It was still raining when Maida got up the next day. It rained all the morning. She listened carefully at a quarter to twelve for the one-session bell but it did not ring. Just before school began in the afternoon Rosie came into the shop. Maida saw at once that something had happened to her. Rosie’s face looked strange and she dragged across the room instead of pattering with her usual quick, light step.  
“What do you think’s happened, Maida?” Rosie asked.
 
“I don’t know. Oh, what?” Maida asked affrighted.
 
“When I came home from school this noon mother wasn’t there. But Aunt Theresa was there—she’d cooked the dinner. She said that mother had gone away for a visit and that she wouldn’t be back for some time. She said she was going to keep house for father and me while mother was gone. I feel dreadfully homesick and lonesome without mother.”
 
“Oh Rosie, I am sorry,” Maida said. “But perhaps your mother won’t stay long. Do you like your Aunt Theresa?”
 
“Oh, yes, I like her. But of course she isn’t mother.”
 
“No, of course. Nobody is like your mother.”
 
“Oh, yes; there’s something else I had to tell you. The W.M.N.T.’s are going to meet at Dicky’s after school this afternoon. Be sure to come, Maida.”
 
“Of course I’ll come.” Maida’s whole face sparkled. “That is, if Granny doesn’t think it’s too wet.”
 
Rosie lingered for a few moments but she did not seem like her usual happy-go-lucky self. And when she left, Maida noticed that instead of running across the street she actually walked.
 
All the morning long Maida talked of nothing to Granny but the meeting of the W.M.N.T.’s. “Just think, Granny, I never belonged to a club before,” she said again and again.
 
Very early she had put out on her bed the clothes that she intended to wear—a tanbrown serge of which she was particularly fond, and her favorite “tire” of a delicate, soft lawn. She kept rushing to the window to study the sky. It continued to look like the inside of a dull tin cup. She would not have eaten any lunch at all if Granny had not told her that she must. And her heart sank all the afternoon for the rain continued to come down.
 
“I don’t suppose I can go, Granny,” she when the clock struck four.
 
“Sure an you can,” Granny responded briskly.
 
But she wrapped Maida up, as Maida herself said: “As if I was one of papa’s carved crystals come all the way from China.”
 
First Granny put on a sweater, then a coat, then over all a raincoat. She put a on her head and a veil over that. She made her wear rubber boots and take an umbrella. Maida got into a of laughter during the .
 
“I ought to be wrapped in excelsior now,” she said. “If I fall down in the in the court, Granny,” she threatened merrily, “I never can pick myself up. I’ll either have to roll and roll and roll until I get on to dry land or I’ll have to wait until somebody comes and me out.”
 
But she did not fall into the puddle. She walked carefully along the edge and then ran as swiftly as her clothes and would permit. She arrived in Dicky’s garret, red-cheeked and breathless.
 
Arthur and Rosie had already come. Rosie was playing on the floor with Delia and the puppy that she had rescued from the tin-can . Rosie was , the dog was and Delia was squealing—but all three with delight.
 
Arthur and Dicky sat opposite each other, working at the round table.
 
“What do you think of that dog now, Maida?” Rosie asked proudly. “His name is ‘Tag.’ You wouldn’t know him for the same dog, would you? Isn’t he a nice-looking little puppy?”
 
Tag did look like another dog. He wore a collar and his yellowy coat shone like satin. His whole manner had changed. He came running over to Maida and stood looking at her with the most spirited air in the world, his head on one side, one paw up and one ear cocked . His tail so fast that Delia thinking it some wonderful new toy, kept trying to catch it and hold it in her little fingers.
 
“He’s a lovely doggie,” Maida said. “I wish I’d brought Fluff.”
 
“And did you ever see such a dear baby,” Rosie went on, hugging Delia. “Oh, if I only had a baby brother or sister!”
 
“She’s a darling,” Maida agreed . “Babies are so much more fun than dolls, don’t you think so, Rosie?”
 
“Dolls!” No words can express the contempt that was in Miss Brine’s accent.
 
“What are you doing, Dicky?” Maida asked, limping over to the table.
 
“Making things,” Dicky said cheerfully.
 
On the table were piles of mysterious-looking objects made of paper. Some were of white paper and others of brown, but they were all decorated with trimmings of colored tissue.
 
“What are they?” Maida asked. “Aren’t they lovely? I never saw anything like them in my life.”
 
Dicky blushed all over his face at this compliment but it was evident that he was delighted. “Well, those are paper-boxes,” he said, pointing to the different piles of things, “and those are . Those are the old-fashioned kind with double smokestacks. Those are double-boats, jackets, pants, badges, nose-pinchers, lamp-lighters, firemen’s caps and soldier caps.”
 
“Oh, that’s why you buy all that colored paper,” Maida said in a tone of great satisfaction. “I’ve often wondered.” She examined Dicky’s work carefully. She could see that it was done with precision and skill. “Oh, what fun to do things like that. I do wish you’d show me how to make them, Dicky. I’m such a useless girl. I can’t make a single thing.”
 
“I’ll show you, sure,” Dicky offered generously.
 
“What are you making so many for?” Maida .
 
“Well, you see it’s this way,” Dicky began in a business-like air. “Arthur and Rosie and I are going to have a fair. We’ve had a fair every spring and every fall for the last three years. That’s how we get our money for Christmas and the Fourth of July. Arthur things out of wood—he’ll show you what he can do in a minute—he’s a crackajack. Rosie makes candy. And I make these paper things.”
 
“And do you make much money?” Maida asked, deeply interested.
 
“Don’t make any money at all,” Dicky said. “The children pay us in nails. I charge them ten nails a-piece for the easy things and twenty nails for the hardest. Arthur can get more for his stuff because it’s harder to do.”
 
“But what do you want nails for?” Maida asked in bewilderment.
 
“Why, nails are junk.”
 
“And what’s junk?”
 
The three children stared at her. “Don’t you know what junk is, Maida?” Rosie asked in despair.
 
“No.”
 
“Junk’s old iron,” Dicky explained. “And you sell it to the junkman. Once we made forty cents out of one of these fairs. One reason we’re beginning so early this year, I’ve got something very particular I want to buy my mother for a Christmas present. Can you keep a secret, Maida?”
 
Maida nodded.
 
“Well, it’s a fur collar for her neck. They have them down in a store on Main street every winter—two dollars and ninetyeight cents. It seems an awful lot but I’ve got over a dollar saved up. And I guess I can do it if I work hard.”
 
“How much have you made ordinarily?” Maida asked thoughtfully.
 
“Once we made forty cents a-piece but that’s the most.”
 
“I tell you what you do,” Maida burst out impetuously after a moment of silence in which she considered this statement. “When the time comes for you to hold your fair, I’ll lend you my shop for a day. I’ll take all the things out of the window and I’ll clean all the shelves off and you boys can put your things there. I’ll clear out the showcases for Rosie’s candy. Won’t that be lovely?” She smiled happily.
 
“It would be grand business for us,” Dicky said soberly, “but somehow it doesn’t seem quite fair to you.”
 
“Oh, please don’t think of that,” Maida said. “I’d just love to do it. And you must teach me how to make things so that I can help you. You will take the shop, Dicky?” she pleaded. “And you, Rosie? And Arthur?” She looked from one to the other with all her heart in her eyes.
 
But nobody for a moment. “It seems somehow as if we oughtn’t to,” Dicky said awkwardly at last.
 
Maida’s lip trembled. At first she could not understand. Here she was aching to do a kindness to these three friends of hers. And they, for some unknown reason, would not permit it. It was not that they disliked her, she knew. What was it? She tried to put herself in their place. Suddenly it came to her what the difficulty was. They did not want to be so much in her debt. How could she prevent that? She must let them do something for her that would that debt. But what? She thought very hard. In a flash it came to her—a plan by which she could make it all right.
 
“You see,” she began eagerly, “I wanted to ask you three to help me in something, but I can’t do it unless you let me help you. Listen—the next holiday is Halloween. I want to decorate my shop with a lot of real -o’-lanterns cut from . It will be hard work and a lot of it and I was hoping that perhaps you’d help me with this.”
 
The three faces lighted up.
 
“Of course we will,” Dicky said heartily.
 
“Gee, I bet Dicky and I could make some great lanterns,” Arthur said reflectively.
 
“And I’ll help you fix up the store,” Rosie said with enthusiasm. “I just love to make things look pretty.”
 
“It’s a bargain then,” Maida said. “And now you must teach me how to help you this very afternoon, Dicky.”
 
They fell to work with a . At least three of them did. Rosie continued to frisk with Delia and Tag on the floor. Dicky started Maida on the caps first. He said that those were the easiest. And, indeed she had very little trouble with anything until she came to the boxes. She had to do her first box over and over again before it would come right. But Dicky was very patient with her. He kept telling her that she did better than most beginners or she would have given it up. When she made her first good box, her face beamed with satisfaction.
 
“Do you mind if I take it home, Dicky?” she asked. “I’d like to show it to my father when he comes. It’s the first thing I e............