“It’s comfy enough now, but these arms don’t look very well, and they’d be liable to tear your sleeves,” she said.  “Let’s put on some strip covers.  They’ll give a finish to the whole thing, and hide the end of the two-sided legs and be smooth.”

“Plenty of reason for having them.  How many inches?”

“Twelve,” answered Dorothy after measuring.  “The top of the back needs a strip cover, too.  Cut another nineteen inches long.  There, I think that’s not such a bad looking chair!’”

“Do you want cushions for those chairs?” inquired Ethel Brown, appearing at the door with a piece of cretonne in her hand.  “We’ve got material enough for at least seat cushions for both of them.”

“They’ll be lots more comfy,” admitted James, “if the excelsior crop is still holding out.”

“It is.  I’ll make them right off, and Ethel Blue can help you out there.”

She retired from view and sent out her cousin, and until the sun set the two boys and Dorothy and Ethel measured and sawed and nailed, with results that satisfied them so well that they did not mind being tired.

CHAPTER VII

TROUBLE AT ROSE HOUSE

“If it weren’t that I could come out here and see you every day or so I should be wild to get back to work in Oklahoma.”

Edward Watkins was the speaker.  He and Miss Merriam were walking through a wooded path that ran from Rosemont to Rose House.  The day was warm and the shade of the trees was grateful.

“How is your patient?” asked Gertrude.

“Getting on very well, but the doctors won’t let him travel yet.”

“Have you heard lately from your doctor in Oklahoma?”

“I hear about every day!  I was with him just long enough for him to find that I was useful and he’s wild to have me there again.  I wired him that I’m ready to go, but that the sick man is nervous about making the return trip alone.  Of course he wants to keep on the good side of a good patient, so he answered, ’Stay on’.”

“Are you able to do anything for your patient?  He’s still in the hospital, isn’t he?”

“I go there every day and he sends me on errands all over town.  I’m getting to know almost as much about oil as I do about medicine!  But I’m rather tired of playing errand boy.”

“You have a chance to see your family.”

“And you.  But I’m supposed to stay at the hotel, much to Mother’s disgust.  I’m doing a little medical inspection among Father’s poor people, though.  That whiles away a few hours every day, and of course, every time I go to the hospital the doctors there tell me about any interesting new cases, so I’m not ‘going stale’ entirely.”

“As if you could!” exclaimed Gertrude admiringly.  “You’re just storing up ideas and information to startle the Oklahoman natives with.”

“The ‘natives’ in Oklahoma are all too young to be startled,” laughed Edward, “but of course I’m stowing away everything new I hear about methods of treatment and operations and so on to tell Dr. Billings when I get back.  Now let me hear what you’ve been doing.  How are these kiddies at Rose House?”