PLANS
The work of the carpenters filled in very acceptably the time when the
members of the Club were toiling at school.
A visit of inspection toward the end of June gave the onlookers the
greatest satisfaction.
"Everything is as fine as a fiddle!" exclaimed Roger as they all
stopped in one of the upstairs rooms. "Now it's up to us to do the
papering and painting and to concoct some furniture."
So it was decided that all the bedrooms should have white paint and
walls of delicate hues and that Mrs. Schuler's office should be pink
with white paint and white curtains at the windows.
"We can get very pretty papers for ten cents a roll," said Margaret.
"I saw some beauties when I went to the paperers to get some flowery
papers for James to cut out when he was pasting decorations on to our
Christmas Ship boxes."
"Are you going to use wall paper?" asked Miss Merriam quickly.
"Aren't we?" inquired Margaret. "It didn't occur to me that there was
anything else. There is paper on the walls now."
"It's a lot more sanitary to have the walls kalsomined, I know that,"
said James in a superior tone. "Haven't you heard Father say so a
dozen times?"
"I suppose I have, now I think about it," replied Margaret. "It stands
to reason that there would be less chance for germs to hide."
"Do you suppose these old walls are in good enough condition to go
uncovered?" asked Roger, passing his hand over a suspicious bulge that
forced the paper out, and casting his eye at the ceiling which was
veined with hair cracks.
"Probably the walls will not be in the pink Of condition," returned
Mrs. Morton; "but, even so, color-washing will be better than papering."
"We can go over them and fill up the cracks," suggested Tom, "and we
can whitewash the ceilings."
"That's what I should advise," said Miss Merriam. "Put the walls and
ceilings in as good condition as you can, and then put on your wash.
Kalsomining is rather expensive, but there are plenty of color washes
now that any one can put on who can wield a whitewash brush."
"Me for the whitewash brush at an early date," Roger sang gayly. "What
do you suggest for these upstairs floors, Miss Merriam? Grandfather
thought they weren't bad enough to have new ones laid, but they do look
rather rocky, don't they?"
He cast a disparaging glance at the boards under his feet, and waited
for help.
"Were you planning to paint them?"
"Yes," Roger nodded.
"Then you ought to putty up the cracks first. That will make them
smooth enough. They're not really rough, you see. It's the spaces
between the planks that make them seem so."
"That's easily done. We thought we'd paint these old floors and stain
the new ones down stairs."
"I'd do that. Paint these floors tan or gray, if you want them to
confess frankly that they're painted floors, or the shade of some wood
if you want to pretend that they're hard wood floors."
James moved uneasily. Roger guessed the reason.
"What's the matter, old man? Treasury low?"
"It always is," answered James uncomfortably. "How are we going to
fill it?"
"That's what I've been thinking," Ethel Brown said meditatively. "It's
time we did something to earn something."
"Everybody I've sold cookies to all winter seems to have stopped eating
them," complained Ethel Brown. "I'm thinking of getting up a cooky
sale to relieve my financial distress."
"There's an idea," cried Tom. "Why can't we have a cooky sale--with a
few other things thrown in--and use the proceeds for the decoration and
furnishing of Rose House?"
"We've had so many entertainments; can we do anything different enough
for the Rosemonters to be willing to come?"
"And spend?"
"I think the Rosemonters have great confidence in our getting up
something new and interesting; ditto the Glen Pointers," insisted
Margaret who lived at Glen Point and knew the opinions of her neighbors.
"Where could we have it--_it_ meaning our sale or whatever we decide to
have?"
"Why not have it here? Let's wait until the boys have the house all
painted and whitewashed and colorwashed so it looks as fresh as
possible, and then tell the town what it is we are trying to do this
summer, and ask them over here to see what it looks like."
"Good enough. When they see that it's good as far as it goes, but that
our Fresh Air people will be mighty uncomfortable if they don't have
some beds to sleep in and a few other trifles of every day use, they'll
buy whatever we have to sell. That's the way it seems to me," and
Roger threw himself down on the grass before the front door with an air
of having said the final word.
"Let's ask the people of _Rose_mont to come to _Rose_ House to a _Rose_
Fête," cried Ethel Blue, while every one of her hearers waved his
handkerchief at the suggestion.
"I'll draw a poster with the announcement on it," she went on, "and we
can have it printed on pink paper and the boys can go round on their
bicycles and distribute them at every house."
"We must have everything pink, of course. Pink ice cream and cakes
with pink icing--"
"And pink strawberries--"
"Not green ones! No, sir!"
"And watermelons if we can get some that won't make too much trouble
for Dr. Hancock."
"How are we going to serve them? We can't bring china way out
here--and we won't have any for Rose House until after we give this
party to earn it!"
"They have paper plates with pretty patterns on them now. And if they
cost too much we might get the plain ones and lay a d'oyley of pink
paper on each one," suggested Margaret.
"Probably that will be the cheapest and the effect will be just as
good, but I'll find out the prices in town," promised Delia.
"I have a scheme for a table of fancy things," offered Dorothy. "Let's
have it under that tree over there and over it let's hang a huge rose.
I think I know how to make it--two hoops, the kind Dicky rolls, one
above the other, the smaller one on top, and both suspended from the
tree. Cover them inside and out with big pink paper petals."
"How are you going to make it look like a rose and not a pink bell?"
inquired Delia.
"Put a green calyx on the top and some yellow stamens inside and then
make a stem that will look like the real thing, only gigantic."
"How will you manage that?"
"Do you remember those wild grape vines that Helen and Ethel Brown
found in the West Woods and used for Hallowe'en decorations? If we
could get a thick one and wind it with green paper and let it curve
from the rose toward the ground it ought to look like a real stem."
"We could hang the rose with dark string that wouldn't show, and fasten
the stem to the branch of the tree with a pink bow. It would look as
if some giant had tied it there for his ladylove."
"I have an old pink sash I'll contribute to the good cause," laughed
Helen. "I've been wondering what to do with it for some time."
"Everything on the table must be pink and shaped like a rose or
decorated with roses--cushions, pen-wipers, baskets, stencilled bureau
sets--there are a thousand things to be made."
"Boxes covered with rose paper," suggested James solemnly.
Everybody shouted, for James's imagination always seemed to be
stimulated whenever he saw a chance to make something with paste-pot
and brush.
"How about music?"
This question brought silence, for it was not easy to arrange for music
in the open.
"I wish Edward and his violin were here," said Delia, referring to her
brother, Dr. Watkins, who had recently gone to Oklahoma to assist an
older physician in a flourishing town there. He had been very
attentive to Miss Merriam and she was annoyed to find herself blushing
at the mention of his name. Ethel Blue, who had been in his
confidence, was the only one of the young people who glanced at her,
however, so her annoyance passed unnoticed.
"He isn't, and a piano is out of the question. I wonder, if Greg
Patton would bring his fiddle?"
"Why didn't we think of him before! He and some of the other high
school boys have been getting up a little orchestra; I shouldn't wonder
a bit if they'd be glad to help--glad of the experience of playing in
public."
"We haven't got to make oceans of paper roses, this time," remarked
Ethel Brown gratefully. "Nature is doing the work for us."
She waved her hand at the clump of bushes which was to conceal
Dorothy's fortune telling operations, and which was pink with blossoms.
"Our bushes at home are loaded down with them, too," said Margaret.
"Everybody's are, so I don't suppose it would be worth while to have a
flower table."
"There's no harm in trying. We could say on the poster that
exceptionally choice roses will be on exhibition and sale and--and why
couldn't we take orders for the bushes? Use the beauties for samples
and if people like them, get roots from the bushes they came from and
supply them the next day!"
Ethel Blue was quite breathless with the force of this suggestion and
the others applauded it.
"Just as I think of Ethel Blue as all imagination and dreams she comes
out with something practical like that and I have to study her all over
again," said Roger, observing his cousin with his head on one side.
Ethel Blue threw a leaf at him which he dodged with exaggerated fear.
They decided to have the Rose Fête just as soon as the boys put the
house into presentable condition, and then the girls separated, Ethel
Brown and Dorothy to see Mr. Emerson about securing the boxes, Helen
and Margaret to measure the windows for curtains, Delia and Ethel Blue
to work out the design for converting ordinary Chinese lanterns into
roses which they had thought of as lending a charm to the veranda and
the lawn after the sun went down, and the boys to calculate the
quantities of putty and paint and color-wash, based on information
given Roger by the local painter and decorator, who was quite willing
to help with advice when he found that there was no chance of his own
services being called into play.