenty of nice white paper and pink string, and each gift
+was carefully wrapped and tied. Dark blue crepe paper was tacked around
+three sides of a table and this table placed across one corner of the
+parlor. This was the "ocean." The presents were placed on the floor
+back of the table, and Brother and Sister knew, from past pleasant
+experience, that when it came time to fish, the packages would
+obligingly attach themselves to the hooks.
+
+"Tomorrow's ever so long off," sighed Brother, when the fishpond was
+ready and Louise and Grace had gone over to the library to take back
+some books.
+
+He and Sister were not wanted in the kitchen and they were asked not to
+touch the clean white clothes spread out on the guest room bed for them
+to wear to the party. There really did not seem to be anything for them
+to do.
+
+"Let's go out and watch for Ralph?" suggested Sister.
+
+Ralph was the best loved brother, after all, though, of course, the
+children loved Dick and Jimmie dearly. But no one was quite as patient
+as Ralph, no one had time to read to them as often as he did, no one
+told them stories without coaxing as Ralph did.
+
+He and Dick came up the street from the station together this night,
+and though Dick kissed Sister and said, "Hello, kid," to Brother, he
+dashed into the house, while Ralph stayed to talk.
+
+"Birthday tomorrow, Brother?" he asked teasingly, though he knew very
+well that Brother would be six years old.
+
+"Oh, Ralph!" Brother was so excited he nearly stuttered. "Ralph,
+couldn't you tell me what the present is now? I'm just as tall, and
+it's almost my birthday. Please, Ralph?"
+
+Ralph swung Sister up and sat her on the fence-post.
+
+"Well, I don't believe I could do that," he replied slowly. "Let's see,
+did you drink your milk today without grumbling?"
+
+"Yes, I did--didn't I, Sister?" said Brother eagerly.
+
+"Yes," nodded Sister. "He drank all of his for lunch, too, Ralph, and
+didn't spill any."
+
+"That's certainly fine," praised Ralph. "I'm sure you've grown a little
+bit every day, too. Well, Brother, I tell you what I'll do--tomorrow
+morning I'll bring the present up to your room before breakfast. How
+will that do?"
+
+Brother was more excited than ever, and for once he was ready to go to
+bed that night without a protest. He and Sister trailed sleepily off
+upstairs, wishing for the morning to come so that they might know what
+this mysterious present was.
+
+They had two little white beds in the same room and they could undress
+themselves very nicely if they helped each other with the buttons.
+Mother Morrison usually came up before they were ready for bed, and on
+bath nights she always came up with them and stayed till they were in
+bed.
+
+The night before a birthday party was, of course, a bath night, and
+Sister was very willing to let Brother take his bath first because she
+had a picture book she wanted to look at. She was lying on her bed, in
+her nightie, looking at the pictures while Brother splashed in the tub
+and Mother Morrison waited for him to stop playing and use the soap to
+lather himself, instead of pretending it was a boat, when Dick knocked
+on the door.
+
+"Look here!" he said, opening it and thrusting in his head. "Have
+either of you kids been in my room today?"
+
+"How nice you are!" cried Sister, sitting up to look at Dick, who,
+indeed, did seem very nice, though he was without his coat.
+
+"I'm twenty minutes late now," growled Dick. "I've hunted everywhere
+for my collar buttons and studs, and I can't find them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DICK'S BUTTONS
+
+
+Before Sister could say anything, in pranced Brother, very pink and
+clean from his hot bath and treading on his gray bathrobe at every
+other step.
+
+"Have you been meddling with my things again?" demanded Dick. "Mother,
+I've an engagement at eight o'clock and it's quarter past now; every
+blessed collar button is gone from my chiffonier!"
+
+Mother Morrison, who had followed Brother into the room, looked
+anxiously at him.
+
+"Brother, you haven't been in Dick's room today, have you?" she asked
+him.
+
+Then Sister, whose memory had been waking up, spoke.
+
+"Please, Dick," she said in a very little voice. "Please, I had the
+buttons."
+
+"Oh, you did!" Dick quite forgot to smile at her. "What did you want
+'em for? Where are they now?"
+
+"You see, I was playing jackstones with Nellie Yarrow, and afterward
+I--I left them in my pocket--" Sister's voice trailed off.
+
+She recollected that the dress she had been wearing was now down the
+laundry chute.
+
+"Mother, something's got to be done!" fumed Dick. "I can't have the
+kids going through my stuff and helping themselves to whatever they
+want; those buttons were my solid gold ones and my good studs were in
+the same box. There's the telephone!--Nina will be furious! Sister,
+where did you say that dress was?"
+
+Dick rushed downstairs to answer the telephone, leaving a sorrowful
+Sister curled up in a forlorn little heap on the bed.
+
+"My blue dress is way down in the laundry," she wailed. "The buttons
+are in the pocket. Oh, Mother, it's awful far down there, and it's dark
+on the stairs!"
+
+"What's all the racket about?" inquired Ralph, coming to the door. "Is
+Sister crying? And Dick is trying to smooth down Nina Carson, who seems
+to be in a bad way. Want any help with these young ones, Mother?
+Anyway, tell a fellow the cause of the excitement."
+
+Sister smiled through her tears. "Young ones" was what Molly's country
+sister had once called them, and Ralph always said it when he meant to
+make her laugh.
+
+"I really think Sister should go down and get the buttons from her
+dress pocket," said dear Mother Morrison decidedly. "I have forbidden
+her, time and again, to touch anything in Dick's room. Take your kimona
+and slippers, Sister, and hurry; I'll have your bath ready for you when
+you come back."
+
+More tears ran down Sister's round cheeks. Her eyes were so full of
+salt water she couldn't find the armholes of her pink kimona, and Ralph
+had to help her.
+
+"I'll go with her, Mother," he offered. "I'll sit on the stairs and
+wait while she hunts for the buttons; and after this you--will leave
+Dick's things alone, won't you, Sister?"
+
+Sister promised joyfully, and paddled off downstairs with Ralph. The
+dark stairs that led to the laundry didn't frighten her one bit, and
+while Ralph sat on the last step and held the door open, Sister snapped
+on the light and found the blue dress on top of the basket that stood
+under the chute. Surely enough, the buttons were in the pocket just as
+she had left them. She took the box and hurried back to Ralph. "Where's
+Dick going?" she asked him, as they went upstairs.
+
+"Oh, out somewhere, to see some girl," replied Ralph, who seldom went
+to call on a girl. "Scoot now, Sister--I'm going out on the porch and
+read. You've made poor old Dick half an hour late as it is."
+
+Ralph went out on the screened front porch, where Daddy Morrison was
+reading beside the electric lamp, and had just picked up his magazine,
+when there was a patter of little feet and Sister threw her arms around
+him breathlessly.
+
+"I love you, Ralph!" she said quickly, hugging him and then turning to
+run.
+
+"Here, here!" cried Daddy Morrison in surprise. "Thought you were in
+bed long ago. Don't I get any kissing?"
+
+"Mother is waiting to bathe me," explained Sister hurriedly, "and Dick
+wants his collar buttons, so I have to go, Daddy."
+
+Her father caught her as she rushed past him and gave her a quick kiss.
+
+"Sister!" called Mother Morrison. "Sister, are you coming?"
+
+Sister, the box of buttons clutched tightly in her hand, ran upstairs.
+Dick, glowering, met her at the top.
+
+"For goodness' sake!" he ejaculated. "I'd about given up hope--and if
+you ever touch one of my things again--"
+
+"I won't!" promised Sister hastily. "Honest Injun, I won't. You aren't
+mad, are you, Dick?"
+
+Dick was wrestling with a stiff collar before the glass in the hall.
+
+"No, I'm not mad, but I shall be in a minute," he announced grimly.
+"Don't stand there and watch me, please; you make me nervous."
+
+"Come and take your bath, dear," called Mother Morrison.
+
+"Don't you hear Mother? What are you waiting for?" demanded Dick.
+
+"Waiting for you to kiss me good-night," answered Sister composedly.
+
+Dick stared at her. Then he laughed.
+
+"There!" he said, picking Sister up and kissing her soundly. "Now will
+you leave me in peace, you monkey?"
+
+Sister was satisfied and hurried off to her bathing. When she came out
+of the bathroom, she found Brother sleepily waiting for her, sitting
+up, in his bed.
+
+"If you hear Ralph in the morning," he told her earnestly, "you call
+me, 'cause I want to see my own birthday present before you do."
+
+"Can't I look at it if you're not awake?" asked Sister hopefully.
+
+"No, you mustn't," said Brother firmly. "It's my birthday present, and
+I want to see it first. Now you remember!"
+
+Mother Morrison kissed them both, put a screen in another window, for
+the night was warm, and snapped off the light. It was time for Brother
+and Sister to be asleep.
+
+"Roddy!" whispered Sister softly.
+
+"Uh-huh?" came sleepily from Brother.
+
+"Suppose I can't help looking when Ralph opens the door?"
+
+Brother roused himself.
+
+"You mustn't," he repeated. "It's my birthday. I wouldn't look first if
+it was your birthday present. You can shut your eyes, can't you?"
+
+Sister sighed, and a big yawn came and surprised the sigh.
+
+"Maybe he'll have it tied in a paper," she murmured hopefully. "Then I
+can't see it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+RALPH'S PRESENT
+
+
+The sun rose bright and early on Brother's birthday morning. Not any
+earlier than usual, perhaps, but it certainly woke Brother a whole
+half-hour earlier than he usually opened his eyes.
+
+Almost at the same moment that his brown eyes opened wide, and he sat
+up in bed, Sister's dark eyes also opened wide and she sat up in her
+little white bed.
+
+"Oh!" she said, blinking. "OH, it's your birthday, Roddy! Many happy
+returns of the day--and I have a present for you!"
+
+She slipped out of bed and ran over to the chest of white drawers that
+held her own possessions.
+
+"You can play with them a little while and then you can eat 'em," she
+explained, returning with a flat, white box which she put on Brother's
+lap.
+
+The present proved to be a pound of animal crackers, of which Brother
+was very fond, and Sister was telling him how she had carefully picked
+out as many horses and elephants as she could--for indulgent Grandma
+Hastings had bought several pounds of the crackers, and allowed Sister
+to select the two kinds of animals that were Brother's favorites--when
+they heard Ralph's quick step in the hall.
+
+"Here comes Ralph! Don't look!" commanded Brother hastily.
+
+Sister promptly dived under the bedclothes, and when Ralph softly
+opened the door--lest the children were still asleep--he saw Brother
+staring eagerly toward him and a little lump in the middle of Sister's
+bed.
+
+"Well, young man, how does it feel to be six years old?" Ralph asked
+merrily, putting down the basket he carried on the floor, and coming
+over to Brother, who stood up to hug him.
+
+"Just as nice," gurgled Brother, standing still to receive the six
+"spanks" without which no birthday could be properly celebrated.
+
+"Can I look yet?" asked a muffled voice meekly.
+
+"Why, sweetheart, what have they done to you?" demanded Ralph in
+amazement, uncovering a very warm and flushed little girl. "I thought
+you were asleep, honey. Don't you feel well?"
+
+"Oh, I feel all right," Sister assured him cheerfully. "Only I promised
+Brother I wouldn't look at the present before he did."
+
+"That's so, I did bring a present, didn't I?" said Ralph, pretending to
+have forgotten. "Well, Brother, stand up while I measure you once more;
+I must be sure that you are tall enough and that means that you drank
+your milk every time without grumbling."
+
+"Couldn't he grumble?" asked Sister, watching while Ralph stood brother
+against the wall and made a tiny mark with a pencil. "You never said he
+couldn't grumble, Ralph."
+
+"Didn't I?" Ralph said. "Well, then, I should, because that is very
+important. You will grow, you know, if you drink your milk and grumble
+about it, but not half as fast as you will grow if you drink the milk
+and make no fuss. That's true, Sister--I'm not joking."
+
+"I didn't grumble much, did I, Sister?" interposed Brother. "Haven't I
+grown, Ralph?"
+
+"Yes, I think you have--enough to have what I have brought you,"
+returned Ralph cheerfully. "Here, now, tell me what you think of this."
+
+He stooped down and lifted the lid of the basket. Then he tipped it
+over on one side and out rolled the fattest brown and white collie
+puppy dog you ever saw!
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" shrieked Brother and Sister together. "What a perfectly
+dear little puppy!"
+
+"He's yours, Brother," said Ralph, smiling like the dear big brother he
+was. "Yours to take care of and love, and to name."
+
+"Hasn't he any name?" asked Brother, hugging the fat puppy, who seemed
+to like it and tried to say so with his little red tongue. "I don't
+know what to name a puppy dog."
+
+"Call him 'Brownie,'" suggested Sister, down on her knees on the floor,
+watching the dog with shining eyes. "I think that is a nice name."
+
+"So do I," agreed Brother.
+
+"I do, too," said Ralph. "And now you must get dressed if you are not
+to be late for breakfast; and I must go down now--I have to take an
+earlier train in."
+
+"Won't you come to the party?" begged Sister, as Ralph stood up to go.
+
+"Don't believe I'll be home in time," he answered. "But you can tell me
+all about it and that will be almost as nice."
+
+Mother Morrison came in to help them dress and she kissed Brother six
+times because it was his birthday. He wore a new blue sailor suit, and
+Sister put on her next-to-the-best hair-ribbon in his honor.
+
+"I like birthdays," sighed Brother, slipping into his seat at the
+breakfast table and eyeing the little heap of bundles at his plate with
+great delight. "Look at my puppy dog, Dick."
+
+"Well, that is a nice pup," admitted Dick, putting down his paper.
+"Have you named him yet?"
+
+"Name's Brownie--Betty thought of it," replied Brother. "Can he have
+cereal, Mother? And Daddy wrote on this box, didn't he?" The little boy
+picked up a box wrapped in paper.
+
+"Now just a minute," said Mother Morrison firmly. "The dog can't eat at
+the table, dear; put him down until you have finished breakfast. I
+don't want you to open the parcels, either, until you have had your
+milk and cereal. But those two on top you may open--they are from Daddy
+and Dick and they're going to leave in ten minutes."
+
+Brother opened the two packages eagerly. That from Daddy Morrison was a
+little wooden block and a set of rubber type with an ink-pad, so that
+Brother might play at printing. He knew his letters and, if someone
+helped him, could spell a number of words. Dick's parcel contained a
+little silver collar for the new puppy, so made that it could be made
+larger for him as he grew.
+
+"Oh, Dick!" Brother flung himself upon that pleased young man and
+kissed him heartily. Somehow Brother seldom kissed Dick, although he
+loved him dearly. "It's the nicest collar!"
+
+"All right, all right," said Dick hastily. "Glad you like it. Coming,
+Dad?"
+
+Brother had to thank Daddy Morrison for his gift and kiss him good-bye,
+and then the interrupted breakfast went on. As soon as they had all
+finished, they gathered around Brother to watch him open his birthday
+gifts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MORE PRESENTS
+
+
+"With so many birthdays in one family, we must not give elaborate or
+expensive presents ever," Mother Morrison had once said, and she had
+made that a rule.
+
+So Brother's presents, while representing a great deal of beautiful
+love, were simple and mostly home-made.
+
+Louise had made him an entire set of new sails for his ship Swallow;
+Grace had cleverly painted and cut out a set of paper soldiers, and set
+them in tiny wooden blocks so that they stood upright; Jimmie's present
+was a set of little garden tools; Molly brought in a gingerbread man,
+very wide and tall and most handsomely decorated with pink sugar icing.
+And Mother Morrison gave him a box of watercolor paints and a painting
+book.
+
+Just as Brother had unwrapped the last of his gifts, dear Grandmother
+Hastings hurried in. Under her arm she carried a large square box, and
+her eyes twinkled as she set it down.
+
+"For the birthday boy!" she said.
+
+"A toolchest!" shouted Brother in delight. "Look, Grandma, Ralph gave
+me a puppy!"
+
+"I hope you said 'thank you!' just like that!" laughed Grandmother, as
+Brother hugged her so tightly she could scarcely get her breath. "Let
+me give you six kisses, dearie. Why, Brother, what is the matter?"
+
+"I never said 'thank you' at all," mourned Brother. "Did I, Sister? And
+Ralph gave me such a nice puppy dog."
+
+"But you can say 'thank you' tonight, can't he, Grandma?" protested
+Sister loyally.
+
+"Why, of course, dear. Don't worry, Brother--Ralph knew you were very
+happy to have the doggie. Now come and tell me what you are going to
+call him."
+
+There were many things to be done to get ready for the party that
+afternoon, and while Brother and Sister introduced Brownie to their
+grandmother, the rest of the family scattered to their work. Presently
+Grandmother Hastings declared she must run home and put a lace collar
+on her best frock so that she could come to the party, and Brother and
+Sister were left alone with the new presents.
+
+"Let's take Brownie out for a walk," suggested Sister. "Have you fed
+him, Roddy?"
+
+Brother shook his head. No, Brownie had had no breakfast.
+
+"I wish I'd said thank you' to Ralph," worried Ralph's little brother.
+"Maybe he won't come home to supper tonight, and I'll be in bed when he
+comes."
+
+"Telephone him," said Sister, stroking one of Brownie's velvet ears.
+
+"I don't know the name of the law school," objected Brother.
+
+"Ask Daddy," promptly responded Sister. "He'll know."
+
+The children knew the number of Daddy Morrison's big office in the
+city, and both could telephone very nicely. The phone booth was under
+the hall stairs and Brother knew no one in the house could hear him
+when he took down the receiver.
+
+"Please give me 6587 Main," he said politely, while Sister and Brownie
+sat down on the floor to wait and listen.
+
+Dick was in his father's office, and unless the person calling asked
+for Mr. Morrison, senior, the switchboard operator gave them Mr.
+Morrison, junior. That was Dick, who was named for Daddy Morrison.
+
+"Hello, hello!" came Dick's voice over the wire in answer to Brother's
+call.
+
+"I want Daddy," said Brother distinctly.
+
+"Is that you, Brother?" asked Dick in surprise. "Did Mother ask you to
+call him? Is anything wrong at home?"
+
+"No, only I want to speak to him," said Brother impatiently.
+
+"He's busy--if you are only trying to amuse yourself, I advise you to
+stop it," answered Dick rather sharply. "You know you are not supposed
+to use the 'phone, Brother."
+
+"I guess I can talk to my father," asserted Brother indignantly. "You
+tell him I want to speak to him, Dick Morrison!"
+
+Dick apparently made the connection, for in another moment Brother
+heard his father's voice.
+
+"Yes, Son?" it said gently. "What can I do for you?"
+
+"Oh, Daddy!" Brother spoke rapidly, his words tumbling over each other.
+"I never said 'thank you' to Ralph for the puppy dog! An' sometimes he
+doesn't come home to supper, and I don't see him till tomorrow morning.
+I want to tell him how much I like Brownie, and I don't know the name
+of the law school. Will you tell me so I can ask 'Central' for the
+number and call Ralph up?"
+
+There was a pause. Daddy Morrison was apparently thinking.
+
+"I'll tell you, son," he said presently. "I do not believe Ralph's
+school allows their pupils to be called from a class to answer the
+telephone, so you had better not try that plan. But Ralph is coming to
+the office this noon to go to lunch with Dick. You tell Mother that I
+said you were to be permitted to telephone the office at half-past
+twelve. In that way you'll catch Ralph here and can say what you want
+to him. How will that do?"
+
+"That's fine, Daddy!" replied Brother gratefully. "Thank you ever so
+much--wait a minute, Daddy--"
+
+"I'm just saying the good-bye," called Sister, who loved to telephone.
+
+"Good-bye, youngsters," said Daddy Morrison, laughing as he hung up the
+receiver.
+
+"Well, for goodness' sake, what are you two doing here?" demanded
+Louise, coming through the hall with something hidden in her apron.
+"Who said you could telephone? Whom did you call up?"
+
+"Daddy," answered Brother serenely. "He said I could call the office
+again at half-past twelve. What you got, Louise?"
+
+"Secrets," said Louise mysteriously. "People with birthdays shouldn't
+ask questions."
+
+She hurried on toward the kitchen and in a few moments the children
+heard her laughing with Molly.
+
+"I think Brownie is hungry," insisted Sister. "Aren't you ever going to
+feed him?"
+
+"Of course he's hungry," chimed in Grace, who had overheard. "There's a
+bowl of bread and milk Mother fixed for him before breakfast, out on
+the back porch, with a plate over it to keep the cats out. Take him out
+there and feed him, Brother."
+
+Brownie was indeed very hungry and the children enjoyed watching him
+eat the bread and milk Mother Morrison had fixed for him. After he had
+eaten it all up, they took him out on the grass to play, but that fat
+little brown puppy, instead of playing with them, curled up and went to
+sleep.
+
+"Never mind--here comes the party!" cried Sister, whose bright eyes had
+spied a wagon turning into the drive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE PARTY
+
+
+"The party" happened to be the ice-cream, and Brother and Sister
+watched eagerly as the delivery boy carried the heavy wooden tub in
+which the cream was packed, up the back steps.
+
+"Going to have a party?" he smiled at them as he came back to his
+wagon. "Have a good time!"
+
+The pretty little notes of invitation, which Mother Morrison had
+written to six boys and six girls, friends of Brother's and Sister's,
+two weeks ago, had said from "four to six," so it was time to dress in
+the best white clothes soon after lunch. Indeed, Brother's collar bow
+was not tied before the doorbell rang, and Nellie Yarrow arrived.
+
+"I suppose she lived so far away, she thought she might be late," said
+Louise.
+
+She ran downstairs and showed Nellie where to put the present she had
+brought for Brother.
+
+After that the other boys and girls came, one by one, and Brother soon
+had a little pile of presents on the living-room table. He opened each
+one, and said thank you to the child who had brought it, and he forgot
+to be shy, so that he really enjoyed it all very much.
+
+Charlie Raynor and his sister, Winifred, were the last to come, and
+Winifred was excited over something.
+
+"I had the most awful time with Charlie!" she announced earnestly, to
+sympathetic Mother Morrison. "He acted dreadful!"
+
+Winifred was two years older than Charlie and felt responsible for him.
+
+"Give Roddy his present now," Winifred urged Charlie. "Hurry, I tell
+you."
+
+Silently Charlie held out a little paper bag of candy.
+
+"I had all I could do to keep him from eating it on the way here," his
+sister explained. "He just loves candy!"
+
+Brother took the bag of candy and put it with his other gifts on the
+table. Then the children began the peanut hunt, which was the first
+game Louise and Grace had planned for them.
+
+This was played outdoors, and it was fully half an hour before all the
+peanuts had been discovered. Then, as several of the girls wanted to
+start the old, old game of "Going to Jerusalem," and Grace offered to
+play the music, they all trooped back to the living-room.
+
+"Why, Roddy, your candy is gone!" announced Sister in surprise. "When
+did you eat it?"
+
+Brother came up to her where she stood by the table of presents.
+
+"I didn't eat it," he said wonderingly. "I left it right there on top
+of that book. Isn't that funny!"
+
+"Well, it's gone," asserted Sister. "Someone ate it!"
+
+Winifred had heard, and now she turned on the unfortunate Charlie.
+
+"Charles Eldridge Raynor!" she said sternly. "Did you eat Roddy's candy
+that you brought him? Did you?"
+
+Charlie nodded miserably. He had slipped into the room, unnoticed
+during the peanut hunt, and unable to longer withstand the temptation,
+had calmly eaten up his birthday gift.
+
+"I hope," stammered Winifred with very red cheeks, "I hope you will
+excuse him, Mrs. Morrison. I never knew him to do such a thing before!"
+
+"Oh, it isn't anything so very dreadful," declared Mother Morrison,
+smiling. "Any laddie with a sweet tooth might easily do the same thing.
+Come, children, Grace is waiting to play for you."
+
+They played "Going to Jerusalem" and "Drop the Handkerchief," and all
+the time there was the mysterious fishpond back of the table! But they
+could not fish till after they had had ice cream.
+
+As they were playing a noisy game of "Tag" out on the lawn, Molly came
+to the door to ask them to come into the dining-room.
+
+Such a pretty table met their eyes! It seemed to be all blue and white,
+and in the center was the big birthday cake--iced as only Molly could
+ice it, and showing no trace of the starch Sister had tried to cover it
+with. Six candles twinkled merrily on the top.
+
+"Make six wishes, Brother," said Mother Morrison.
+
+"Then he blows, and as many candles as he blows out he will have wishes
+come true," explained Sister quaintly.
+
+Brother made his wishes--they must not be spoken aloud--and then took a
+deep breath.
+
+Pouf! Three of the candles went out
+
+"Three wishes!" shouted the children. "You'll have three wishes come
+true!"
+
+It was a lovely birthday supper. Everyone said so. They had chicken
+sandwiches, and cocoa, and vanilla and strawberry ice-cream, and of
+course the birthday cake, which Brother cut in slices himself with the
+big silver cake knife.
+
+"Why--look!" ejaculated Sister in surprise, glancing up from her cake
+at the doorway.
+
+Mother Morrison stood there, smiling, and in her hands she carried what
+seemed to be a very large pudding or pie baked in a milk pan.
+
+"What is it?" said Brother curiously. "What is it?"
+
+"It's a secret," answered his mother mysteriously. "Grandmother
+Hastings planned it for you."
+
+"And you and Louise bought part of it," Grandmother Hastings assured
+him, nodding and smiling from the other doorway, the one that led into
+the hall.
+
+She had come over, in her prettiest white and lavender gown, to see the
+end of the party.
+
+Mother Morrison came up to the table with the pie and the children saw
+that the paper crust was full of little slits and that from each slit a
+ribbon hung out. Some were blue and some were pink.
+
+"Each girl must choose a blue ribbon," said Mother Morrison. "The pink
+ones are for the boys. You pull first, Lucy."
+
+Lucy Reed pulled one of the blue ribbons. She hauled out a little
+celluloid doll dressed in a gay red frock.
+
+"How lovely!" Lucy cried. "Do we all get something?"
+
+Each child was eager to pull a ribbon, and, wasn't it strange?--there
+were just enough ribbons to go round! After every one, including
+Brother and Sister, had had his turn, the "crust" was all torn, and not
+a single present or ribbon was left.
+
+"Half-past five!" said Louise then, looking at her little wrist-watch.
+"We must hurry with the fishing."
+
+So they went into the living-room and had a delightful time fishing in
+the pond back of the table. There was a gift for everyone who fished,
+and when six o'clock struck, and it was time to go home, each small
+guest had a package to take along.
+
+"We've had the nicest time," they called to Mother Morrison as they
+said good-bye. "We hope Roddy has a party every year."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+OUT IN THE BARN
+
+
+"The party was a great success, eh?" asked Ralph at the breakfast table
+the next morning. "I judged so, because it was one o'clock before I
+could leave Dad's office to get some lunch. He and Dick insisted on
+holding me there till quarter past."
+
+Brother looked at Sister. Sister looked at Brother. They had both
+forgotten they meant to telephone Ralph at half-past twelve!
+
+"Don't worry over it, Brother," said Ralph, laughing. "No serious harm
+was done, old chap. I made Dad tell me the mysterious reason of the
+wait, and when you didn't 'phone in we all three concluded the party
+had been too much for you. I'm glad you liked the dog."
+
+"Oh, yes!" Brother seized upon this safe topic. "It is the nicest dog,
+Ralph. And I did mean to say thank you,' only I forgot."
+
+After Daddy Morrison and Ralph and Dick had gone off to the station,
+Brother and Sister began to have queer feelings. Yes'm, they both felt
+"somehow different," as Brother said.
+
+"I don't want to clear off the table," complained Sister, drawing
+pictures on the tablecloth with a fork, a practice which Molly had
+always sternly forbidden.
+
+"Neither do I," agreed Brother. "Let's go out in the barn and play."
+
+"Jimmie won't like it," suggested Sister, taking up a cup so carelessly
+that some of the coffee left in it slopped over on the clean cloth.
+
+"Jimmie doesn't own the barn," sniffed Brother crossly. "I guess we can
+just play in it without hurting any of his stuff."
+
+"Here, here, what are you talking so long about?" demanded Molly
+good-naturedly.
+
+She came to the dining-room door and inspected the table critically.
+
+"Just as I thought," she said grimly. "Too much party yesterday!
+Sister, give me that cup and stop marking the cloth. Run off and play,
+both of you, till you get over being cross. I'd rather do the work
+myself than listen to you grumble."
+
+Thus dismissed, Brother and Sister wandered off to the barn. They ought
+to have felt happy with the extra time for play, but, for some reason,
+they were decidedly uncomfortable.
+
+"Everybody's busy," grumbled Brother. "Nobody cares what we do. Louise
+and Grace are sewing, and Mother is going to make strawberry jam. Let's
+try the rings, Betty."
+
+They were inside the old barn now, and the swinging rings had always
+fascinated Sister. But she knew that Jimmie had said they were not to
+touch them, and indeed Daddy Morrison had warned the children not to
+play in the barn unless some of the older boys were with them.
+
+"It is really Jimmie's and Ralph's gymnasium," he had explained. "They
+know how to use the apparatus, and you don't. When you are older,
+Jimmie will teach you and you may play there all you wish."
+
+Sister looked longingly at the rings when Brother suggested them.
+
+"Where's Jimmie?" she asked cautiously.
+
+"Up in his room studying," answered Brother confidently.
+
+Jimmie had been "conditioned" in the June examinations, and now spent
+part of every vacation day studying so that he might take another test
+before school opened in the fall.
+
+"All right," agreed Sister, assured that Jimmie was not likely to walk
+in upon them. "How'll we get the rings untied?"
+
+The rings were fastened up out of the way, tied to a nail on the side
+wall, so that when not in use they did not take up any room. Jimmie
+could reach this nail easily, but, of course, it was far above
+Brother's head.
+
+"I'll get the step-ladder," announced Brother confidently. "You hold it
+for me."
+
+The step-ladder was an old one and inclined to wobble. Brother mounted
+it slowly, and Sister sat down on the lowest step to hold it steady.
+Her weight was not enough to anchor the ladder, and it still shook
+crazily when Brother reached the highest step and stood on his tiptoes
+to reach the string that held the swings on the nail.
+
+"What are you kids up to now?" a voice asked suddenly.
+
+It was Jimmie! He had come out to the barn to get a book he had left in
+the corner cupboard.
+
+Sister jumped to her feet, startled. Her elbow brushed the wobbily
+ladder and over it went, carrying Brother with it. He was too surprised
+to cry out.
+
+"Are you hurt? Of all the crazy actions?" Jimmie scolded vigorously as
+he rushed to his small brother's rescue.
+
+Fortunately for him, Brother had landed on one of the heavy, thick,
+quilted pads that were on the floor. The boys used them when on the
+apparatus in case they fell. Brother was not hurt at all, but he was
+frightened, and when Jimmie picked him up he was crying bitterly.
+
+"I've a good mind to tell Father," continued Jimmie, who, of the three
+older boys, was less inclined to leniency with the performances of
+Brother and Sister. "Next time you might be badly hurt, and then it
+would be too late to punish you. Come here, Sister."
+
+Sister came reluctantly.
+
+"What were you trying to do?" said Jimmie grimly.
+
+"Trying to use the swinging rings," answered Sister meekly.
+
+"There's nothing to do," wailed Brother forlornly. "Everybody's busy
+and no one wants to play. And you don't own this barn, Jimmie
+Morrison--so there!"
+
+"Perhaps I don't," retorted Jimmie. "But Dad happens to have given me
+the use of it. And you're going to stay out if I have to put a padlock
+on the door. You've got all outdoors to play in--can't you find
+something pleasant to do?"
+
+"Betty! Roddy!" called Nellie Yarrow from her side of the hedge.
+"Betty! Come on out, I want to tell you something."
+
+Brother and Sister ran toward the door.
+
+"Wait a second!" shouted Jimmie. "Turn around."
+
+They looked back at him. He was smiling.
+
+"No hard feelings?" he suggested.
+
+Sister dimpled and Brother laughed.
+
+"No hard feelings," they chuckled and ran on down to the hedge.
+
+That was the way the Morrison family always smoothed out their
+disputes. There was so many of them that they really could not be
+expected to be always pleasant and never quarrel, but every
+disagreement was, sooner or later, sure to end with the cheerful
+announcement, "No hard feelings."
+
+"I suppose they ought to have a place of their own to play in," said
+Jimmie to himself when the children had gone. "I wonder if--"
+
+He had an idea which for the present he meant to keep to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HAUNTED HOUSE
+
+
+"Hello!" Nellie Yarrow greeted Brother and Sister. "What do you think?"
+
+"What?" asked Sister, apparently unable to think.
+
+Nellie Yarrow pointed her finger as one having important news to tell.
+
+"The haunted house is rented!" she said, excitedly.
+
+The "haunted" house was an object of curiosity to every child in
+Ridgeway. It was a small, shabby brown shingled dwelling on one of the
+side streets, and it was whispered that a man had once seen a "ghost"
+sitting at one of the windows. That was enough. Ever after no boy or
+girl would go past the house at night, if it were possible to avoid it,
+and the more timid ran by it even in the day time. Of course they
+should have known there are no such things as "ghosts," but some of
+them didn't.
+
+"Who is going to live in it?" asked Sister curiously. "Don't you
+suppose they will be afraid?"
+
+"Well, I wouldn't live in it," declared Nellie positively. "Some folks
+don't care anything about ghosts, though. Let's go down and watch 'em
+carry in the furniture."
+
+Not many new families moved into Ridgeway during the year, and a June
+moving was something of an event. The children found a little group of
+folk watching the green van backed up to the gate. Two colored men were
+carrying in furniture, and an old lady with her head tied up in a towel
+was sweeping off the narrow front porch.
+
+"Gee, she's got a parrot!" cried a ragged, redheaded little boy who was
+trying to walk on top of the sharp pickets.
+
+He was barefooted and the pickets were very sharp, so when the
+moving--van man, having put down the parrot and its cage on the porch,
+pretended to run straight toward him, the boy lost his balance and
+fell. He was up in a moment and running down the street as fast as
+though the furniture man were really chasing him.
+
+"Sister!" Brother spoke excitedly. "That's the little boy I told you
+about. We saw him downtown, Louise and I, when we were buying things
+for the fishpond for my birthday; remember? Only he didn't have a rag
+on his foot today."
+
+"He used to be in my class at school," said Nellie. "Oh, look at all
+the boxes of books!"
+
+Brother meant to ask Nellie what the redheaded boy's name was, but she
+had danced out to the van to see how large it was inside, and when she
+came back Brother had forgotten his question.
+
+"My father says an old lady is going to live here," volunteered Francis
+Rider, a freckle-faced lad of ten or twelve. "She lives all by herself,
+and she doesn't like noise. Her name is Miss Putnam."
+
+Neither, they were to learn, did Miss Putnam like company, especially
+that of boys and girls.
+
+When the last piece of furniture had been carried in, and the van had
+driven creakingly off down the street, the old lady, with her head tied
+in the towel, was seen approaching the fence.
+
+"That's Miss Putnam," whispered Francis.
+
+"Get off that fence!" cried Miss Putnam, brandishing her broom. "Get
+off! I'm not going to have my fence broken down by a parcel of young
+ones. Go on home, I tell you!"
+
+The children scrambled down and scattered like leaves. Francis, when he
+was a safe distance up the street, put out his tongue and made a face
+at Miss Putnam. The old lady continued to stand by the gate and shake
+her broom threateningly as long as there was a child in sight.
+
+"The Collins house is rented at last," said Daddy Morrison at the
+supper table that night. "I came through there on my way home from the
+station, and there was a light in the kitchen window. I wonder who has
+taken it?"
+
+"I know, Daddy," answered Louise quickly. "An aunt of Mrs. Collins has
+rented it. She is a Miss Putnam and she makes lovely braided rugs for
+the art and craft shops in the city. Sue Loftis told me."
+
+"Well, she's cross as--as anything!" struck in Brother severely. "She
+chased us all off her fence this morning; didn't she, Betty?"
+
+"Yes, she did," nodded Sister. "And we weren't doing a thing 'cept
+watch her move in. Francis Rider stuck out his tongue at her, and she
+called him a 'brat.'"
+
+Daddy Morrison glanced at her sharply.
+
+"Don't let me hear of either of you annoying Miss Putnam in any way,"
+he said sternly. "I know how children can sometimes, without meaning
+it, bother an elderly and crochety person. Miss Putnam has every right
+to keep her house and yard for herself, and if she is 'cross,' as you
+call it, that is her affair, too. My advice to you youngsters is to
+stay away from the Collins house."
+
+"Now will you be good?" said Ralph, catching Sister by her short skirts
+as she attempted to slip past him as he sat in one of the comfortable
+porch rockers.
+
+The family had scattered after supper, and only Ralph and Jimmie were
+on the front porch.
+
+"The day after a party is always unlucky," observed Jimmie, tweaking
+his little sister's hair-ribbon playfully. "You and Brother have had
+more than your share of scolding today, haven't you, Sister?"
+
+To his surprise, and Ralph's, Sister's small foot in its patent leather
+slipper and white sock struck at him viciously.
+
+"Why, Elizabeth Morrison!" exclaimed Ralph, lifting the little girl to
+his lap and holding her firmly there in spite of her struggles. "I'm
+astonished at you. What are you kicking Jimmie for?"
+
+"Go way!" cried Sister furiously, as Jimmie tried to see her face. "Go
+way--you're a mean, hateful boy!"
+
+"Quit it!" commanded Ralph, giving her a little shake. "Stop acting
+like this, Sister, or I'll take you in and put you to bed!"
+
+Sister knew he was quite capable of doing this very thing and she
+stopped struggling.
+
+"Jimmie is just as mean!" she sobbed, burying her head in Ralph's coat.
+
+"What have I done?" demanded Jimmie, much surprised.
+
+"You've gone and put a padlock on the barn door!" flashed Sister,
+sitting up and drying her eyes.
+
+Jimmie laughed, and Ralph laughed a little too.
+
+"Well, I haven't locked the door for the reason you think," explained
+Jimmie kindly. "It isn't just to keep you and Brother out, Sister. I'm
+making you something nice, and I don't want you to see it until it is
+all finished."
+
+"All right," conceded Sister graciously. "I thought maybe you didn't
+want Brother and me to play in the barn."
+
+"No hard feelings, then?" inquired Jimmie, holding out his hand.
+
+And--"No hard feelings," admitted Sister, smiling after the "salt-water
+shower."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+JIMMIE'S SURPRISE
+
+
+The "haunted" house continued to be an attraction to the children of
+the neighborhood even after Miss Putnam moved in, and the ghost might
+reasonably be supposed to have moved out. Alas, it was Miss Putnam
+herself who now supplied the thrills.
+
+Miss Putnam, you see, had never had much to do with children, and she
+thought she disliked them very much indeed. Boys, in her opinion, made
+a great deal of noise and girls always giggled and were silly. So
+whenever she saw a child hanging over her gate, or even stopping to
+glance at her house, she was apt to come charging out at them with a
+broom. The younger ones were afraid of her and the older, larger boys
+naughtily enjoyed provoking the poor old lady. So it was soon a common
+sight to see several boys flying up the street, Miss Putnam after them,
+waving her broom wildly.
+
+Brother and Sister, mindful of Daddy Morrison's warning, never actually
+did anything to make Miss Putnam chase them. But it must be confessed
+that they used to walk through the street on which she lived, in the
+hope of seeing her chase someone. Ridgeway was a quiet place in summer
+time, and any excitement was welcome.
+
+For several days after Sister's outburst because of the locked barn
+door, Jimmie worked away busily in his beloved gymnasium. He would not
+let either Brother or Sister as much as put their noses inside the
+door, and when they tried to find out from Molly what he was doing--for
+Molly could usually be depended upon to know what everyone in the
+family was up to--she simply shook her head and said she had promised
+not to tell.
+
+"I wish," said Sister for the tenth time one warm morning, "I wish
+there was something new to do."
+
+"So do I," agreed Brother. "There's Jimmie--he's beckoning to us."
+
+Jimmie stood in the barn doorway, motioning the children to come in.
+
+Brother and Sister jumped down the three back steps in one leap and
+raced toward the barn.
+
+"Want to see what I've been making?" asked Jimmie proudly, "Come on in,
+and look--there!"
+
+The tools from the carpenter's bench which occupied one side of the
+barn were scattered about on the floor where Jimmie had been using
+them. All Brother and Sister could see was a wide, rather shallow box,
+painted a dark green.
+
+"Is it--is it a boat?" ventured Sister doubtfully.
+
+"What's it for?" asked Brother.
+
+"It's for you to play with," explained Jimmie. "I thought maybe you
+would help me carry it out under the horsechestnut tree in the side
+yard."
+
+"But how do we play with it?" insisted Brother. "Is it a game, Jimmie?"
+
+"Put your hand in that bag back of you," directed Jimmie. "Perhaps then
+you can guess."
+
+A burlap bag, opened, stood close to Sister. She and Brother plunged
+their hands in and drew them out filled with something that trickled
+swiftly through their fingers.
+
+"Sand!" they shouted. "Seashore sand! Oh, Jimmie, is it a sandbox?"
+
+Jimmie nodded, smiling. He knew they had long wanted a sandbox, and
+like the dear, good brother he was, he had spent his mornings sawing
+and fitting and smoothing off boards to make a nice, strong box.
+
+"What fun!" Sister bounced up and down with pleasure. "Can we play with
+it right away?"
+
+"Don't know why not," said Jimmie. "You two take one end, and we'll
+carry it out under the tree. Mother thought that was the best place
+because it will be shady most of the day for you."
+
+They carried the box out to the tree, and then Jimmie brought the bag
+of sand on the wheelbarrow and dumped it into the box.
+
+"Just like the seashore!" beamed Brother. "Thank you ever so much,
+Jimmie."
+
+"Yes, thank you ever so much, Jimmie," echoed Sister, jumping up and
+standing on tiptoe to kiss Jimmie. "It's the nicest box!"
+
+Jimmie pretended that it wasn't much to do, but of course he was very
+much pleased that his little brother and sister should be so delighted.
+Big brothers often pretend that they don't want anyone to make a fuss
+over the presents they give or the nice things they do, but just the
+same they are secretly glad when their efforts are appreciated.
+
+"Here's fifty cents for each of you," announced Jimmie, pulling some
+change from his pocket and handing two quarters to Brother and a shiny
+half-dollar to Sister. "If Mother is willing for you to go downtown you
+can get some sand-toys."
+
+Mother Morrison was willing they should go if they would remember to be
+careful about automobiles and if they would promise to be back within
+an hour.
+
+The Morrison house was not very near the section of Ridgeway which
+contained the shops and stores, but the children often took the long
+walk alone. There were no trolleys to be careful about, except the one
+line that ran to the city, but the automobile traffic was rather heavy
+and one had to remember to stop and look both ways before crossing a
+street.
+
+"Let's take Brownie with us," suggested Brother, when they were ready
+to start out to spend their wealth. "We can carry him if he gets tired."
+
+The fat little collie puppy wagged his tail cordially. He loved to go
+walking and felt that too often he was neglected when he should have
+been invited. He always wore his silver collar, and Louise had given
+Brother a little leather leash that could be snapped on when he took
+the dog outside the yard.
+
+"Want to go, Brownie?" asked Sister. "Want to go out?"
+
+Brownie barked sharply. Indeed, he did want to go!
+
+Brother and Sister took turns leading him, and before they had gone
+very far they met Nellie Yarrow. She offered to go with them and she
+was much interested to hear that there was a new sandbox in the
+Morrison yard.
+
+"I'll come over and play with you this afternoon," she promised. "Let
+me lead Brownie, Roddy?"
+
+Brother gave her the leash, watching her anxiously. Nellie was
+sometimes careless with other people's property, he had learned, though
+she was so generous with her own it was hard to refuse her anything.
+
+"Don't let him get away," he cautioned.
+
+Nellie opened her mouth to say "I won't," when with a sudden jerk
+Brownie tore the leather line from her hand and dashed into the road.
+
+"Here comes a big motor-truck!" screamed Sister. "Brownie will be run
+over and killed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A LITTLE SHOPPING
+
+
+The foolish little puppy crouched down directly in the path of the
+lumbering motor-truck. The children could feel the ground quivering as
+the weight of the heavy wheels jarred at every turn.
+
+Brother forgot that he had promised to be careful about automobiles. He
+forgot that, bad as it would be for a motor-driver to run over a puppy
+dog, it would be twenty times worse for him to run down a little boy.
+He forgot everything except the fact that his dog was in danger!
+
+"Look out!" shrieked Nellie Yarrow. "Roddy, come back!"
+
+A huge red touring car, filled with laughing girls, whizzed past him,
+and after that a light delivery car that had to swerve sharply to avoid
+striking him. As Brother reached the dog he thought the motor-truck was
+going to roll right over him, and he closed his eyes and made a grab
+for Brownie. When he opened them, the truck was standing still, two
+wheels in the ditch, and three men were climbing down and starting
+toward him.
+
+"Are you hurt, Roddy?" cried Sister, skipping into the road, followed
+by Nellie. "My, I thought that truck was going to run over you sure!"
+
+"Come out of the road, you kids!" ordered one of the men roughly,
+pushing the three children not unkindly over in the direction of the
+ditch. "This is no place to stand and talk--hasn't your mother ever
+told you to keep out of the streets?"
+
+The driver of the truck, who was a young man with blue eyes and a quick
+smile, patted Brownie on the head gently.
+
+"I saw the dog," he explained to Brother. "I wouldn't have run over
+him, anyway. Next time, no matter what happens, don't you run into the
+road. Cars going the other way might have struck you, and I didn't know
+which way you were going to jump after you got the dog. No driver wants
+to run over a dog if he can help it, and you children only make matters
+worse by dashing in among traffic."
+
+"I didn't mean to," said Brother sorrowfully. "Only I didn't want
+Brownie to get hurt. I hardly ever dash among traffic, do I, Sister?"
+
+"No, he doesn't," declared Sister loyally, while Nellie stood silently
+by. "Mother always makes us promise to be careful 'bout dashing."
+
+The three men laughed.
+
+"Well, as long as you don't make it a practice, we won't count this
+time," said the man who had told them not to stand talking in the road.
+"Now scoot back to the sidewalk--or, here, George, you take them over.
+That's a nice dog you have."
+
+George, it proved, was the driver, and he took Sister by one hand and
+Brother by the other. Nellie held Sister's other hand and Brother
+carried Brownie, and in this order they made their way safely back to
+the pavement on the other side of the street.
+
+"Good-bye, and don't forget about keeping out of the street," said the
+truck-driver cheerfully, when he had them neatly lined up on the curb.
+
+They watched him run back to his machine--as Brother observed, he
+didn't look to see whether any motor-cars were likely to run him down,
+but then, of course, he was grown up and used to them--saw him mount to
+the high seat, and waved good-bye to all three men. Then they walked
+on, for the sand-toys were still to be bought.
+
+Brother and Sister were the most careful of shoppers, and with Nellie
+to help them by suggestions, they managed to find a set of tin
+sand-dishes, a windmill that pumped sand, a little iron dumpcart that
+would be very useful to carry loads, and a string of tin buckets that
+went up and down on a chain and filled with sand and emptied again as
+long as anyone would turn the handle.
+
+"Come over after lunch and we'll play," said Sister as Nellie left them
+at her own hedge.
+
+Nellie did come over and the three children had a wonderful time with
+the new toys and the clean white sand, while Brownie slept comfortably
+under the tree. Before Nellie was ready to go home, however, a thunder
+storm came up and her mother called her to come in. Mother Morrison
+came out and helped Brother and Sister to carry their box into the
+barn, where the sand would not get wet.
+
+"You don't want to play with the sandbox all the time, dearies," she
+said, leading the way back to the house. "If you play too steadily with
+anything, presently you will find that you are growing tired of it. Now
+play on the porch, or find something nice to do in the house, and
+tomorrow Jimmie will put the box under the tree again for you."
+
+It was very warm and sticky, and Sister tumbled into the comfortable
+porch swing, meaning to stay there just a few minutes. She fell asleep
+and slept all through the storm, waking up a little cross, as one is
+apt to do on a hot summer afternoon. The rain had stopped and Brother
+had gone over to see Grandmother Hastings.
+
+"Hello, Sister," Louise greeted her when she raised a flushed, warm
+face and touseled hair from the canvas cushions. "You've had a fine
+nap. Want me to go upstairs with you and help you find a clean dress?"
+
+"No," said Sister a bit crossly.
+
+"You'll feel much better, honey, when your face is washed and you have
+on a thinner frock," urged Louise, putting down her knitting. "Come
+upstairs like a good girl, and I'll tell you what I saw Miss Putnam
+doing as I came past her house this afternoon."
+
+Sister toiled upstairs after Louise, feeling much abused. She had not
+intended to take a nap, and now here she had slept away good playtime
+and was certainly warmer and more uncomfortable than she had been
+before she went to sleep.
+
+But after Louise had bathed her face and hands in cool water and had
+brushed her hair and buttoned her into a pretty white dress with blue
+spots, Sister was her own sunny self. She had not been thoroughly
+awake, you see, and that was the reason she felt a little cross.
+
+"What was Miss Putnam doing?" she asked curiously, watching Louise fold
+up the frock she had taken off.
+
+"She was out in her yard nailing something on the fence," said Louise.
+"I saw her when I was a block away, hammering as though her life
+depended on it. A crowd of boys were watching her--at a safe
+distance--and when I came near enough I saw she had a roll of wire in
+the yard. She was nailing barbwire along the fence pickets!"
+
+"How mean!" scolded Sister. "No one wants to climb over her old fence,
+or swing on her gate."
+
+"Well, I think it is a shame the way the boys torment her," declared
+Louise severely. "Jimmie says he caught a little red-headed boy the
+other day throwing old tin cans over her fence. You know what Daddy
+would say if he ever thought you or Brother did anything like that."
+
+"We don't," Sister assured her earnestly. "We never bother Miss Putnam."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT
+
+
+Fourth of July, always a glorious holiday in the Morrison household,
+came and was celebrated by a family picnic which gave Brother and
+Sister something to talk about for days afterward. Their sandbox, too,
+kept them busy and for a long time Jimmie never had to warn them not to
+touch the gymnasium apparatus in the barn.
+
+Daddy Morrison and Dick and Ralph continued to go every day to the city
+and Jimmie worked faithfully at his books, determined to begin the fall
+school term without a condition. As captain of the football team it was
+necessary for him to make a good showing in his lessons as well as in
+athletics.
+
+Louise and Grace perhaps enjoyed the vacation time more than any other
+members of the family. They would be sophomores when they returned to
+high school in September, and while they were willing to study hard
+then, they meant to have all the fun they could before they were bound
+down to books and lessons again.
+
+"Where you going?" Sister asked one night, finding Louise prinking
+before the hall mirror and Grace counting change from her mesh bag.
+
+"Out," answered Louise serenely, pulling her pretty hair more over her
+ears.
+
+"I know--to the movies!" guessed Brother. "Can't we go? Oh, please,
+Louise--you said you'd take us sometime!"
+
+"Oh, yes, Louise, can't we go?" teased Sister. "I never went to the
+movies at night," she added pleadingly.
+
+"You can't go," said Louise reasonably enough. "We didn't go when we
+were little like you. Don't hang on me, please, Sister; it's too hot."
+
+"I think you're mean!" stormed Brother. "Mother, can't we go to the
+movies?"
+
+Mother Morrison, who had been upstairs to get her fan, was going with
+Louise and Grace. She shook her head to Brother's question.
+
+"My dearies, of course you can't go at night," she said firmly. "I want
+you to be good children and go to bed when the clock strikes eight.
+Ralph promised to come up and see you. Kiss Mother good-night, Sister,
+and be a good girl."
+
+Left alone, Brother and Sister sat down on the front stairs. Molly was
+out and Daddy Morrison and Dick had gone to a lodge meeting. Jimmie was
+studying up in his room and Ralph was out in the barn putting some
+things away.
+
+"There's that old clock!" said Brother crossly as the Grandfather's
+clock on the stair landing boomed the hour.
+
+Eight slow, deep strokes--eight o'clock.
+
+Sister settled herself more firmly against the banister railings.
+
+"I'm not going to bed," she announced flatly. "If everybody can go to
+the movies 'cept me, I don't think it's fair, so there!"
+
+Just how she expected to even things up by refusing to go to bed Sister
+did not explain. Perhaps she didn't know. Anyway, Brother said he
+wasn't going to bed either. Ralph came in at half-past eight to find
+them both playing checkers on the living-room floor.
+
+"Thought you went to bed at eight o'clock," said Ralph, surprised.
+"Mother say you might stay up tonight?"
+
+"No, she didn't," admitted Brother, "but she went to the movies with
+Louise and Grace. Everybody is having fun and we're not."
+
+Ralph didn't scold. He merely closed up the checkerboard and put it
+away in the book-case drawer with the box of checkers. Then he lifted
+Sister to his lap and put an arm around Brother.
+
+"Poor chicks, you do feel abused; don't you?" he said comfortably. "But
+I'll tell you something--you wouldn't like going to the movies at
+night; you would go to sleep after a little while and lose half the
+pictures. Now suppose I take you this Saturday afternoon. How will that
+do?"
+
+"Will you take us, Ralph?" cried Sister. "Down to the Majestic?"
+
+This was the largest motion picture theatre in Ridgeway.
+
+"I'll take you both to the Majestic next Saturday afternoon," promised
+Ralph, "if you will go to bed without any more fuss tonight."
+
+Both children were delighted with the thought of an afternoon's
+enjoyment with Ralph and they trotted up to bed with him as pleasantly
+as though going to bed were a pleasure. Grownups will tell you it is,
+but when you are five and six this is difficult to believe.
+
+Unfortunately Brother and Sister were doomed to another disappointment.
+Before Saturday afternoon came, Ralph remembered that he had promised
+to play tennis with a friend and he could not break the engagement,
+because to do so would spoil the afternoon for eight or ten people who
+counted on him for games.
+
+"I'm just as sorry as I can be," Ralph told Brother and Sister
+earnestly. "I don't see how I could forget I promised Fred Holmes to
+play with him. If you want to wait another week for me, I'll give you
+the money for ice-cream sodas."
+
+Grandmother Hastings and Mother Morrison had gone to the city, the
+girls had company, Molly was lying down with a headache--there seemed
+to be no one to take the children to the matinee.
+
+"I guess we'll have to go buy sodas," agreed Brother disconsolately.
+"Only if I don't go to movies pretty soon, I'll--I'll--I don't know
+what I'll do!"
+
+"I know," said Sister, dimpling mischievously. "I'll tell you, Roddy."
+
+"You be good, Sister," warned Ralph, eyeing her a bit anxiously. "I
+couldn't take a naughty little girl to the movies, you know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+TWO IN TROUBLE
+
+
+Ralph knew that Sister could put queer ideas into Brother's head, and
+he hoped that the fun of going downtown, and buying ice-cream soda at
+the drug store, might cause Sister to forget whatever she had in mind.
+
+When he came home from his tennis game he found both children playing
+in the sandbox, and as they were very good the rest of that afternoon
+and evening and all day Sunday, Ralph decided that Sister was not going
+to be naughty or get Brother to help her to do anything she should not.
+
+Monday evening Mother and Daddy Morrison went through the hedge into
+Dr. Yarrow's house to visit the doctor and his wife. Brother and Sister
+were told to run in and visit Grandmother Hastings until eight o'clock,
+their bedtime.
+
+"Can we take Brownie?" begged Sister. "Grandmother says he is the
+nicest dog!"
+
+So Brownie, who was now three times the size he had been when Ralph
+brought him home in the basket, was allowed to go calling, too.
+
+"Grandma," said Sister, when Grandmother Hastings had answered their
+knock on her screen door, and had hugged and kissed them both.
+"Grandma, couldn't we go to the movies?"
+
+Now Grandmother Hastings was a darling grandmother who loved to do
+whatever her grandchildren asked of her. It never entered her dear head
+that Mother Morrison might not wish Brother and Sister to go to the
+movies at night. She only thought how they would enjoy the pictures,
+and although she disliked going out at night herself, she said that she
+would take Brother and Sister.
+
+"We can't go downtown to the Majestic," she said, "for that is too far
+for me to walk. We'll have to go over to the nice little theatre on
+Dollmer Avenue. If we go right away, we can be home early."
+
+Sister lagged a little behind her grandmother and brother as they
+started for the theatre. She was stuffing Brownie into her roomy middy
+blouse. He was rather a large puppy to squeeze into such a place, but
+Sister managed it somehow. Grandmother Hastings supposed that the dog
+had been left on the porch.
+
+The theatre was dark, for the pictures were being shown on the screen
+when they reached it, and Grandmother Hastings had to feel her way down
+the aisle, Brother and Sister clinging to her skirts. The electric fans
+were going, but it was warm and close, and Grandmother wished longingly
+for her own cool parlor. But Brother and Sister thought everything
+about the movie theatre beautiful.
+
+"Do you suppose Brownie likes it?" whispered Brother, who sat next to
+Sister. Grandmother was on his other side.
+
+"He feels kind of hot," admitted Sister, who could not have been very
+comfortable with the heavy dog inside her blouse. "But I think he likes
+it."
+
+Brownie had his head stuck halfway out, and he probably wondered where
+he was. It was so dark that there was little danger of anyone
+discovering him. A dog in a motion-picture house is about as popular,
+you know, as Mary's lamb was in school. That is, he isn't popular at
+all.
+
+Brownie might have gone to the movies and gone home again without
+anyone ever having been the wiser, if there had not been a film shown
+that night that no regular dog could look at and not bark.
+
+"Oh, look at the big cat!" whispered Sister excitedly.
+
+Surely enough, a large cat sat on the fence, and, as they watched, a
+huge collie dog, with a beautiful plumy tail, came marching around the
+corner.
+
+He spied the cat and dashed for her. She began to run, on the screen,
+of course. The audience in the movie house began to laugh, for the dog
+in his first jump had upset a bucket of paint. The people in the
+theatre were sure they were going to see a funny picture.
+
+But Brownie had seen the cat, too. He knew cats, and there were many in
+his neighborhood he meant to chase as soon as he was old enough to make
+them afraid of him. He scratched vigorously on Sister's blouse and
+whined.
+
+"Ki-yi!" he yelped, as though saying: "Ki-yi! I'll bet I could catch
+that cat!"
+
+Barking shrilly, he scrambled out from Sister's middy, shook himself
+free of her arms, and tore down the aisle of the theatre, intent on
+catching the fluffy cat.
+
+"Ki-yi!" he continued to call joyously.
+
+"Brownie! Here, Brownie!" called Sister frantically. "Brownie, come
+back here!"
+
+The theatre was in an uproar in a minute. Ladies began to shriek that
+the dog was mad, and some of them stood upon the seats and cried out.
+The men who tried to catch Brownie only made him bark more, and the
+louder he barked the more the ladies shrieked. Finally they stopped the
+picture and turned on the lights.
+
+"Rhodes and Elizabeth Morrison!" said someone sternly. "What are you
+doing here?"
+
+There, across the aisle from Grandmother Hastings and Brother and
+Sister, sat Daddy and Mother Morrison with Dr. and Mrs. Yarrow. They
+had come to the movies, too!
+
+"Is that dog Brownie?" asked Daddy Morrison, coming over to them.
+
+Everyone had left his seat and the aisle was in confusion; people
+talking and arguing and advising one another.
+
+Sister nodded miserably. She felt very small and unhappy.
+
+"Rhodes, go down and get Brownie at once!" commanded Daddy Morrison.
+
+When they were naughty, Brother and Sister were always called by their
+"truly" names, you see.
+
+"I'll go get him," gulped Sister. "I brought him--Roddy didn't want me
+to."
+
+Brownie came willingly enough to Sister and she gathered him up in her
+arms. He may have wondered, in his doggie mind, what all the fuss was
+about and what had become of the fluffy cat, but he was getting used to
+having his fun abruptly ended.
+
+"I didn't know you brought the dog, dear," said Grandmother Hastings,
+breaking a grim silence as they walked home. "And did you know Mother
+wasn't willing to have you go at night when you asked me to take you?"
+
+Poor little Sister had to confess that she had asked Grandmother to
+take them because she knew that in no other way could they get to the
+movies at night. Grandmother Hastings never scolded, but her
+grandchildren hated to know that she was disappointed in them.
+
+No one scolded Brother and Sister very much that night. They were put
+to bed, and the next morning Daddy Morrison called them into his "den"
+before he left for the office, and told them that for a week they could
+not go out of their own yard.
+
+"And I s'pose we can't go with Ralph Saturday," wailed Sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TROUBLE AGAIN
+
+
+However, they were allowed to go with Ralph to the movies the next
+Saturday. Ralph himself explained to Daddy Morrison that he had
+promised to take them and then found he had a previous engagement. He
+thought, and Daddy Morrison did, too, that having to stay in the yard
+for a whole week was punishment enough even if one exception was
+permitted.
+
+So Brother and Sister went down to the "big" theatre with Ralph the
+next Saturday afternoon, and then they had to stay in their yard all
+day Sunday and all day Monday, and after that they might again go where
+they pleased.
+
+"Let's go see if Norman Crane's aunt sent him a birthday present,"
+suggested Sister the first morning they were free to leave the yard.
+
+Norman Crane was a little friend who lived several blocks away, and
+whose aunt in New York City sent him wonderful presents at Christmas
+time and on his birthday. He had had a party a few days before, and of
+course Brother and Sister could not go--all because they would go to
+those unlucky movies!
+
+Brother was willing to stop at Norman's house, but when they reached
+there they found Norman had gone to the city with his mother for a
+day's shopping.
+
+"I smell tar," declared Brother, as they came down the steps and turned
+into the street where Miss Putnam lived in the haunted house--only it
+wasn't called that any longer. "Oh, look, Betty, they're mending
+something."
+
+There was a little group of children about a big pot of boiling tar and
+workmen were mending the roofs of three or four houses that were built
+exactly alike and were owned by the same man. These houses were always
+repaired and painted at the same time every year.
+
+Nearest to the boiling pot--indeed, with his red head almost in the hot
+steam--was the little boy Brother and Sister had noticed walking on
+Miss Putnam's picket fence. A puddle of tar had splashed over on the
+ground and the red-headed boy was stirring it with a stick held between
+his bare toes.
+
+"Now don't hang around here all day," said one of the workmen, kindly
+enough. "Run away before you get burned. Hey, there, Red! Do you want
+to blister your foot?"
+
+The red-haired lad grinned mischievously.
+
+"I'd hate to spoil my shoes," he jeered, "but you watch and I'll kick
+over your old pot! I can, just as easy."
+
+The other children drew nearer, half-believing the boy would tip over
+the pot of boiling tar.
+
+"Here," said another and younger workman, "if we give each of you a
+little on a stick will you promise to go off and leave us in peace?"
+
+There was an eager chorus of promises, and the good-natured young
+roofer actually stuck a little ball of the soft tar on each stick
+thrust at him and watched the small army of boys and girls march up the
+street, smiling.
+
+"That Mickey Gaffney thinks he's smart," said Nellie Yarrow, who had
+found Brother and Sister in the crowd, as the red-headed boy dashed
+past them, waving his stick of tar wildly and shouting like an Indian.
+
+"Do you know him?" asked Sister. "Doesn't he ever wear shoes?"
+
+"I guess so--I don't know. I don't like him," replied Nellie
+indifferently.
+
+"I don't believe he has any shoes, not even for Sunday," Brother said
+to himself. "His coat was all torn and his mother sewed his pants up
+with another kind of cloth so that it shows. I wonder where 'bouts he
+lives?"
+
+He opened his mouth to ask Nellie, when Miss Putnam swooped down to the
+fence as they were passing her house.
+
+"Go way!" she called, leaving her weeding to wave a rake at them. "Go
+'long with you! Don't you drop any of that messy tar on my sidewalk!"
+
+"What lovely flowers!" whispered Sister as they obediently hurried past.
+
+Indeed, Miss Putnam had made a beautiful garden and lawn of her small
+yard, and she did all the work of taking care of it herself.
+
+Sister and Brother carried their tar home with them and left it in the
+sand heap. Jimmie had six boys playing in the gymnasium with him and
+they all stayed to lunch. Molly and Mother Morrison were used to having
+unexpected guests, and no matter how many there were, in some
+mysterious manner plenty of good things to eat appeared on the table.
+
+"Can we come out and watch you?" asked Brother when the boys were going
+back to the barn.
+
+"We're going swimming," answered Jimmie.
+
+"Can't we go swimming?" inquired Sister hopefully.
+
+"You can NOT!" retorted Jimmie. "Why don't you take a nap,
+or--something?"
+
+"Come on out to the barn, Roddy," Sister urged Brother when Jimmie and
+his friends had gone whistling on their way to the river.
+
+"Now don't you be meddling with any of those things out there," warned
+Molly, clearing the table. "Your brother doesn't like you to touch his
+exercises, you know."
+
+Molly called all the apparatus the boys used "exercises."
+
+"We're not going to touch 'em!" declared Sister. "We're only going to
+look."
+
+Jimmie seldom snapped his padlock, for lately the children had not
+bothered the gymnasium in the barn. They found the door open this
+afternoon.
+
+"Bet you can't jump off that!" said Sister, pointing to a home-made
+"horse" that Jimmie had ingeniously contrived.
+
+(If you don't know the kind of "horse" they use in a gymnasium, ask
+your big brother or sister.)
+
+"Bet I can!" challenged Brother.
+
+They took turns jumping until they were tired, and they went about
+poking their little fingers and noses into whatever they could find to
+examine. Sister's investigations ended sadly enough, for she succeeded
+in pulling down a tray of butterflies that Jimmie was mounting (he had
+thought the gymnasium a safe place to keep them out of everyone's way),
+and now broken glass and crumbled butterflies were scattered all over
+the floor.
+
+"Now you've done it!" cried Brother. "Jimmie will be just as mad!"
+
+They found an old broom and swept the broken glass under one of the
+heavy floor pads. Then, very much subdued, they went into the house and
+were so quiet for the rest of the afternoon and through supper that
+Mother Morrison wondered if they were sick.
+
+They were having dessert when the doorbell rang and Molly went to the
+door. She came back in a moment, her eyes round with wonder and looking
+rather frightened.
+
+"It's Mr. Dougherty, sir," she said to Daddy Morrison. "He wants to see
+you."
+
+Mr. Dougherty was Ridgeway's one and only policeman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MISS PUTNAM COMPLAINS
+
+
+At the mention of the policeman's name, Sister had given a gasp. No one
+noticed her as Daddy Morrison pushed back his chair and went into the
+hall.
+
+"I wonder what he wants?" mused Mother Morrison, helping Ralph to
+blackberries.
+
+"Sister, you're spilling juice on the tablecloth," reproved Dick. "Look
+out, there goes another spot."
+
+Sister was trying to eat her berries, and also plan what to say when
+the policeman should send for her. She was sure that he had heard about
+the broken case of butterflies, for Jimmie, when greatly provoked at
+her long ago, had threatened to tell Mr. Dougherty of her next misdeed.
+
+"I like Mr. Dougherty," announced Brother sweetly.
+
+No broken butterflies lay heavy on HIS conscience.
+
+Louise and Grace finished their dessert and were excused to go
+upstairs. The others lingered at the table because Daddy Morrison and
+Mr. Dougherty had gone into the living-room and they did not wish to
+disturb them.
+
+"Lelia," called Daddy Morrison presently, "will you come here for a
+moment?"
+
+Leila was Mother Morrison's name, and she rose and went across the hall
+quickly.
+
+There was a low murmur of talk, an exclamation from Mother Morrison,
+and then the voice of Mr. Dougherty in the hall.
+
+"Then I'm to tell the Chief that you'll drop in tonight?" he was
+saying. "All right, sir, that'll be satisfactory, of course. I'm not
+overly fond of this sort of work, but when a woman makes a complaint,
+you know, we haven't much choice."
+
+"I understand," Daddy Morrison's deep, pleasant voice answered. "I'll
+get at the truth, and tell the Chief I'll be down at the town hall
+before ten o'clock. Good-night, Dougherty."
+
+"Good-night, sir," said Mr. Dougherty and the screen door slammed.
+
+Daddy Morrison came back to the dining-room.
+
+"Rhodes and Elizabeth, I want to speak to you," he said very gravely.
+"Come up to my den."
+
+Sister's small face went very white.
+
+"I didn't mean to, honest I didn't, Jimmie!" she cried, hurling herself
+on that astonished young man and clinging desperately to his coat
+lapels. "I didn't know they were there till they fell over."
+
+"What ails her?" Jimmie demanded, staring at his father. "What fell
+over?"
+
+"Your case of butterflies," Brother informed him sadly "We were playing
+out in the barn and Betty reached up to open a window and the pole
+knocked the box off."
+
+"Well, I must say--" began Jimmie wrathfully. "I must say! If you two
+don't learn to leave my things alone--"
+
+"Save your lecture, Jimmie," advised his father quickly. "I didn't know
+about the butterflies, but I want to ask the children about something
+else. Come upstairs, now. You, too, Mother."
+
+Brother and Sister followed Mother and Daddy Morrison upstairs, puzzled
+to know what was to be said to them. If the butterflies made so little
+difference to anyone--except Jimmie, who was perfectly boiling, it was
+plain to see--what else was there to scold them about? For that it was
+to be a scolding neither Brother or Sister doubted--hadn't Daddy called
+them "Rhodes" and "Elizabeth"?
+
+"Now," said Daddy Morrison, when they were all in the little room he
+called his den and he had closed the door, although it was a warm
+night, "what were you doing this afternoon?"
+
+"Playing in the barn," answered Brother. "It wasn't locked, Daddy."
+
+"And then you broke Jimmie's case of butterflies," said Daddy. "What
+did you do then?"
+
+"We swept the glass under a pad," said Sister, finding her voice. "Did
+Jimmie tell Mr. Dougherty?"
+
+"Jimmie didn't know, and he certainly would not tell the police,"
+declared Daddy Morrison, smiling a little in spite of his evident
+anxiety. "Miss Putnam, children, has made a complaint to the police
+that you tracked fresh tar over her porch and sidewalk, and she wants
+you to clean it off. That was why Mr. Dougherty came tonight."
+
+"We won't either clean it off!" cried Brother angrily. "Serve her right
+to clean it off herself; mean old thing!"
+
+"Don't let me hear you talk like that again," said Daddy Morrison
+sternly. "Did either of you have anything to do with putting tar on her
+porch or walk?"
+
+"No, sir," replied Brother more meekly.
+
+"But did you PLAY with the tar?" asked Mother Morrison. "Mr. Dougherty
+told us there were roofers mending the Gillson houses today, and using
+hot tar."
+
+"Yes, they gave us some," said Brother honestly enough. "Didn't they,
+Betty? All the children had some, and we went by Miss Putnam's house
+and she yelled at us."
+
+"But we didn't stop," added Sister. "We went right on and came home,
+didn't we, Roddy?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Brother. "And that was before lunch, Daddy."
+
+Daddy Morrison looked troubled.
+
+"If you say you did not throw the tar, I believe you," he said gravely.
+"You may get into mischief and do wrong things, but I am sure you do
+not tell wrong stories. I don't see how Miss Putnam can be positive
+enough to give your names to the police, but I am going around to see
+her now and hear what she has to say. Then I'll stop in at the town
+hall and see the chief of police."
+
+The telephone rang just then, and he went downstairs. It was only
+half-past seven, but Mother Morrison insisted that it was time for them
+to get ready for bed.
+
+"Your father doesn't want you to speak of the tar to any of your
+playmates," she said as she brushed Sister's hair. "You must be very
+careful and not say a word against Miss Putnam. People may make
+mistakes easily, and we'll try to think as kindly of her as we can.
+Poor old lady! She must be terribly tormented by the children to
+dislike them so."
+
+"I wish," wept Sister over her sandals as she unbuckled them, "I wish I
+hadn't smashed Jimmie's butterflies. Now he's mad at me."
+
+"Well, you know he has asked you not to play in the barn when he isn't
+there to watch you," suggested Mother Morrison mildly. "However, you
+can make it up with Jimmie tomorrow; he never holds a grudge."
+
+"Weed the onions for him," advised Brother wisely if sleepily. "He
+hates weeding."
+
+"Maybe I will," decided Sister. "Daddy said tonight he couldn't go
+swimming again until he had worked in the garden."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MAKING UP WITH JIMMIE
+
+
+Daddy Morrison went to see Miss Putnam after the children had gone to
+bed. The old lady was very sure that Brother and Sister had thrown the
+tar and she was so positive in her assertions that finally he asked her
+how she could be so sure.
+
+"Well, one of the neighbors told me," Miss Putnam said reluctantly.
+"No, I don't know your children from any of the others, but she does.
+All children look pretty much alike to me--noisy, scuffling young ones!
+No, I couldn't tell you the neighbor's name--I wouldn't want to get her
+into any trouble."
+
+When Daddy Morrison went away, she showed him the tar on her porch and
+sidewalk.
+
+"Somebody ought to be made to clear it off," said Miss Putnam severely.
+
+The chief of police, at the town hall, was a little angry that a
+complaint had been made merely on the word of a neighbor, who might
+easily be mistaken about the children she had seen throwing tar.
+However, as Brother and Sister said they had nothing to do with it, and
+Miss Putnam refused to believe them, there was nothing to do but let
+the complaint stand.
+
+"Keep away from Miss Putnam's house and street," commanded Daddy
+Morrison at the breakfast table the next morning. "Don't go past her
+house except when it is absolutely necessary. We're not going to have
+any more bickering over this matter. Your mother and I believe you and
+that is all that is necessary. I shall be seriously displeased if I
+find you are talking it over with outsiders, especially other children."
+
+Ralph and Dick had already taken their way to the station and now Daddy
+Morrison hurried to get his train.
+
+"Why doesn't he want us to talk about it?" asked Sister, puzzled.
+"Couldn't I tell Nellie Yarrow?"
+
+"I wouldn't," counseled Mother Morrison. "You see, dear, you can't help
+feeling that Miss Putnam has been unfair and every time you tell what
+she has done you will make someone else think she is unfair, too. Your
+friends will take your part, of course, and while you think Miss Putnam
+is decidedly 'mean,' she is acting right, according to her own ideas.
+It is never best to talk much about a quarrel of any kind."
+
+Jimmie, who had been eating his breakfast in silence, rose and looked
+toward his mother.
+
+"I suppose I have to work in that old garden?" he said aggrievedly.
+
+"You know what your father said," replied Mother Morrison.
+
+Jimmie did not like to weed, and the Morrison garden, when it came his
+turn, was often sadly neglected. He and Ralph and Dick were responsible
+for the care of the garden two weeks at a time during the growing
+season.
+
+"Well, maybe if I stick at it this morning, I can go swimming this
+afternoon," muttered Jimmie. "Dad didn't say the whole thing had to be
+weeded today, did he?"
+
+"He wants the new heads of lettuce transplanted, and all the onions
+weeded," answered Mother Morrison. "You know you were asked to tend to
+those a week ago, Jimmie."
+
+Jimmie flung himself out of the house in rather a bad temper. He did
+not like to transplant lettuce and the onions must be weeded by hand.
+Other vegetables could be handled with a hoe, or the garden cultivator,
+but the eight long rows of new onions must be carefully done down on
+one's hands and knees.
+
+"Jimmie!" said a little voice at his elbow as he got the trowel and the
+wheelbarrow from the toolhouse. "Jimmie?"
+
+"Well, what do you want?" demanded Jimmie shortly.
+
+"I'll--I'll help you," offered Sister timidly.
+
+"You can't," said Jimmie. "Last time you crammed the lettuce plants in
+so hard they died over night."
+
+"But I'll bring the water for 'em, in the watering-pot, and I can weed
+onions--I know how to do that," insisted Sister humbly.
+
+"I won't need the watering-pot," said Jimmie more graciously. "I'll use
+the hose on them all tonight. I wonder if you could weed the onions?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" Sister assured him eagerly. "You watch me, Jimmie."
+
+She fell on her fat little knees, and began to pull the weeds from a
+long row of onions.
+
+The sun was hot and the row was very long. Before she reached the
+middle of it, the perspiration was running down Sister's face, and her
+hands were damp and grimy.
+
+"Look here," Jimmie called to her anxiously, on his way back for more
+lettuce plants, "don't you want to rest? And why don't you wear a
+sunbonnet, or something?"
+
+Sister stood up, straightening her aching little shoulders.
+
+"Sunbonnets are hot," she explained carefully. "And I don't want to
+rest, Jimmie. I'll go get a drink of water and then I'll weed some
+more."
+
+"Bring me a drink, too, will you?" Jimmie called after her.
+
+When she brought it he forgot to say thank you because one of his
+friends had ridden past on his bicycle and this reminded Jimmie that he
+had meant to do something to his own wheel that morning. So he drank
+the water Sister carried out to him without a word because he was
+cross, and when we're cross we do not always remember to be polite.
+
+Sister went steadily at the weeding again, and after a while Jimmie
+finished the lettuce, and began to weed an onion row himself.
+
+"You can stop if you want to now," he said to Sister presently. "Don't
+you want to play? I can finish these."
+
+"I'm not going to stop till they're all done," announced Sister. "Molly
+says the only way to get anything finished is to use plenty of
+per--perservance!"
+
+Jimmie laughed and glanced at her curiously.
+
+"I guess you mean PERSEVERANCE" he suggested, "Well, Sister, you are
+certainly fine help. It begins to look as though I could go swimming
+this afternoon after all."
+
+Surely enough, when Mother Morrison called to them that lunch was
+ready, they were weeding the last onion row.
+
+"I can finish that in fifteen minutes," declared Jimmie gaily. "You're
+a brick, Sister! When you want me to do something for you, just mention
+it, will you?"
+
+Sister beamed. She was hot and tired and she knew her face and hands
+were streaked and dirty. Brother had spent the morning playing with
+Nellie Yarrow and Ellis Carr, and Nellie's aunt had taken them to the
+drug store for ice-cream soda. Yet Sister, far from being sorry for her
+hot, busy morning in the garden, felt very happy.
+
+"Now you don't mind, do you?" she asked Jimmie anxiously.
+
+"Mind what?" he said, putting the wheelbarrow away in the toolhouse.
+
+"About the butterflies," explained Sister.
+
+"I'd forgotten all about them," declared Jimmie, hugging her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+MICKEY GAFFNEY
+
+
+Brother and Sister were very fond of playing school. They carefully
+saved all the old pencils and scraps of paper and half-used blank books
+that Grace and Louise and Jimmie gave them, and many mornings they
+spent on the porch "going to school."
+
+Neither had ever been to school, and of course they were excited at the
+prospect of starting in the fall. Brother had had kindergarten lessons
+at home and he was ready for the first grade, while Sister would have
+to make her start in the Ridgeway school kindergarten.
+
+"I wish summer would hurry up and go," complained Brother one August
+day. "Then we could really go to school."
+
+"Well, don't wish that," advised Louise. "Goodness knows you'll be
+tired of it soon enough! Sister, what are you dragging out here?"
+
+"My blackboard," answered Sister, almost falling over the doorsill as
+she pulled her blackboard--a gift from Grandmother Hastings--out onto
+the porch.
+
+"Come on, Grace, we'll go in," proposed Louise, hastily gathering up
+her work. "If these children are going to play school there won't be
+any place for us! We'll go up to my room."
+
+"I thought maybe you would be the scholars," said Brother,
+disappointed. "We never have enough scholars."
+
+Louise was halfway up the stairs.
+
+"You can play the dolls are scholars," she called back.
+
+Mother Morrison had gone over to Grandmother Hastings to help her make
+blackberry jam, and Louise and Grace had been left in charge of the
+house.
+
+"Let me be the teacher," begged Sister, when her blackboard was
+arranged to her liking. "I know how, Roddy."
+
+"Well, all right, you can be teacher first," agreed Brother. "But after
+you play, then it's my turn."
+
+Sister picked up a book and pointed to the blackboard.
+
+"'Rithmetic class, go to the board," she commanded.
+
+Both she and Brother knew a good deal about what went on in classrooms,
+because they had listened to the older children recite.
+
+"How much is sixty-eight times ninety-two?" asked Teacher-Sister
+importantly.
+
+Brother made several marks on the blackboard with the crayon.
+
+"Nine hundred," he answered doubtfully.
+
+"Correct," said the teacher kindly. "Now I'll hear the class in
+spellin'."
+
+"I wish we had more scholars," complained Brother. "It's no fun with
+just one; I have to be everything."
+
+"There's that little boy again--maybe he'd play," suggested Sister,
+pointing to the red-haired, barefooted little boy who stood staring on
+the walk that led up to the porch.
+
+He could not see through the screens very clearly, but he had heard the
+voices of the children and, stopping to listen, had drawn nearer and
+nearer.
+
+"That's Mickey Gaffney," whispered Brother. "Hello, Mickey," he called
+more loudly. "Want to come play school with us?"
+
+Mickey came up on the steps, and flattened his nose against the screen
+door.
+
+"I dunno," he said doubtfully. "How do you play?"
+
+Sister pushed open the door for him, and Mickey rather shyly looked
+about him.
+
+"It's nice and shady in here," he said appreciatively. "You got a
+blackboard, ain't you?"
+
+"You should say 'have' a blackboard and 'ain't' is dreadful," corrected
+Sister, blissfully unaware that "dreadful" was not a good word to use.
+"You can use the chalk if you'll be a scholar, Mickey."
+
+Mickey was anxious to draw on the blackboard and he consented to play
+"just for a little."
+
+As Brother had said, two scholars were ever so much better than one and
+they had a beautiful time playing together. Mickey, in spite of his
+ragged clothes, and bad grammar, knew how to play, and he suggested
+several new things that Sister and Brother had never done.
+
+"I been to school," boasted Mickey.
+
+The children were anxious to have him stay to lunch with them and
+Louise, who had heard his voice and who came downstairs to see him,
+also invited him to stay. But he was too shy, and shuffled off just as
+Nellie Yarrow bounded up the front steps.
+
+"Wasn't that Mickey Gaffney?" she asked curiously. "I shouldn't think
+you'd want to play with him. His folks are awful poor, and, besides,
+his father was arrested last year."
+
+"Mickey isn't to blame for that," retorted Grace quickly. "Don't be a
+snob, Nellie; Brother and Sister had a good time playing with that
+little red-headed boy."
+
+"But hardly any of the children play with him," persisted Nellie, who
+of course went to the public school. "You see last term Mickey was in
+my room, and he only came till about the middle of October--maybe it
+was November. Anyway, soon as it got cold he stopped coming.
+
+"The teacher thought he was playing hooky, and she told Mr. Alexander,
+the principal. And he found out that the reason Mickey didn't come to
+school was 'cause his father didn't send him."
+
+"Why didn't his father send him?" asked Sister.
+
+"He wouldn't work, and Mickey didn't have any shoes to wear," explained
+Nellie. "Mr. Alexander got somebody to give Mickey a pair of shoes, but
+he wouldn't pay any attention to his lessons, and I know he wasn't
+promoted. I suppose he'll be in the first grade again this year."
+
+Brother and Sister thought a good deal about Mickey after Nellie had
+gone home. They wondered if he wanted to go to school and whether he
+wished the summer would hurry so the new term might open.
+
+"He liked to play school, so I guess he likes to go, really," argued
+Sister. "Playing is different," said Brother wisely. "He didn't have
+any shoes on this morning, did he?"
+
+"No, that's so," Sister recalled. "And his clothes were all torn and
+dirty; maybe he hasn't any new suit to wear the first day."
+
+All the Morrison children had always started school in new suits or
+dresses, and Mother Morrison had promised Brother a new sailor suit and
+Sister a gingham frock when they started off in September.
+
+"Miss Putnam would say he 'scuffled,'" giggled Sister, remembering that
+was what Miss Putnam thought all children did with their feet.
+
+"I wonder who really did put the tar on her porch?" murmured Brother.
+"She'll always think we did it, unless someone tells her something
+else."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A VERY SICK DOLL
+
+
+"Madam," declared Brother seriously, "your child is very ill, I fear!"
+
+He was the "doctor" and had been called to attend Muriel Elsie,
+Sister's best and largest doll. The children had started this new game
+one day.
+
+"Oh, Doctor!" fluttered Sister, much worried. "Can't you give her
+something?"
+
+The doctor sat down on the window-seat and considered.
+
+"You ate all the peppermints up," he told Muriel Elsie's "mother." Then
+he went on: "And Louise hid the box of chocolates. No, I don't believe
+I can give her any medicines."
+
+"Yes, you can," urged the little mother, hurriedly. "Go to the drug
+store; that's where Doctor Yarrow gets all his pills and things."
+
+"Where--where is the drugstore?" stammered the doctor.
+
+He was used to having Sister tell him. She usually planned their games.
+
+"Why, it's--it's--" Sister looked about her desperately. Where should
+she say the drugstore was? "I know," she cried. "Over to
+Grandma's--hurry!"
+
+Grandmother Hastings glanced up from her sewing in surprise as Brother
+and Sister tumbled up the steps of the side porch where she sat.
+
+"Oh, Grandma!" and Sister fell over the Boston fern in her eagerness to
+explain the play. "Grandma, Muriel Elsie is ever so sick, and Roddy is
+the doctor; and we have to go to the drugstore to get medicine for her.
+Have you any? You have, haven't you, Grandma?"
+
+"Dear me," said Grandmother Hastings, adjusting her glasses. "Muriel
+Elsie is very ill, is she? Well, now, what kind of medicine do you
+think she needs?"
+
+"Muriel Elsie likes medicine that tastes good," explained Sister.
+
+"Well, I must put on my thinking-cap," said dear Grandmother Hastings.
+"I didn't know I was keeping a 'drug store' till this minute, you see."
+
+The children were as quiet as two little mice, so that Grandmother
+might think better.
+
+"I know!" she cried in a moment. "I think I have the very thing! Come
+on out in the kitchen with me."
+
+They pattered after her and watched while she lifted down a large
+pasteboard box from a cupboard. From this box she took several tiny
+round boxes, such as druggists use for pills.
+
+"I think Muriel Elsie needs two kinds of medicine," said Grandmother
+gravely. "Now if you want to watch me put it up, there's nothing to
+hinder you."
+
+Grandmother Hastings could play "pretend" beautifully, as Brother and
+Sister often said. Now she opened her shining white bread box and took
+out a loaf of white bread and one of brown. She washed her hands
+carefully at the sink, tied on a big white apron and brought the sugar
+and cinnamon from the pantry.
+
+"Oh, Grandma!" squeaked Brother in joyful excitement. "What are you
+going to do?"
+
+"Why, get some medicine ready for Muriel Elsie," answered his
+grandmother, making believe to be surprised. "Didn't you want me to?"
+
+"Of course--don't mind him, Grandma," said Sister scornfully. "I'd like
+to keep a drug store when I grow up."
+
+Grandmother cut a slice of bread from the white loaf and buttered it
+lightly. Then she sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar, broke off a
+little piece and rolled that into several tiny round balls. They looked
+for all the world like real pills.
+
+Then she cut a slice of brown bread and rolled that into little pills,
+too. She filled four of the small boxes.
+
+"There!" she said, giving the boxes to Brother. "See that your patient
+takes a white pill and a brown one every two minutes and she will soon
+be well."
+
+"Thank you very much, Grandma," said Brother, standing up to go. "Don't
+you want us to eat the trimmings?"
+
+Grandmother laughed and said yes, they might eat the crusts, and she
+gave them each a slice of the brown bread spread with nice, sweet
+butter, too.
+
+Brother and Sister hurried home and on the way over they changed to the
+Doctor and Muriel Elsie's worried mamma. They had been so interested in
+watching Grandmother Hastings make the pills that they had almost
+forgotten that they were playing.
+
+They had left the patient in the porch swing--Sister said it was
+important to keep her in the fresh air--but when they went to take her
+up and give her a pill, she wasn't to be found.
+
+"Perhaps Louise did something to her," decided Sister.
+
+But Louise, questioned, declared she had not seen the doll.
+
+"Is it Muriel Elsie you're looking for?" asked Molly, her head tied up
+in a sweep cap and a broom on her shoulder as she prepared to sweep the
+upstairs hall. "Why, I found her half an hour ago on the porch floor,
+her face all cracked into little chips."
+
+"Muriel Elsie all chipped?" repeated Sister in wonder. "Why, she's my
+very best doll!"
+
+"'Twas that imp of a Brownie did it," related Molly. "I was coming out
+to sweep the porch off, and he raced on ahead and went to jerking the
+cushions out of the hammock. First thing I knew there was a crash, and
+the doll was smashed on the floor. I saved you the pieces, Sister."
+
+Brownie had a trick, the children knew, of snatching the sofa and swing
+cushions and flinging them on the floor whenever he thought anyone was
+ready to sleep. They had always considered this rather a clever trick
+for a little dog, and Sister could not find it in her heart to scold
+him even now.
+
+"I suppose he didn't know Muriel Elsie was there," she said
+sorrowfully. "I had a cushion over her so she couldn't take cold. Where
+did you put her, Molly?"
+
+Molly brought out the box with the unfortunate Muriel Elsie in it. Only
+her pretty face was damaged and that was badly chipped. Besides her
+whole head wobbled on her body.
+
+Sister began to cry.
+
+"Maybe Ralph can mend her," she sobbed. "My poor little Muriel Elsie!
+And we were playing she was sick, too."
+
+"Yes, I guess Ralph can mend her," said Brother bravely. "He can mend
+lots of things. And you have all the pieces."
+
+Sister took the box under her arm and went down to the gate to wait for
+Ralph, who was expected home on an early train.
+
+"Well, I s'pose we might as well eat the pills," suggested Brother.
+"Muriel Elsie's certainly too sick for pills--she needs--operating on!"
+
+So they ate the pills while they were waiting for Ralph, and they gave
+Brownie some, too. As Sister said he didn't mean to break the doll and
+he probably felt the way she did when she found she had knocked over
+Jimmie's case of butterflies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+PLANS FOR MICKEY
+
+
+The last pill had disappeared down little red lane, when Ralph was seen
+to turn the corner.
+
+"Well, Chicks, why so solemn?" he asked cheerfully. "Sister, have you
+been crying?"
+
+Sister held out the broken doll silently.
+
+"Why, that's too bad!" exclaimed Ralph, sitting down on the step beside
+his little sister. "What happened to Muriel Elsie?"
+
+"Brownie jerked her out of the hammock and she fell on her head,"
+Brother explained. "Can you mend her, Ralph?"
+
+"I'm afraid not," said Ralph regretfully. "Mending faces is ticklish
+work; I might manage an arm or leg, but not a FACE. I tell you,
+Sister--you take Muriel Elsie down to the Exchange and see if Miss
+Arline can't mend her. Leave her there, ask how much it will cost and
+when she will be ready, and I'll give you the money."
+
+"I'll go with you, Betty," Brother offered. "Let's go now,"
+
+Molly tied the box up with paper and string and hand in hand Brother
+and Sister started.
+
+"Certainly I can mend the dollie," announced Miss Arline when they
+reached her house and had shown her Muriel Elsie and explained the
+accident. "I think I'll take her into the city with me tomorrow to a
+doll's hospital. You come for her a week from today and she will be
+ready for you. I can't tell how much it will cost, you tell your
+brother, until I find out what the hospital will charge me."
+
+On their way home, Brother and Sister met Mickey Gaffney. They had not
+seen him since he played school with them, and the sight of him at once
+suggested something to Brother.
+
+"Say, Nellie Yarrow says you're going to be in the first grade at
+school this term," he said to Mickey. "I'm going to be in first grade,
+too. We'll be in the same room."
+
+"Don't know as I'm going to school," declared Mickey perversely. "I
+didn't go much last year."
+
+"Wouldn't--wouldn't your 'father let you?" suggested Sister timidly.
+
+Mickey flushed a little.
+
+"Aw, it wasn't so much his fault, leastways he said he didn't care if I
+went," he muttered, digging his bare foot into the gravel on one side
+of the stone flagging. "After they had him arrested he said I had to
+go."
+
+"Didn't you want to go?" urged Brother, round-eyed. "I think it's lots
+of fun to go to school."
+
+"Guess you wouldn't think so if you didn't have some shoes and a good
+coat," retorted Mickey. "I ain't going to school this year, either, if
+I can't have things to wear. None of the boys go barefoot."
+
+"But Nellie says Mr. Alexander got some shoes for you to wear," said
+Brother quickly.
+
+"How would you like to wear somebody else's shoes?" inquired Mickey
+with scorn. "They belonged to Ted Scott and he was always looking at my
+feet when I wore 'em. I want some shoes of my OWN!"
+
+"Couldn't your father buy you just one pair?" Sister asked.
+
+"No, he couldn't," Mickey answered desperately. "He doesn't like to
+work, and we had to sell Ted Scott's shoes this summer for fifty cents.
+When the old man does work it takes all he makes to buy grub. My mother
+takes in washing to pay the rent."
+
+Mickey told them this jerkily, as though against his will, and
+kind-hearted little Brother thought perhaps they had asked too many
+questions.
+
+"Maybe you could earn money yourself," he said presently. "I'm going to
+ask Daddy. You just wait, Mickey."
+
+"I wouldn't mind earning SOME money," admitted Mickey cautiously. "But
+it takes a LOT for new shoes. And they got to be new."
+
+Brother and Sister hurried home, eager to see Daddy Morrison, and ask
+his advice. They found him reading on the porch and waiting for dinner.
+
+"Oh, Daddy!" Sister rushed for him. "Daddy, how can Mickey Gaffney earn
+enough money to buy a whole pair of new shoes?"
+
+"A whole pair of shoes?" repeated Daddy, laughing. "Why, Daughter, I
+suppose a way can be found, if he must have them. Who is this Mickey
+Gaffney?"
+
+Sister told about Mickey, and Brother helped her, and when they had
+finished, Daddy Morrison knew all about Mickey and his school troubles.
+
+"Being red-headed and Irish, I don't suppose he will let me GIVE him
+the money," he mused. "Let's see, what can a chap that age do? He must
+be seven or eight years old--I've seen him hanging around the station,
+ready to carry suitcases. I wonder if he couldn't help the boys with
+the garden?"
+
+"I'll pay him if he can weed," grinned Jimmie, who had been listening.
+"And Ralph was saying last week that he wasn't going to have time to
+take his turn at garden work--he wants to go in on an earlier train."
+
+"All right, we'll tell Ralph that Mickey is open for an engagement,"
+said Daddy Morrison. "We'll start him in the garden and then perhaps
+other odd jobs will turn up."
+
+"Dinner is ready, folks," called Mother Morrison, and they all went
+into the dining-room.
+
+"I want Mickey to earn a whole lot of money," declared Sister that
+night as they were getting ready for bed. "Pulling weeds is such slow
+work. He'll have to pull an awful lot to work an hour."
+
+After Mother had kissed them good-night and put out the light, a big
+idea came to Sister.
+
+"I know what we'll do!" she asserted, sitting up in bed. "Listen,
+Roddy, Ellis Carr said his father said Miss Putnam worked too hard.
+Well, why can't Mickey help her?"
+
+"Maybe he can," murmured Brother sleepily. "Only she wont like him,
+'cause he's a boy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BROTHER AND SISTER PAY A CALL
+
+
+Sister's first thought in the morning was Mickey and Miss Putnam. "It's
+too bad he is a boy," she admitted, referring to Mickey, "because Miss
+Putnam doesn't like children. But if Mickey was grown up he wouldn't
+have to have shoes to wear to school, because he wouldn't go to school."
+
+"Sister, your reasoning is all right," Ralph praised her. "Perhaps you
+will grow up to be a lawyer like your father and brothers."
+
+"Oh, no," said Sister positively and sweetly. "When I grow up I'm going
+to be a farmer."
+
+After breakfast, she helped Brother clear the table and brush the
+crumbs, and then she dragged him out to the porch steps to consult with
+him.
+
+"We have to go see Miss Putnam," she whispered. "About Mickey, you
+know."
+
+Brother looked frightened.
+
+"She won't let us in," he said in alarm. "She thinks we threw tar on
+her porch. 'Sides, can't Mickey go see her?"
+
+"No, we want to have it all fixed for him," explained Sister patiently.
+"Mickey is scared of her, too, and maybe he wouldn't go. But if she
+says yes, he can work for her, he'll go work 'cause he wants the shoes.
+Come on, Roddy, I'm not afraid."
+
+"Will you do the talking?" suggested Brother.
+
+Sister promised to "do the talking," and without saying anything to
+anyone in the house, the small boy and girl set out for the "terrible"
+Miss Putnam's.
+
+In her heart of hearts, Sister was very much afraid of the cross old
+lady, and when they turned in at her gate she was almost ready to run
+home. But she remembered Mickey and how sadly he needed the new shoes,
+so she lifted the brass knocker on the white door and waited as bravely
+as she could.
+
+"Land sakes!" gasped Miss Putnam when she came to the door. "What on
+earth do you want?"
+
+This wasn't a very gracious welcome, and Sister stuttered a little from
+nervousness as she said they wanted to speak to her.
+
+"Come in then," said Miss Putnam shortly. "Mind you wipe your feet, and
+don't scratch the rounds of the chairs with your heels."
+
+She led them into a tiny sitting-room and Brother and Sister sat down
+on two hard, straight chairs while Miss Putnam took the only rocker.
+
+"Well?" she asked expectantly.
+
+"We've come about Mickey Gaffney," said Sister hurriedly. "He hasn't
+any shoes to wear to school and he wants to earn money to buy 'em. He's
+going to work for us, some, but school starts in about three weeks and
+we're afraid he won't have enough money."
+
+"And couldn't he work for you?" chimed in Brother bravely, determined
+not to let his sister have to do all the talking.
+
+"Why, I do need a man to do odd jobs," said Miss Putnam quite mildly.
+"Is he very strong?"
+
+You see, she hadn't listened very carefully to Sister, or else she
+didn't stop to think--no man wants shoes to wear to school.
+
+"Yes'm, he's pretty strong," Sister assured her earnestly. "He's eight
+years old and big for his age."
+
+"Eight years old!" echoed Miss Putnam. "Why, that's a mere BABY! What
+can such a child do to earn money?"
+
+"Mickey can run errands and sweep and weed the garden," recited
+Brother, gaining confidence since Miss Putnam neither shouted at them
+nor chased them from her house. "He can dry dishes, too--he says he
+does 'em for his mother."
+
+Miss Putnam thought for a few moments.
+
+"I'm going to need someone to do errands for me this winter when I
+can't get around," she said slowly. "And I've about broke my back in
+the garden this summer. But boys are noisy, careless creatures--I don't
+know as I could stand a boy around me."
+
+"Oh, Mickey is nice," Sister hastened to explain. "He's going to grow
+up and support his mother. He won't make any more noise than he can
+help."
+
+Miss Putnam smiled grimly.
+
+"I guess that's true," she said. "Well, tell your Mickey to come round
+and see me, and if he doesn't charge too much, perhaps we can suit each
+other."
+
+Brother and Sister trotted home, well-pleased with the success of their
+errand. It was something to have secured the promise of more work for
+Mickey.
+
+"There he is now!" exclaimed Brother, spying the flaming red head of
+the Gaffney boy ahead of them. "Hey, Mickey!"
+
+Mickey was on his way to the grocery store for soap, he informed them.
+
+"Wait a minute," said Brother. "We want to tell you--Daddy says you can
+help Jimmie and Ralph in our garden and they will pay you, by the hour,
+Ralph says. And Miss Putnam says you can run errands for her."
+
+"Miss Putnam?" repeated Mickey, surprised. "Miss Putnam wouldn't have a
+boy in her yard."
+
+"Yes, she will," declared Sister. "She said so. And you can run errands
+after school this winter when she can't get around--she said so, didn't
+she, Roddy?"
+
+Brother nodded.
+
+"It would be kind of nice to have a job this winter, wouldn't it?" said
+Mickey thoughtfully. "My mother would like that. Well, if you're sure
+Miss Putnam won't come out with a broom when she sees me, I'll go."
+
+"No, she won't," Sister assured him. "I don't believe she's so cross
+when you know her."
+
+"'Cept about tar," said Brother sorrowfully.
+
+Mickey looked at them, mystified.
+
+"What about tar?" he asked. "Has Miss Putnam any?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+MICKEY OWNS UP
+
+
+Brother told Mickey the tar incident in a few words.
+
+"And you can't make her believe Betty and I didn't put it on her
+porch," he concluded. "She's just 'termined we did it."
+
+"And she sent the policeman to your house and all," mused Mickey. "Gee!"
+
+His face was rather red and he looked at Brother and Sister queerly. He
+opened his mouth as though to say something, then apparently changed
+his mind.
+
+"Well, we have to go home," declared Brother. "You'll go see Miss
+Putnam, won't you, Mickey?"
+
+"I suppose so," muttered Mickey. "So long!"
+
+"Maybe he doesn't like it," said Sister as they went on toward their
+house.
+
+"Oh, yes he does," replied Brother confidently. "He'll go, you see if
+he doesn't."
+
+Mickey Gaffney did go see Miss Putnam, and something about him made the
+old lady like him right away. She engaged him to do errands for her an
+hour in the morning, and again in the afternoon, and she paid him
+fifteen cents an hour. If he weeded in the garden that was to be extra.
+
+"Will you have enough for your shoes?" asked Sister anxiously one
+morning, when Mickey came to do some weeding in the garden for Jimmie.
+
+"My, yes, and I guess I can buy my little sister a pair," said Mickey
+proudly.
+
+"Have you a little sister?" demanded Brother and Sister together. "How
+old is she?"
+
+"Five," answered Mickey, getting down on his hands and knees and going
+at the weeds in a business-like way. "She'll be five next month."
+
+"Isn't that nice!" commented Sister. "I'm five years old, too."
+
+Mickey avoided her eyes and was apparently too busy to talk much to
+them, so by and by Brother and Sister ran off and left him to his
+weeding.
+
+If they had stayed, they might have seen Mickey throw down his
+weeding-fork suddenly and march out of the garden.
+
+"Don't believe that boy is going to stick to his work," said Molly to
+Mother Morrison. "He's gone already."
+
+But Mickey was hurrying along toward Miss Putnam's house and did not
+care very much what anyone thought of him. He didn't think kindly of
+himself at that moment.
+
+"Why, Mickey!" Miss Putnam looked up at him in amazement as he came
+around to the back porch where she was sweeping a rug. "What's the
+matter, child, don't you feel well?"
+
+"I feel all right," he said briefly. "Say, Miss Putnam, you know that
+tar that was on your porch? I threw it!"
+
+"You--you what?" gasped Miss Putnam. "You threw that hot tar all over
+my clean porch and walk? Why, Mickey!"
+
+"Yes'm," muttered Mickey miserably.
+
+"But why?" insisted Miss Putnam. "And Mrs. Graham told me that the
+Morrison boy and girl did it."
+
+"Guess she thought she saw 'em--it was most dark," said Mickey. "But it
+wasn't Roddy and Betty. I did it, and Nina, my little sister, helped
+me."
+
+"But why?" persisted Miss Putnam. "I never should have thought it of
+you, Mickey, never."
+
+Strange as it may seem, Miss Putnam really liked Mickey. He was so
+willing and so cheerful and so quick that the old lady who had had to
+do all the work of her small home so long that she had forgotten how it
+felt to have younger hands helping her, began to look forward to
+Mickey's coming every day.
+
+And Mickey liked Miss Putnam. He found she was very fair about time and
+reasonable about the amount of work she expected him to accomplish. The
+fact that he was barefooted did not seem to bother her and she treated
+him exactly as though his clothes were whole instead of torn and poorly
+patched.
+
+Now when she asked him why he had thrown the tar, it was hard for him
+to tell the truth. But he did. When Mickey once made up his mind to do
+a thing, he always went through with it.
+
+"It was 'count of the barbwire," Mickey explained in a low voice. "I
+didn't know you put it up, and I climbed the fence one night, to scare
+you through the window, and I thought you'd run out and chase me. And I
+tore my coat on the wire and scratched my face. So after that I was
+always looking for a chance to get even."
+
+"When I saw the tar, I came back after supper and made Nina carry it
+for me while I slung it--we had a tin bucket. I'm awful sorry, Miss
+Putnam; honest I am!"
+
+"But--did you let me send a policeman to the Morrison's house?" asked
+Miss Putnam uncertainly.
+
+"I never knew about that till just before I came here to work," said
+Mickey earnestly. "And ever since I've felt mean as dirt, not telling.
+Nina is just as old as Betty. It wasn't her fault--Nina's, I mean; she
+does whatever I tell her to."
+
+"Well, I'll go call on Mrs. Morrison this afternoon," said Miss Putnam
+briskly. "And then I'll take down that wire. I don't need it now
+anyway, for the children don't bother me since you're here. I guess
+they're afraid you'd catch them if you should chase them," she smiled
+grimly.
+
+"And I can go right on working?" suggested Mickey anxiously.
+
+"Of course, child. Why not?" said Miss Putnam.
+
+That settled Mickey's last worry. With a hurried "thank you," he dashed
+away, out through the yard and up the street. He wanted to find Brother
+and Sister and tell them what he had done.
+
+"My goodness, I think you're ever so brave," said Sister when she had
+heard his story. "I'd be scared to death to tell Miss Putnam like that."
+
+"Pooh, she's all right," answered Mickey. "I like her. And now I have a
+lot of time to make up--most half an hour."
+
+"School begins two weeks from today," announced Brother, watching
+Mickey tackle an onion row. "You're sure you're going, Mickey?"
+
+"Of course," said Mickey proudly. "I'll stop for you the first morning
+just to prove it."
+
+"And we'll go every day and never be late once, will we?" chimed in
+Sister.
+
+But whether they were able to keep this good resolution or not remains
+to be seen. If you are interested to know you will have to read the
+next book about them, called "BROTHER AND SISTER'S SCHOOL DAYS."
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Brother and Sister, by Josephine Lawrence
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