sanna took one
little glance and then ran like the wind for the kitchen, where she
burst upon the astonished cook, and reaching as far around her as her
short arms would go, hugged her hard. Then she ran to the brick wall and
called Helen.

It seemed about a second before the two children were in the playhouse
kitchen, aprons on, and hard at work.

Minnie was made superintendent and sat sewing in a wicker chair beside
the table, where she could give advice. Helen was chief cook and Rosanna
was assistant--the most delighted and thrilled assistant that ever beat
an egg or stirred a batter. By eleven o'clock the cooking was done and
every pot and pan washed and put in its place. Helen said that was the
rule in domestic science school, so although they were both tired with
their labors and Rosanna wished in her heart that she could tell Minnie
to clean up as she usually did whenever a mess was made, they stuck to
their task and it did not take very long to finish the work and make the
kitchen all spick and span.

Rosanna was conscious of a new feeling, a sort of glow, at her heart.
Never before in her life had she spent a really useful morning. She had
learned to cook several things, and had the best time she had ever had
in her life.

"What shall we have? A party?" asked Helen, sinking down in one of the
wicker chairs.

Rosanna laughed. "Now I am going to tell my surprise, Minnie," she said.
"But when I made it up I didn't think we would help with it ourselves.
No, indeed; I thought you and cook would have to do it all, and we would
just sit around." She laughed. "I think it would be loads of fun to take
our cookies and the jello we made, and make some sandwiches of the cold
meat cook put in our ice-box, and pack the lunch hamper just as though
we were grown up, and fill the thermos bottles with milk, and go to
Jacobs Park for supper to-night."

Helen gave a scream of delight. "Oh, splendid!" she cried, "I have not
been out there yet, and dad says it is perfectly beautiful--just like
real country."

"Don't you suppose your mother would like to go, Helen?" asked Rosanna.

"Of course she would!" said Helen promptly, "but she has gone to
Jeffersonville and will not be back until to-morrow morning. It was nice
of you to think of her, Rosanna."

When the hamper was packed to their satisfaction, they called Minnie
back to see if they had forgotten anything.

"Why, who's going, Miss Rosanna?" asked Minnie, looking in