"You might try the orphan asylum," offered Jean, as balm for this wound. "It's only four blocks from here."
"I have," returned Mabel, dejectedly. "I went there early this morning."
"What happened?" demanded Bettie, who had just arrived with a little Tucker under each arm.
"They said they'd let them go 'permanently to responsible parties.' I didn't know just exactly what that meant, so I said: 'Does that mean that you'll lend me a few for two hours?'"
"Well, they didn't. They said I'd better borrow a Teddy bear."
"How mean," said sympathetic Bettie. "Nevermind, I'll lend you Peter, this time."
"Say," queried Mabel, after she had accepted Bettie's proffered brother, "what does 'permanently' mean?"
"Jean and Bettie and I," twinkled Marjory, "but not you."
"That's good," laughed Bob, who, like Marjory, loved to tease. "But never mind, Mabel. After you've practised a year or two on Peter, who's a nuisance if there ever was one, you'll find yourself growing respons---- Whoop! What was that?"
"That" was a sudden crash that resounded through the house. Everybody rushed to the kitchen. The big dish-pan that Mabel had left on the edge of the kitchen table was upside down on the floor. At least half of little Peter Tucker was under it. But the half that remained outside was so unmistakably alive that nobody felt very seriously alarmed--except Peter.
"Thank goodness!" said Mabel, removing the pan, "this is just a little Tucker and not any Percival Mercer! Cheer up, Peter. You're not as wet as you think you are. There wasn't more than a quart of water in that pan and it was almost perfectly clean."
And Peter, soothed by Mabel's reassuring tone, immediately cheered up.
NOT long after Mabel's ineffectual attempt to borrow an orphan Mrs. Bennett dispatched her small daughter to Lake Street to find out, if possible, why Mrs. Malony, the poultry woman, had failed to send the week's supply of fresh eggs.
Now, the way to Mrs. Malony's was most interesting, particularly to a young person of observing habits. There were houses on only one side of the street and most of those were tumbling down under the weight of the sand that each rain carried down the hillside. But the opposite side of the road was even more attractive, for there one had a grassy, shrubby bank where one could pick all sorts of things off bushes and get burrs in one's stockings; a narrow stretch of pebbled beach where one could sometimes find an agate, and a wide basin of very shallow water where one could almost--but not quite--step from stone to stone without wetting one's feet. It was certainly an enjoyable spot. The distance from Mabel's home to Mrs. Malony's was very short--a matter of perhaps five blocks. But if a body went the longest way round, stopped to scour the green bank for belated blackberries, prickly hazelnuts, dazzling golden-rod or rare four-leaved clovers; or loitered to gather a dress-skirtful of stony treasures from the glittering beach, going to Mrs. Malony's meant a great deal more than a five blocks' journey.