Brother and Sister | Page 5

admire these before she could leave the chiffonier. Finally she slipped the box of pretty buttons in her pocket and jumped down. She put the chair where she had found it, and ran downstairs and through the hedge that separated the Morrison house from that of Dr. Yarrow's.
"Nellie, oh, Nellie!" called Sister. "Come on, let's play jackstones."
"Haven't any," answered Nellie Yarrow, a little girl a year or so older than Sister. "All I have left is my ball."
"Well, get that and we can play," Sister told her. "I've found something we can use--see!"
Nellie admired the collar buttons immensely and thought it would be great fun to play with them. She ran and got her ball and the two little friends sat down on the concrete walk to play jackstones, heedless of the hot morning sun.
Sister had won one game and Nellie two, when they heard Louise calling.
"Sister! Sister! Where are you? If you want to help fix the fishpond, you'll have to come right away."
Sister stuffed the buttons in her pocket and ran home, eager to see what Louise and Brother had bought.
CHAPTER IV
PARTY PREPARATIONS
When Mother Morrison had suggested a fishpond for the party, Louise and Grace had protested.
"Oh, Mother!" they cried. "That's so old!"
"But the children like it," said Mother Morrison mildly.
"It's fun," urged Brother. "It's fun to fish over the table and catch something!"
Sister, too, had asked for the pond, so it was decided to have one. Louise and Grace might not care for such things at their birthday parties, but this, as Sister said, was "different."
"We bought bushels and bushels," Brother informed Sister as she bounded through the hedge and up to the front porch. "Little colored pencils, and crayons, and games, and dolls, and oh!-- everything!"
Louise, whose shopping bag was certainly bulging with parcels, laughed merrily.
"We bought all the little gifts for the fish-pond and for the --there! I almost told you." She clapped her hand over her mouth and laughed again.
"For the what?" teased Sister. "Tell me, Louise--I won't tell."
"No, Mother said no one was to know," declared Louise firmly. "Now all these packages you may open, and after lunch I'll help you tie them up again and fix the pond. But these other parcels go upstairs to Mother's room and no one is to touch them."
She tumbled half the contents of her bag on the porch floor and then ran upstairs with the rest.
"Let's look at them," said Sister eagerly. "What's the matter, Roddy?"
"I was thinking," explained Brother, making no move to open the packages. "We saw a little boy down town and his foot was all tied up in a rag, and I know it hurt him 'cause he limped."
"Maybe he sprained his ankle," said Sister. "Like Dr. Yarrow's cousin, you know."
"It wasn't his ankle--it was his foot," insisted Brother. "And I told Louise Mother said we mustn't go on the ground without our sandals, and she said she guessed the boy didn't have any sandals; she said he prob'bly didn't have any shoes, either."
"Nor any stockings--just rags?" asked Sister in pity. "I like to go barefoot, Roddy, but I like my new patent leather slippers, too."
"Maybe he has some for Sunday," comforted Brother, trying to be hopeful. "Everybody has to wear shoes on Sunday."
"Yes, of course they do," agreed Sister, who had never heard of a boy and girl who didn't wear shoes on Sunday and every day in the week except when they were allowed to go barefoot as a great treat.
The tempting packages were not to be forgotten one moment longer, and they decided to "take turns" opening them.
"Isn't it fun!" giggled Sister. What do you s'pose Mother is going to make you, Roddy?"
"I don't know," replied Brother absently. "I keep thinking about Ralph's present. He says that he thinks I'll be tall enough to have it by tomorrow."
"Did you drink all your milk for breakfast?" asked Sister anxiously.
Ralph was most particular about the children's milk. He insisted that they couldn't grow properly without enough milk, and as both were anxious to grow tall, Brother and Sister usually drank their milk without fussing.
Brother had finished his to the last drop that morning, he said, and when they were called in to lunch presently, he drank another glass so that he would surely grow enough to please Ralph.
"And now we'll do up the fishpond presents," said Louise, when they had finished lunch.
She and Grace both helped, for Mother Morrison was busy in the kitchen with Molly, and of course none of the brothers were home during the day except Jimmie, and he was usually busy out in the barn where the gymnasium was.
You have probably "fished" in a fishpond yourself at parties, and know what it is. Little gifts are placed somewhere out of sight, and each small guest is given