orted with indignation
or choked with candy, I cannot tell which; but because we had to, we
accepted their kind invitation with gratitude. We stopped at the house
first and told Mrs. Luttrell we were going to the barn with the boys,
and she said not to get hurt or fall, and gave us a tea-cake all
around. Mamie Sue held the plate and happened to get two, not at all
by intention, for they were stuck together.

Tony swung up from the horse trough to the loft by a pole, while Sam
and Pink stayed to push us up. I went up just as easily as Tony did,
before they had time to push me one inch, but poor Mamie Sue stuck
halfway through the trap-door and we thought we would never be able to
get her either up or down without calling out the fire-company, as Sam
suggested; but she kept astonishingly cool herself and wiggled in just
the way Tony told her to, and at last got up. She said she knew that
she could fall down all right, when the time came to go, so for us not
to worry about that, and we proceeded to enjoy the Crotch.

I never dreamed boys could get together so many remarkable things and
make it so interesting to tell about them. The big kettle to boil
water and the poles and the sticks and the blankets and tin cups and
plates were in one corner and a shelf held the knapsacks with the
"first aid" things in the opposite corner. All of Sam's bird-eggs, the
collection of which he had seen the error of, and had to give up when
he became a Scout, was on a table by the window, and his butterflies
were pinned on large pieces of brown paper on the wall and looked like
a beautiful decoration.

And while we looked at the things it had taken the boys so long to
collect, I rejoiced that I could manage to spend a lot of money to fix
up the Wigwam, and told them about each thing that I could buy, as I
thought it up, from seeing something that they had.

"Say, Bubble, is the long pole for exercise going to be braced so the
Dumpling can go over without danger?" said Tony, in the teasing voice
he uses to girls, that doesn't make them mad.

"I think we ought to have every single thing that girls can use to
make them as strong as boys," I answered. "When girls are strong
enough not to be any burden, the boys will take them everywhere they
go and everybody will have just twice as much fun."

"I suppose you would like to make the boys learn to do tatting and
sewing to let them in on that sort of kitten gatherings," said Sam,
with a laugh