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"I don't believe it's time to get up," said Midget, as she smiled at Kitty across the room.
"No; Mother said she'd call us when it was time," returned Kitty, cuddling down under her rosebudded coverlet.
But just then something flew in at the open window, and landed on the floor between their two beds.
"What's that?" cried Marjorie, startled. And then she saw that it was a large red peony blossom. It was immediately followed by another, and that by a branch of lilac blooms. Then came hawthorn flowers, syringa, Rose of Sharon, roses, bluebells, and lots of other flowers, and sprays of green, until there was a perfect mound of flowers in the middle of the room, and stray blossoms fallen about everywhere.
"It's Cousin Jack, of course," cried Marjorie. "Let's get up, Kit."
The girls sprang out of bed, and throwing on their kimonas, ran and peeped out of the window, from behind the curtains.
Sure enough, Cousin Jack was standing down on the lawn, and when he saw the smiling faces, he began to chant a song to them:
"Susannah and Mehitabel, come out and play! For it's a lovely, sunny, shiny day in May; And Cousin Jack is waiting here for you, So hurry up, and come along, you two!"
Marjorie and Kitty could dress pretty quickly when they wanted to, so they were soon ready, and in fresh pink gingham dresses and pink hair-ribbons, they ran downstairs and out on to the lawn. King was already there, for Cousin Jack had roused him also.
"Hello, Kiddy-widdies!" Cousin Jack called out, as the girls flew toward him. "However did you get bedecked in all this finery so quickly?"
"This isn't finery," said Kitty; "these are our morning frocks. But say, Cousin Jack, how did you manage to throw those flowers in at our window from down here?"
"Oh, I'm a wizard; I can throw farther than that."
"Yes, a ball," agreed Marjorie; "but I don't see how you could throw flowers."
"Oh, I just gave them to the fairies, and they threw them in," and Cousin Jack wouldn't tell them that really he had thrown them from a nearby balcony, and gone down to the lawn afterward.
"Well, anyway, it was a lovely shower of flowers, and we thank you lots," said Marjorie.
"You're a nice, polite little girl, Mehitabel, and I'm glad to see you don't forget your manners. Now we have a good half hour before breakfast, what shall we play?"
Kitty sidled over to Cousin Jack, and whispered, a little timidly, "You said we'd play Indians."
"Bless my soul! A gentle little thing like you, Susannah, wanting to play Indians! Well, then that's what we play. I'll be the Chief, and my name is Opodeldoc. You two girls can be squaws, -- no, you needn't either. Mehitabel can be a Squaw, and Susannah, you are a pale-faced Maiden, and we'll capture you. Then Hezekiah here can be a noble young Brave, who will rescue you from our clutches! His name will be Ipecacuanha."
Surely Cousin Jack knew how to play Indians! These arrangements suited the young Maynards perfectly, and soon the game was in progress. The Indian Chief and the Squaw waited in ambush for the pale-faced Maiden to come along; the Chief meanwhile muttering dire threats of terrible tortures.
Throwing herself into the game with dramatic fervor, Kitty came strolling along. She hummed snatches of song, she paused here and there to pick a flower, and as she neared the bush behind which the two Indians were hiding, she stopped as if startled. Shading her eyes with her hand, she peered into the bush, exclaiming, in tragic accents, "Methinks I hear somebody! It may be Indians in ambush! Yes, yes, -- that is an ambush, there must be Indians in it!"
This speech so amused Cousin Jack that he burst into shouts of laughter.
Kitty, absorbed in her own part, did not smile. "Hah!" she exclaimed, "methinks I hear the Indians warwhooping!"
Kitty's idea of dramatic diction was limited to "Hah!" and "Methinks," and after this speech, Cousin Jack gave way to a series of terrific warwhoops, in which Marjorie joined. Cousin Jack was pretty good at this sort of thing, but his lungs gave out before Marjorie's did, for, this being her specialty, her warwhoops were of a most extreme and exaggerated nature.
"Good gracious, Mehitabel, do hush up!" cried the Indian Chief, clapping his hand over his Squaw's mouth. "You'll have all the neighbors over here, and the police and the fire department! Moderate your transports! Warwhoop a little less like a steam calliope!"
Marjorie giggled, and then gave a series of small, squeaky, lady-like warwhoops, which seemed to amuse Cousin Jack as much as the others had done.
"You are certainly great kids!" he exclaimed. "I'd like to buy the whole bunch of you! But come on, my Squaw, we waste time, and the pale-faced Maiden approacheth. Hah!"
"Hah!" replied Marjorie, and from behind his own distant ambush, King muttered, "Hah!"
Kitty stood patiently waiting to be captured, and so Chief Opodeldoc hissed between his teeth, "Hah! the time is ripe! Dash with me, oh, Squaw, and let us nab the paleface!"
"Dash on! I follow!" said Marjorie, and with a mad rush, the two fierce Indians dashed out from behind their bush, and captured the pale-faced Maiden.
Kitty struggled and shrieked in correct fashion, while the Indians danced about her, brandishing imaginary tomahawks, and shrieking moderately loud warwhoops.
The terrified paleface was just about to surrender, when the noble young Brave, Ipecacuanha, dashed forth, and sprang into the fray, rescuing the maiden just in the nick of time. Holding the paleface, who lay limp and gasping in his left arm, the young Indian madly fought the other two of his own tribe with his strong right arm. Apparently he, too, had a tomahawk, for he fearfully brandished an imaginary weapon, and did it so successfully, that Opodeldoc and his faithful Squaw were felled to the ground. Then the brave young Indian and the fair girl he had saved from her dire fate danced a war dance round their prostrate captives, and chanted a weird Indian dirge, that caused the fallen Chief to sit up and roar with laughter.
"You children do beat all!" he exclaimed once more. "And, by jiminy crickets! there goes the breakfast bell! Are you wild Indians fit to appear in a civilized dining-room?"
"'Course we are!" cried Marjorie, jumping up and shaking her frills into place. Kitty stood demurely beside her, and sure enough, the two girls were quite fresh and dainty enough for breakfast.
"You see," explained Marjorie, "this wasn't a real tumble around play. Sometimes when we play Indians, we lose our hair-ribbons and even tear our frocks, but to-day we've behaved pretty well, haven't we, King?"
"Yep," assented her brother, looking at the girls critically, "you look fine. Am I all right?"
"Yes," said Marjorie, as she smoothed down one refractory lock at the back of his head. "We're all ready, Cousin Jack." She turned a smiling face toward him, and remarking once again, "You do beat all!" the ex-Chief marched his young visitors in to breakfast.
After that delightful and very merry meal was over, Cousin Ethel announced that she would take charge of the two girls that morning, and that King could share in their occupation or not as he chose.
"You see, it's this way, girlies," said Cousin Ethel, after she had led the way to a pleasant corner of the veranda, and her guests were grouped about her. "A Charity Club to which I belong is going to have a sort of an entertainment which is not exactly a fair or a bazaar, but which is called a Peddler's Festival. Of course, it is to make money for charity, and while the older people have charge of it, they will be assisted by young people, and even children. Now I think it will be lovely for you chick-a-biddies to take part in this affair, if you want to; but if you don't want to, you must say so frankly, for you're not going to do anything you don't like while your Cousin Ethel is on deck!"
"S'pose you tell 'em about it, Ethelinda, and let them judge for themselves," said her husband, who was sitting on the veranda railing, with Midge and Kitty on either side of him, and Rosamond in his arms.
"Well, it's this way," began Cousin Ethel. "Instead of having articles for sale in any room or hall, we are going to send them all around town, in pushcarts or wagons, each in charge of a peddler. These peddlers will be young people dressed in fancy costumes, and each will try to sell his load of wares by calling from house to house. Some peddlers will have pushcarts or toy express wagons, or even wheelbarrows. Others will carry a suitcase or a basket or a peddler's pack. They may go together or separately, and the whole day will be devoted to it."
"Great scheme!" commented Cousin Jack. "Wish we might be in it, eh, Ned?"
"Well, no," said Mr. Maynard, "I don't believe I care about that sort of thing myself, but I rather think the Maynard chicks will like it."
"Yes, indeed," cried Marjorie, her eyes dancing at the thought; "I think it will be lovely fun, Cousin Ethel. But can we girls push a big pushcart? Do you mean like the grocers use?"
"There will be a few of those," said Cousin Ethel, "and in all cases where the vehicles are too heavy for the girls, there will be young men appointed to do the pushing, while the girls cajole the customers into buying. It will not be difficult, as everybody will be waiting for you with open hearts and open purses."
"It's a grand plan," said Kitty, speaking with her usual air of thoughtful deliberation. "What shall we sell, Cousin Ethel?"
"Well, I'm undecided whether to put you two girls together, or put you each with some one else. I'd like to put you each with another little girl, but if I do that, I will have to put Marjorie with Bertha Baker, and I know she won't like it."
"Why won't she like it?" asked Marjorie, innocently. "I'll be nice to her."
"Bless your heart, you sweet baby, I don't mean that!" cried Cousin Ethel; "but the truth is, nobody likes Bertha Baker. She is a nice child in many ways, but she is, -- "
"Grumpy-natured," put in Cousin Jack; "that's what's the matter with Bertha, -- she hasn't any sunshine in her makeup. Now as Marjorie has sunshine enough for two, I think it will be a good plan to put them together."
"The plan is good enough," said his wife, "if Marjorie doesn't mind. But I don't want her pleasure spoiled because she has to be with a grumpy little girl. How about it, Marjorie?"