. Besides, you never play with it any more, and
like as not grandpa or some other person that's got money will give us
one of our own for Christmas. Then you can have yours back again. I
guess you can wait that long, can't you? We wanted the walls striped
with red and white, but Gussie thought that would look too much like a
barber shop, so we just had white paper. It doesn't much matter, for the
flags cover most of that wall, and Martha and George--we found them in
the attic--Washington take up all the space on that side under the
eagle--we got that out of the glass case that stands in the barn loft.
We were going to see if we couldn't find some rugs with flags in them,
but Gussie said it wasn't nice to _walk_ on our country's flag, so we
chose this red carpet that used to be on this floor."

"But where did you get such cute, quaint furniture?" asked Faith who was
trying the white enameled chairs one after another.

"Oh, that all came from the attic, too. Didn't cost us anything. It was
a dull, ugly brown--"

"Mother's mahogany set," whispered Mrs. Campbell to the amused doctor
standing at her side.

"--but a little white varnish made it just what we wanted."

"Did you do the painting?" asked Cherry, testing it with her finger to
see if it stuck.

"No; we tried, but it looked so streaked we thought we sure had spoiled
it. Gussie didn't have time to do a good job on it, either; so we asked
Jud to help us out, and he said he would if Gussie--" There was a
movement at the door, and the company glanced over their shoulders just
in time to see Gussie's dress whisk out of sight down the hall. "--would
give him a kiss. So you see we got that work done dirt cheap, too.
Altogether, we spent nine dollars and ninety-one cents of the money
grandpa gave us. Gussie kept the list. That's what the paper and white
paint and ribbons for tying back our curtains--oh, yes, and the curtains
themselves came to. They are just dotted _Swish_ and we got it at a
sale, so it didn't cost us much. Mrs. Grinnell says always watch for
sales, 'cause lots of bargains can be picked up that way, and we
remembered it this time. We spent the extra nine cents--to make just an
even ten dollars--for candy to treat Gussie and Jud, seeing they
wouldn't take any money for their work, but they didn't eat it all; so
Allee and me had the rest."

"Did you make the curtains yourselves?" asked Cherry, the inquisitive.

"Well, mostly. Gussie cut them for us, a