"You dear little innocent lambs," said Lucinda: "it's much you know about gettin' rich, or bein' poor."

"Why, we are poor now; very, very poor: papa said so," interrupted Nelly. "That's the reason he lets us sell things."

"Oh, well! your pa don't know nothin' about bein' real poor," said Lucinda: "and I don't suppose he ever will; but it's a good thing you're a bringin' in somethin' this year. It's a dreadful year on everybody."

"Yes; papa said we were a real help," said Nelly: "he said so last night."

"Luce," exclaimed Rob, "what do you think Jan is going to make for us? He's taken the measure of us to-day; he showed us a picture of a man and a woman with them on. They're real nice to carry things with: you don't feel the weight a bit, he says. In his country, everybody wears them on their shoulders,--everybody that has any thing heavy to carry. They're something like our ox-yoke,--only with a straight piece, that comes out; and we can hang a basket on each end, and run along just as if we weren't carrying any thing. They're real nice folks, Jan and his wife. They're the nicest folks in Rosita."

"Oh! not so nice as Mrs. Clapp, Rob," said Nelly.

"Yes, they are too; lots nicer. They don't speak so fine and mincing: but I like them lots better; they're some fun. And Luce,"

he continued, "they've got a picture-book full of pictures of the way people dress in their country; and they let us look at it. It was splendid. And Ulrica she keeps taking hold of Nelly's hair, and lifting up the braids and looking at them, and talking to Jan in her own language."

"It makes her cry, though," said Nelly. "I wish she wouldn't."

"But what is this Jan is going to make you?" asked Lucinda: "a real yoke, such as I've seen the men wear to bring up two water-buckets to once? I don't believe your pa and ma'll let you wear it."

"Why not?" said Nelly: "does it look awful on your shoulders?"

"Well, you know how the ox-yoke looks on old Starbuckle and Jim,"

said Rob. "It's a good deal like that: I saw one in the picture-book."

"But we're not going to be yoked together," said Nelly. "It can't look like that."

"No, no," said Lucinda, "not a bit. They're real handy things. Lots o' the men have them, to carry water-buckets up the hill with in Rosita. They just make 'em out of a bent sapling, with two hooks at each end. You'll find them a heap o' help."

"Then I shall wear it, no matter how it looks," said Nelly, resolutely.

"We needn't wear them in the streets," said Rob: "we can take them off just outside the town, and hide them among the trees."

"Now, Rob," exclaimed Nelly, "I'd be ashamed to do that! That would look as if we were too proud to be seen in them. I shall wear mine into all the houses."

"Wait till you see how it feels, Nelly," said Lucinda. "Perhaps you won't like it so well's you think."

When Nelly and Rob told their father and mother about the shoulder-yokes that the Swede Jan was going to make for them, both Mr. and Mrs. March laughed heartily.

"Upon my word," said Mr. March, "you are going to look like little merchants in good earnest: aren't you?"

"Don't you suppose they will hurt your shoulders?" asked Mrs. March.

"Ulrica said they didn't," replied Nelly. "She said she had worn one a great deal. She puts a little cushion under the place where they come on your neck. She says we can carry twice as much on those as we can in our hands."

It was arranged now that Rob and Nelly should, for the present, go up to Rosita twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Mr. March reckoned that they would be able to spare b.u.t.ter and eggs enough to bring them five or six dollars each week. The money from the trout they did not allow themselves to count on, because it would be uncertain; but Rob made most magnificent calculations from it. "Four dollars a week, at least," he said; "and that will be one way to pay off those old gra.s.shoppers. I'll make a good many of them work for us: see if I don't!"

The next time Rob and Nelly went to Rosita, when they bade their mother good-by, they said:--

"Be on the lookout for us, mamma, this afternoon. You'll see us coming down the road with our yokes on."

So Mrs. March began to watch, about three o'clock; and, sure enough, about four, there she saw them coming down the lane which led from the main road to their house. They were coming very fast, at a sort of hop-skip-and-jump pace, but keeping step with each other exactly.

A sort of slender pole seemed to be growing out of each shoulder; from this hung slender rods, and on the end of each rod was fastened a basket or a pail, Rob's yoke had two pails; Nelly's had two baskets. As the children ran, they took hold of the rods with their hands, just above the baskets and pails. This steadied them, and also seemed to be a sort of support in walking. As soon as the children saw their mother, they quickened their steps, and came into the yard breathless.

"Oh, they are splendid!"

"Why, they're just as light as any thing!"

"They don't hurt your neck a bit!"

"See the nice baskets Ulrica gave us! Jan made them himself out of willows," shouted they, both talking at once, and each out of breath. Then Nelly slipped off her yoke, and, before her mother knew what she was about, had tried to put it on her shoulders; but her mother was too tall: Nelly could not reach up.

"Oh! do try it on, mamma," she said: "just to see how nice it is."

Mrs. March tried; but the yoke had been carefully adjusted to Nelly's slender little figure, and Mrs. March could not put it on.

"Well, if you only could, mamma, you'd see how easy it is," said Nelly, slipping it on her shoulders again, and racing down to the gate to meet her father, who was just coming in.

Mr. March stopped short, and stared at Nelly for a minute.

"Why, Nell," he said, "I did not know what you were. I thought you were some new kind of animal, with horns growing out lengthwise from your shoulders."

"So we are! so we are!" shouted Rob, running up so fast that the pails on the rods of his yoke swung back and forth high up in the air. "We are the four-armed boy and girl of Rosita. They'll want us for a show. Four arms on a boy are as wonderful as two heads on a calf."

How Mr. March did laugh! The children's fun was contagious. He seized Rob's yoke, and tried to put it on his own shoulders; but it was as much too small for him as Nelly's had been for her mother.

Then he sat down on the fence, and examined the yokes carefully.

They were beautifully made out of very slender young aspen-trees, which could be easily bent into place. The wood was almost white, and shone like satin: Jan had rubbed it so long.

"He says when the white gets dirty he will paint them for us," said Nelly: "all bright colors, as they have them in Sweden. But while they keep clean they are prettier white."

Ulrica had put a soft cushion of red cloth at the place where the yoke rested on the neck behind; also, on each rod just where the hands grasped them. Mrs. March examined them carefully.

"This is beautiful cloth," she said: "I wonder where the woman got it."

"Oh! she has a big roll of it in a chest," said Nelly. "I saw it; and a big piece of beautiful blue, too. It was made in Sweden, she says; and she has a queer gown, which was her little girl's that is dead, all made of this red and blue cloth, with--oh!--millions of little silver b.u.t.tons sewed on it, all down the front. She wanted me to try it on; but I did not like to. It was too small, too: not too short; I think it would have come down to my feet. Do little girls in Sweden wear long gowns, like grown-up ladies, mamma?"

"I don't know, dear," said Mrs. March.

"She has some of the little girl's hair in the same chest; and she took it out and held it close to mine."

"Yes," said Rob: "I didn't want her to. How did we know she was clean?"

"Oh, for shame, Rob!" cried Nelly: "they're all as clean as pins; you know they are. But I didn't like her to do it, because it made her cry."

After supper they had a great time deciding where to keep the yokes.

Rob wanted them hung up on the wall.

"They look just as pretty as the antlers old Mr. Pine has upon the wall in his house," said Rob; "and we can't ever have any antlers, unless we shoot a deer ourselves. Mr. Pine said a man offered him fifty dollars for them; but he wouldn't take it. I think our yokes look just about as pretty."

"Oh, Rob!" exclaimed Nelly, "how can you talk so? They are not pretty a bit; and you know it!"