ft, Rosemary? You certainly had a
bright idea when you thought of this."

Rosemary and Sarah were more than repaid for their long, cold walk,
by the evident pleasure the boys took in their warm drink and the
two fat doughnuts apiece they had brought them. They knocked off
work fifteen or twenty minutes earlier in order to see the girls
home before dark, but the next afternoon the doctor's car came and
picked up the sisters and the empty coffee can so that the workers
lost no time.

For nearly a week, the boys shoveled steadily after school hours,
sticking to the job long after the first novelty had worn away. Bill
McCormack declared that they were the best "gang" he had ever hired
and the Plummers Lane residents ceased to regard them as a joke and
began to exchange sociable comments and quips with them, though
never descending to the plane of familiarity that included a shovel.
Rosemary and Sarah, and now and then Shirley, carried coffee and
doughnuts, or hot cocoa and cakes, each afternoon and Doctor Hugh
willingly stopped for them in his car. Even the weather ceased to
consent to co-operate for after one heavy snow, it cleared and the
streets made passable, remained that way till after Christmas.

The most important subject of discussion in the Willis household,
along the lines of Christmas preparations, was the box to be sent
the little mother in the sanatorium.

"I think we ought to make her something!" announced Rosemary.

"Well, what?" asked Sarah. "I most know she'd love to have one of
Tootles' kittens, but I don't suppose we could mail that, could
we?"

"Praise be, you can't," said Winnie who had overheard. "Those
kittens will be the death of me yet, and what they'd do to sick
folks in a sanatorium, I'm sure I don't know and don't want to."

"What'll we make Mother?" urged Shirley, pulling Rosemary's belt.

"I know--a kimona," said Rosemary triumphantly. "That won't be hard,
because we'll have only two seams. Mother will love to have
something we made her, instead of a gift we just went down town and
bought. What color do you think would be pretty, Sarah?"

"Red," said Sarah promptly.

"Pink," begged Shirley. "Make it pink, Rosemary."

"I like blue," said Rosemary wistfully.

"Let's ask Aunt Trudy," suggested Sarah.

"I think you're awfully foolish to try to make anything," pronounced
Aunt Trudy when they consulted her. "But I suppose, if you have set
your hearts on it, why nothing will dissuade