“I declare, I never thought before I could eat enough chocolate creams; but they are a trifle cloying.”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Fraser, “if you had not said ‘chock full;’ if you had said ‘a great many,’ or ‘a trunkful,’ or something of that sort.”

“But I meant ‘chock full,’” insisted Carrie.

“I did not mean quite up to the ceiling.  I didn’t suppose that was what ‘chock’ meant.  Now we know.”

A great shouting was heard.  All the boys of the town were gathering, and quite a crowd of people seemed coming near.

Mrs. Fraser was a widow, and there was no man in the house.  Jimmy was the nearest approach to a man that she could depend upon; and here he was, leading a band of boys!  She sent one of the boys she knew the best for Mr. Stetson, the neighboring policeman, who came quickly, having already seen the crowd of boys flocking to the house.

Carrie was trying to sell off her boxes for fifteen, ten, even five cents; but the crowd could not be easily appeased, for the boys could see across the windows the chocolate creams closely packed.  “The room is chock full!” they exclaimed.

Mr. Stetson examined the premises.  “You’ll find it hard work to get them chocolates out in a week, even if you set all the boys on them.  I’d advise letting them in one by one to fill their pockets, each to pay a cent.”

Even Carrie assented to this, and a line was formed, and boys let in through the window.  They ate a way to the door that led into the entry, so that it could be opened and the room could be entered that way.  The boys now went in at the window and came out at the door, eating as they went and filling their pockets.  Carrie could not but sigh at thought of the Boston chocolates, more than a cent apiece!  But the boys ate, and then the girls came and ate; but with night all had to leave, at last.  It was possible to shut the window and lock it, and shut the door for the night, after they had gone.

“I don’t see why the chocolates should not stay on there weeks and weeks,” said Carrie to her mother.  “Of course, they won’t be so fresh, day after day; but they will be fresher than some in the shops.  I’m awfully tired of eating them now, and feel as if I never wanted to see a chocolate cream again; but I suppose I shall feel different after a night’s sleep, and I think Mr. Stetson is wrong in advising us to sell them so low.”

Mrs. Fraser suggested she should like to go in the parlor to sit.

“But to-morrow is the day of the picnic,” said Carrie, “and we shall be out-of-doors anyhow.  I will take chocolate creams for my share.  But, dear me! my dress is on the sofa,—­my best dress.  You were putting the ruffles in!”

“I told you, my dear, one of the last things, to take it upstairs,” said Mrs. Fraser.

“And there it is, in the furthest corner of the room,” exclaimed Carrie, “with all those chocolates scrouching on it.  I’ll tell you.  I’ll get Ben Sykes in early.  He eats faster than any of the other boys, and he shall eat up toward my dress.  He made a great hole in the chocolates this afternoon.  I will have him come in early, and we don’t go to the picnic till after twelve o’clock.”