"I'll do the painting," said Jean. "I helped Mother paint our kitchen floor, so I know a little about it."
"That would be lovely. I've been thinking, too, that it would be a good idea to fix a little shelf under this window to hold your petunia and these two geraniums that are suffering so for sunshine. I think I could make it from the boards in that soap box."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Bettie. "I don't believe there's _anything_ you don't know how to do."
The piano box, transformed by Miss Blossom and the four girls into a very good imitation of a Flemish oak sideboard, did indeed make such an imposing piece of furniture that the rest of the room looked shabbier than ever by contrast.
"I'm afraid," said Miss Blossom, surveying the effect with an air of comical dismay, "that the rest of our dining-room really looks worse than it did before; it's like trying to wear a new hat with an old gown. But I'm proud of our handiwork."
"Yes," said Jean, "it's a great deal more like a sideboard than it is like a piano box."
"It's the sideboardiest sideboard I ever saw," said Mabel, "but it's certainly too fine for this room."
"Never mind," said cheerful Bettie. "We'll let Mr. Black sit so he can see the sideboard, and we'll have Mrs. Crane face the geraniums on that cunning shelf. If their eyes begin to wander around the room we'll just call their attention to the things we want them to see. When Mamma entertains the sewing society she always invites the first one that comes to sit in the chair over the hole in the sitting-room rug so the others won't notice it. If we catch Mr. Black looking at the ceiling we'll say: 'Oh, Mr. Black, did you notice the flowers on the sideboard?'"
Everybody laughed at Bettie's comical idea. This desperate measure, however, was not needed, for one afternoon, the day after the sideboard was finished, something happened, something lovelier than the girls had ever even dreamed _could_ happen.
It was only three o'clock, yet there was Miss Blossom coming home two whole hours earlier than usual; her white-haired father was with her and under his arm in a long parcel were seven rolls of wall paper.
"My contribution to the cottage," said Mr. Blossom, laying the bundle at Bettie's feet and smiling pleasantly at the row of girls on the doorstep.