The girls were already turning over the boys’ supply of boxes to select those suitable for the chairs for the children.  They took four that had held lemons or other fruit and were tall and narrow when stood on end.  The boards they were made of were very light but quite solid enough to hold the weight of a small child.  To make it firm upon the ground, however, they sawed a piece of heavy plank a little larger than the end upon which the box was to stand and nailed it on from the inside.

When the high chair was done the boys complimented their co-workers on the success of their first experiment.

“I hardly could have done it better myself,” said Roger grandly.

All the high chairs were covered with blue and white cretonne to match the blue and white of the dining room and the girls set to work to tack on the outside covering and to cut out the covers of the small cushions that were to make the seat and back comfortable.  The cushions themselves they had made from ticking filled with excelsior when they had calculated the number of high chairs they must have.

The boys, meanwhile were constructing two chairs of quite different build.  One was a heavy chair for the hall or the veranda, its original condition being a packing box a foot and a half deep, about twenty inches wide and three or four feet long.  This also was set on end, and the other end and the cover were laid aside to be used in making the seat and in shutting in the openings below the seat.

“How are you going to fasten that seat so it won’t let the sitter down on the floor?” inquired Ethel Blue, as James explained what he was going to do.

“Do you see these cleats, ma’am?  These are each a foot long.  I nail one of these standing up straight at each edge of the sides and the back—­six of them altogether.  Then I lay three other cleats across their tops—­thusly.”

“O, you’ve made a sort of framework that will support the seat!  I get that!” exclaimed Ethel Blue.

“All you have to do now is to nail your seat boards on to those horizontal cleats and it’s as firm as firm can be.”

“Aren’t you going to do something with those sides—­those arms, or whatever you call them?” inquired Ethel Brown.  “They seem sharp and uncomfortable and in the way to me.”

Both boys studied the chair seriously before answering.  Then they took a pencil and paper and consulted.

“I should think it would look pretty well to cut out a right angle on each aide,” suggested James.  “That would leave a sort of wing effect like a hall porter’s chair, only not so high, and at the same time it would make an arm to rest your elbow on.  How does that strike you ?”

Roger nodded.  “It hits me all right.  I was thinking of a curve instead of a right angle, but the right angle will be easier to make.  Go ahead.”

So the right angle was decided on and James proceeded to cut it.