“You want to give them a whole summer,” guessed Ethel Brown.

“That’s the idea.  Since I’ve seen what proper care and good food and fresh air have done for that wretched little skeleton, Elisabeth, I’m more than ever convinced that if we can give some of those mothers and babies a whole month or perhaps two months of Rosemont air we’ll be saving lives, actually saving lives.”

Roger looked about earnestly from one grave face to another.  All were in sympathy with him and all waited for the development of his plan, for they knew he would not have laid so much stress upon it if he had not thought out the details.

“I’ve talked it over with Grandfather and he rose to it right off.  Here’s where the house comes in.  He said he was going to build a new cottage for his farm superintendent this spring—­you know it’s almost done now—­and that we could have the old farm house if we wanted to fix it up for a Fresh Air scheme.”

“Mr. Emerson is a brick.  I pull my forelock to him,” and Tom illustrated his remark.

“Where’s the money to come from?” asked James, who was both of Scottish descent and the Club treasurer, and so was not only shrewd but accustomed to look after details.

“Grandfather said he’d help in this way; if the Club would study the old house and decide on the best way to make it answer the purpose he would provide two carpenters for a fortnight to help us.  That will mean that if we want to do any whitewashing or papering or matters of that kind we’ll have to do it ourselves, but the carpenters will put the house in repair and put up any partitions that we want and so on.”

“Is it furnished?”

“There’s another problem.  The superintendent has had his own furniture there and what will be left when he goes is almost nothing.  There are some old things in the garret, but we’ll have to use our ingenuity and invent furniture.”

“The way I did for our attic.”  Dorothy reminded them of the room where the Club had been meeting ever since its members returned from Chautauqua where it had been formed the summer before.

“Just so.  We’ll have to make a raid on our mothers’ attics and also on the stores in town that have their goods come in big boxes, and I imagine we shall be able to concoct things that will ‘do,’ though they may be remarkable to look upon.”

“The mothers and children will be out of doors all the time, so they won’t sit around and examine the furniture,” laughed Delia.

“It will be scanty, probably, but if we can get beds enough and a chair apiece, or a substitute for a chair, and a few tables, we can get along.”

“There’s your house provided and furnished after a fashion—­how are you going to run it?” inquired Helen.  “It takes shekels to buy even very plain food in these days of the ’high cost of living,” and we’ve got to give these women and children nourishing food; they can’t live on fresh air alone.”