"That's right," Dicky said. "By George, that will be great! You go
ahead and buy whatever you think is right, Maida, and I'll pay you
for it from what we take in at the fair."

"That's settled. What do you whittle, Arthur?"

"Oh, all kinds of things--things I made up myself and things I
learned how to do in sloyd in school. I make bread-boards and
rolling pins and shinny sticks and cats and little baskets out of
cherry-stones."

"Jiminy crickets, he's forgetting the boats," Dicky burst in
enthusiastically. "He makes the dandiest boats you ever saw in your
life."

Maida looked at Arthur in awe. "I never heard anything like it! Can
you make anything for girls?"

"Made me a set of the darlingest dolls' furniture you ever saw in
your life," Rosie put in from the floor.

"Say, did you get into any trouble last night?" Arthur turned
suddenly to Rosie. "I forgot to ask you."

"Arthur and Rosie hooked jack yesterday, in all that rain," Dicky
explained to Maida. "They knew a place where they could get a whole
lot of old iron and they were afraid if they waited, it would be
gone."

"I should say I did," Rosie answered Arthur's question. "Somebody
went and tattled to my mother. Of course, I was wet through to the
skin and that gave the whole thing away, anyway. I got the worst
scolding and mother sent me to bed without my supper. But I climbed
out the window and went over to see Maida. I don't mind! I hate
school and as long as I live I shall never go except when I want
to--never, never, never! I guess I'm not going to be shut up studying
when I'd rather be out in the open air. Wouldn't you hook jack if
you wanted to, Maida?"

Maida did not reply for an instant. She hated to have Rosie ask this
question, point-blank for she did not want to answer it. If she said
exactly what she thought there might be trouble. And it seemed to
her that she would do almost anything rather than lose Rosie's
friendship. But Maida had been taught to believe that the truth is
the most precious thing in the world. And so she told the truth
after a while but it was with a great effort.

"No, I wouldn't," she said.

"Oh, that's all right for _you_ to say," Rosie said firing up. "You
don't have to go to school. You live the easiest life that anybody
can--just sitting in a chair and tending shop all day. What do you
know about it, anyway?"

Maida's lips quivered. "It is true I don't go to school, Rosie," she
said. "But it isn't because I