d not permit it. It was not that
they disliked her, she knew. What was it? She tried to put herself
in their place. Suddenly it came to her what the difficulty was.
They did not want to be so much in her debt. How could she prevent
that? She must let them do something for her that would lessen that
debt. But what? She thought very hard. In a flash it came to her--a
plan by which she could make it all right.

"You see," she began eagerly, "I wanted to ask you three to help me
in something, but I can't do it unless you let me help you.
Listen--the next holiday is Halloween. I want to decorate my shop
with a lot of real jack-o'-lanterns cut from pumpkins. It will be
hard work and a lot of it and I was hoping that perhaps you'd help
me with this."

The three faces lighted up.

"Of course we will," Dicky said heartily.

"Gee, I bet Dicky and I could make some great lanterns," Arthur said
reflectively.

"And I'll help you fix up the store," Rosie said with enthusiasm. "I
just love to make things look pretty."

"It's a bargain then," Maida said. "And now you must teach me how to
help you this very afternoon, Dicky."

They fell to work with a vim. At least three of them did. Rosie
continued to frisk with Delia and Tag on the floor. Dicky started
Maida on the caps first. He said that those were the easiest. And,
indeed she had very little trouble with anything until she came to
the boxes. She had to do her first box over and over again before it
would come right. But Dicky was very patient with her. He kept
telling her that she did better than most beginners or she would
have given it up. When she made her first good box, her face beamed
with satisfaction.

"Do you mind if I take it home, Dicky?" she asked. "I'd like to show
it to my father when he comes. It's the first thing I ever made in
my life."

"Of course," Dicky said.

"Don't the other children ever try to copy your things?" Maida
asked.

"They try to," Arthur answered, "but they never do so well as
Dicky."

"You ought to see their nose-pinchers," Rosie laughed. "They can't
stand up straight. And their boxes and steamships are the wobbliest
things."

"I'm going to get all kinds of stuff for things we make for the
fair," Maida said reflectively. "Gold and silver paper and colored
stars and pretty fancy pictures for trimmings. You see if you're
going to charge real money you must make them more beautiful than
those for which you only charged nails."