Page:Wiggin--Mother Carey's chickens.djvu/120

 ateness. Gilbert and Nancy let go of You Dirty Boy simultaneously, and he fell to the floor in two large fragments, the break occurring so happily that the mother and the washcloth were on one half, and the boy on the other,—a situation long desired by the boy, to whom the parting was most welcome!

"She got off at the wrong station," panted Kathleen at the foot of the stairs, "and had to be driven five miles, or she would have got here as she planned, an hour before we did. She's come to help us settle, and says she was afraid mother would overdo. Did you drop anything? Hurry down, and I'll leave the vases here, in among the furniture; or shall I take back two of them to show that they were our first thought?—And oh! I forgot. She's brought Julia! Two more to feed, and not enough beds!"

Nancy and Gilbert confronted each other.

"Hide the body in the corner, Gilly," said Nancy; "and say, Gilly—"

"Yes, what?"

"You see he's in two pieces?"

"Yes."

"What do you say to making him four, or more?"

"I say you go downstairs ahead of me and into the house, and I follow you a moment later!