Ernest was a student and strong on reasons.

"Holy smoke! I should say so," reported Sherman, investigating. "Look at the top where the pipe goes in, you could put both hands down through the hole. Carol Brown, I thought you undertook to plaster this darned thing!"

"Well, I daubed on two bucketsful of the stuff--maybe you think it was fun to fill in all those cracks. I can't help it if you fellows left half acre s.p.a.ces between the bricks so it falls through!" complained Carol, who did not love work.

"Half acre nothing, your stuff was too thin and didn't stick!

Here--gimme your bucket."

Sherm stalked off disgustedly and was soon back with a gloriously messy batch of clay which he dashed painstakingly into the crack and into sundry other cracks that his keen eyes discovered.

"When you're doing a job, you might as well learn to do it right--it saves time in the long run," he lectured with an absurd imitation of his father's manner.

"Quit your preaching!" growled Carol.

"Alee samee, Sherm did the business, Carol," retorted Ernest. "Gee, it's going with a whoop!"

And the furnace certainly proved the force of Sherman's words, for the fire crackled merrily.

The children watched it, fascinated, waiting till the embers should be ready for the apples and potatoes.

Katy had a bright idea. "Say, Jane, get your dishes and I'll ask Mother if I can bring over our little table and we'll have a sure enough tea party."

"Oh, shucks, we don't want any doll parties!" said Ernest.

"'Twon't be a doll party--it'll be a people's party," protested Jane.

"Maybe Mother'd give me some spice cakes. She's making some," suggested Gertie tactfully.

Carol, who was a bit of a glutton, p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

"Let the kids have their duds if they want them. It won't spoil the goodies."

"Oh, well, I don't care what they have, but I'm not going to eat from their old doll things," said Sherm, who prided himself upon being above childish things.

"n.o.body wants you to, you old cross patch, but you will, won't you, Carol? And I bet Ernest and Sherm'll want to when they see what we've got," and Katy bustled off with fire in her eye, resolved to produce a spread that should make the boys' mouths water.

She dispatched Chicken Little for the dishes with instructions to beg Alice for something for the feast, while she and Gertie foraged at home.

Mrs. Halford was a jolly little woman who readily entered into the child's scheme.

The boys were set to tending the roasting apples and potatoes, and the little girls spread their tiny table daintily with a big towel for a tablecloth and rosebud china about as big as a minute.

One untoward accident occurred before the spread was ready and came near wrecking the whole plan. While the girls were off after more food a plate of tempting cookies disappeared bodily from the table, plate and all, and loud and wrathful were the laments.

"You mean things--you've got to put those cookies right back!"

"You sha'n't have a single bite if you don't!"

The boys grinned sheepishly. The cookies resting joyfully in their barbarian young stomachs could not very well be restored.

"I'll tell Mother on you," put in Chicken Little as a last threat.

"Tattle-tale, much good it'll do you. Here's your old plate, and we've eaten the cookies. Trot along for the rest of your stuff--we won't take any more," said Ernest.

"Well, you boys can't have but one doughnut apiece, now." Katy tossed her head indignantly.

However Katy herself was the first to suggest dividing her second doughnut with the boys when the time came.

Ernest and Sherm had begun to treat the doll's table idea with more respect as one after another tid-bit appeared. Quince preserves settled the matter for Sherm, and Ernest's last objection to doll parties vanished when Alice appeared with a custard pie.

Alice, who had heard Chicken Little's complaint about the way the boys were behaving, found time to linger till the little party was well started to the great improvement of the lads' manners.

"It is customary, Carol, to serve the ladies first," she admonished when Carol made a dive for a coveted dainty ahead of the others.

And when the sugar mysteriously disappeared into Ernest's pocket, she picked up the pie without comment and started for the house. The sugar was immediately restored and order reigned during the rest of the meal.

The boys appreciated the girls' truck the more because their own cooking had hardly been a success. The potatoes were half done and the apples tasted alarmingly of ashes. The moment the last morsel had vanished the boys cleared out for the ball field and the little girls looked longingly after them, as they surveyed the messy dishes.

"Let's leave them and go swing," suggested Katy.

Chicken Little sighed.

"Mother'd never let me use them again if I didn't clean them up and put them away."

"Well," said Katy, "I'll take my things home, but I don't think I ought to help you wash yours."

"Why, Katy Halford, you asked me to use them!"

"Never mind, Jane, I'll help you. Katy can just go off if she wants to.

'Twon't take long and I love to wipe," said peacemaker Gertie avoiding a storm.

Katy thought better of deserting and the work was soon done in their very best manner, which, however, did not include washing the inside of the very sticky sugar bowl or gathering up the remains of the impossible potatoes. But Alice saved the day by attending to these small details and Chicken Little was free to worry over the hated patchwork.

"Wisht I could stay out here in the sun for always," she sighed.

"Huh, I don't. There wouldn't be any coasting or skating or candy pulls or----"

"Well, I wisht there wasn't any sewing."

"You don't either. Where'd you get any dresses or hats, Jane Morton?"

retorted practical Katy.

"Feathers might be nice," put in Gertie, who loved birds.

"Well, I shouldn't want my clothes fastened on so I couldn't get them off at night," announced Katy decidedly. "And if you were a bird you couldn't read books or play dolls."

"Well," Chicken Little replied unwilling to concede the point entirely, "snakes can slip their skins right off--my father said so--and I don't see why birds couldn't--anyway, I wish little girls didn't have to learn to sew, so there!"

"I don't mind sewing but I hate arithmetic," said Gertie.