“Oh,” Sally exclaimed, “we must raise pumpkins, among the corn—­of course we’ll have corn.  Pumpkins lying about among shocks of corn in the fall sunshine make the most delightful picture.”

Max lay back among his pillows, apparently overcome with emotion.  “Oh, you’re a practical person for a farmer’s housekeeper!” he jeered.  “Your one idea will be to have the crops look pretty in the sunshine.  You’ll be tying ribbons on the strawberry baskets to match the fruit.”

Sally nodded.  “Maybe I shall,” she acknowledged.  “Anyhow, I know people buy the things that are most artfully put up.”

A loud bang of the front door made her pause to listen.  Hurried footsteps clattering through the hall prepared the party for the bursting open of the door.  Bob, his cheeks like winter apples, his boots crusted with snow, shouted at the company: 

“Oh, pull yourselves loose from this stuffy fire and come up on the hill.  Mr. Ferry’s toboggan goes like lightning express from the top of the hill clear down to the big elm in the middle of the south meadow.  He’s a dandy at it.  I can’t steer the thing yet, at all, but he’ll teach me.  Put on your duds and come on—­he sent me for you.”

Max settled himself more reposefully than ever among his pillows.  “Go ’way,” he commanded.  “My half-holidays are not for work.”

But Sally sprang to her feet, seeing which Jarvis got promptly to his.

“Sorry we haven’t blanket tobogganing suits, Bob,” said Jarvis, “but we can try it in derby hats and kid gloves.  I’m ready.”

Sally rushed away to array herself in a miscellaneous costume composed of Max’s gray sweater-jacket, Bob’s crimson skating cap, Uncle Timothy’s white muffler, and a short, rainy-day skirt of her own.  The others eyed her approvingly as she rejoined them, the crimson cap on her blonde curls proving most picturesque.  Out of doors the colour in her cheeks, stung by the frosty air, presently brought them to match the cap.  By the time the three reached the hill they looked as ready for sport as Donald Ferry himself.  That young man, in a regulation toboggan suit of gray blanket cloth, with a cap of the same, looked like a jolly boy as he brought the toboggan into place with a flourish and invited his guests to “pile on.”

It was glorious fun.  Certainly Ferry was an accomplished tobogganist, for he steered with great skill over a somewhat complicated course, including excursions between trees set rather closely together, over hummocks and through erratic dips, at a pace which quite took his passengers’ breath away.

“It’s the best fun I ever had in my life,” cried Sally, as they climbed the hill for the third time.  “What a shame for Max not to come.”

“We’ll have him out next time.  To taste tobogganing is to become an enthusiast,” declared Ferry, walking at one side of the crimson cap, while Jarvis kept close upon the other.  Alec and Bob were doing tricks in the snow all the way up the hill, to the amusement of Uncle Timothy Rudd, who watched interestedly from the top, but could not be prevailed upon to try a journey.