“I wish we had doll houses here like we have at home,” said Mary Jane.  “I know Frances would like to play with doll houses.”

“But you haven’t any here,” said Frances practically.

“Maybe we can get some,” said Alice thoughtfully; “we ought to be able to find something to make a doll house out of.  Let’s hunt.”

“Where’ll we hunt?” asked Mary Jane.

“Let me see,” said Alice.  She looked around the yard but saw nothing that interested her.  She looked across the road to Grandmother’s lot and saw all the grasses and brush that flourished there.

“We ought to be able to find something over there,” she said; “let’s hunt.”

So the three little girls scrambled over the fence and roamed through the lot.  The lamb was used to a good deal of petting and he supposed, of course, that was what they had come for.  So he poked himself into their way at every step.

“No, sir,” said Alice, laughing; “we didn’t come to play with you to-day!  You run along, sir!” She rubbed her hand over his back to push him away and something rough and pricky scratched her.  She pulled at his wool and a small brown burr came off in her hand.

“Look!  Girls!” she cried suddenly.  “If he got this, there must be more in the lot!”

“Of course!” said Frances, looking scornfully at the burr Alice held up for her to see; “there’s a million over there—­see?  They’re an awful nuisance, burrs are, even this early in the season.”

“They may be a nuisance,” laughed Alice, “but I’ll venture to say they’ll make good doll houses for all that.  Here!  I’ll show you what I think we can do.”  She ran over to where Frances had pointed out a lot of burrs, pulled off a handful and began sticking them together.  “Yes, it works,” she said in a satisfied tone, “but let’s not stop to make the houses here.  Let’s gather a lot of burrs and take them over to Grandmother’s front yard.  Then we can make a whole village!”

Frances and Mary Jane didn’t quite see how a village was to come out of a lot of burrs, but Alice was so sure of what she was going to do that they thought she must be right.  So they gathered up their skirts and filled them with burrs and then helped each other back over the fence.

Under the big pine tree, where the ground was the levelest of any place in the yard, Alice had them spread out all their burrs.

“Now,” she said when the burrs were ready, “you make them stick together—­so.  Make eight rows of six burrs each.  That will be the floor of the house.  Then start up the sides for walls.”

Frances and Mary Jane got the idea in a minute and they set to work in a jiffy.  Such fun as it was!  The houses and barns and churches grew so rapidly that none of the girls gave a minute’s thought to pricked fingers—­there wasn’t time!  When the stock of burrs was entirely used up, Alice set the houses along in a straight line as though they were on a street.  Frances put the barns back of the houses where they belonged and Mary Jane ran to her garden for nasturtiums to lay by the houses for gardens.