and welcome. If you can wait till
my girls have helped me a little, you may have all the fun you can make
for yourselves."

The farm kitchen was a very spacious room, and Lil and Ollie thought it
ever so much nicer than the one in their city house. The dresser was
filled with shining tins, the cupboard with blue china enough to stock
two or three cabinets, the floor was white as the fine sand could make
it, and the bunches of sweet herbs perfumed the room so pleasantly that
bees had evidently mistaken the place for a branch of the flower garden
by the way they flitted in and out.

Lil and Ollie sat down to watch Mrs. Pokeby, who was preparing to bake;
but in a trice both had on aprons, and were busily assisting Clara and
her sisters. It was so nice to be trusted to break and beat eggs, to
sift flour, to wash currants, and weigh sugar. They whipped the eggs
till they looked like snow, they made the creamy butter dissolve in the
sparkling sugar, they tasted and tried the consistency of the cake, they
buttered the pans, and watched the oven. Mrs. Pokeby even let them mould
some biscuits, and spread the paste over pie plates, and drop in the
luscious fruit. So intent were they in their occupation that they hardly
noticed the lengthening shadows, and heard Clara Pokeby say it was time
to be off if they were going anywhere to play.

"Oh, wouldn't it be nice to give the boys a supper?--a supper all cooked
by ourselves?" said Lil, with a sudden inspiration.

"Jolly enough," said Ollie.

"And have it in the woods," said Clara. "Do you know where they have
gone?" she asked.

"Yes, they were to fish in Black Creek--down where we gathered
pond-lilies last week."

"That is not too far. Mother, may we do it?"

"To be sure. You may have a share of everything we have made. Let me
see, there's an apple-pie, a pan of biscuit-- I can whip up some
corn-bread--"

"Oh, please let me do it," said Lil.

No sooner said than done. Again they went to work. By the time the
corn-bread was finished, Mrs. Pokeby had packed the baskets. Lil had
looked about fifty times in the oven, and fifty times more at the
receipt-book, to see if she had followed the instructions properly,
while Clara and Ollie and the other girls had provided glasses and
spoons and napkins.

"Now we are all ready--come on, girls," was at last the order issued by
Lil, and away they went. Mr. Pokeby gave them a lift on the empty
hay-cart, and carried the heaviest bask