"How about school lessons?" asked Mrs. Talmage.
"And I want to revise several parts of my story to-night, besides the paper mills have not yet been visited, you know," objected Aunt Selina.
"Girls, we'd better wait until to-morrow; that's Friday and we won't have to go to bed so early as other evenings," suggested Ruth.
"All right, we'll meet in the den to-morrow afternoon and report how many mothers will be here," consented Dot.
"And I'll have Mrs. Catlin here in the evening," added Mrs. Talmage.
"Mother Wings, if we use that old room of Ned's, why couldn't we call it our Winter Nest? We can move in our cherry-tree Nest furniture when it grows colder and make the room look real comfy," said Ruth.
The other Blue Birds approved of the suggestion and Mrs. Talmage said she had no objection to having the Winter Nest in the den, so it was decided then and there.
Ruth accompanied her friends to the steps and as they stood vainly wishing there were several extra hours to add to an afternoon, Dot saw Don jump out of the wide-open door of the Publishing House and laugh derisively at someone inside.
"Now I wonder what that boy is up to?" she said.
"Oh, say, wouldn't it be fun to creep in back of the carriage house and peep in at the windows to watch the boys!" suggested Edith.
"I know a better way," answered Ruth. "We will ask Ike to let us go up in the loft from the small room and we can look down through the wide chinks of the floor."
"Oh, do let's!" cried the Blue Birds, as they hurried back of the house to steal noiselessly over to the garage.
Ike understood the rivalry growing between them, and decided to be perfectly impartial, so he unlocked the door of the small room where the stairs led to a loft over the Publishing House.
The Bobolinks were making such a noise that they never heard the creaking of the floor overhead, or the giggles of the girls as they glued their eyes to the crevices between the boards.
"Now it's Tuck's turn to be an advertising solicitor!" called Don, who evidently had been discharged from some make-believe service when he was so unexpectedly put out of the door.
"Ah, I'd never make a solicitor of any kind," grumbled Tuck Stevens.
"But you've got to play the game as we all promised," coaxed some of the boys.