Maida wiped her tears away.  “Of course I’ll excuse you!  But just the same, Rosie, I hope you won’t hook jack any more for someday you’ll be sorry.”

“I’m going to make some candy now,” Rosie said, adroitly changing the subject.  “I brought some molasses and butter and everything I need.”  She began to bustle about the stove.  Soon they were all laughing again.

Maida had never pulled candy before and she thought it the most enchanting fun in the world.  It was hard to keep at work, though, when it was such a temptation to stop and eat it.  But she persevered and succeeded in pulling hers whiter than anybody’s.  She laughed and talked so busily that, when she started to put on her things, all traces of tears had disappeared.

The rain had stopped.  The puddle was of monster size after so long a storm.  They came out just in time to help Molly fish Tim out of the water and to prevent Betsy from giving a stray kitten a bath.  Following Rosie and Arthur, Maida waded through it from one end to the other—­it seemed the most perilous of adventures to her.

After that meeting, the W.M.N.T.’s were busier than they had ever been.  Every other afternoon, and always when it was bad weather, they worked at Maida’s house.  Granny gave Maida a closet all to herself and as fast as the things were finished they were put in boxes and stowed away on its capacious shelves.

Arthur whittled and carved industriously.  His work went slower than Dicky’s of course but, still, it went with remarkable quickness.  Maida often stopped her own work on the paper things to watch Arthur’s.  It was a constant marvel to her that such big, awkward-looking hands could perform feats of such delicacy.  Her own fingers, small and delicate as they were, bungled surprisingly at times.

“And as for the paste,” Maida said in disgust to Rosie one day, “you’d think that I fell into the paste-pot every day.  I wash it off my hands and face.  I pick it off of my clothes and sometimes Granny combs it out of my hair.”

Often after dinner, the W.M.N.T.’s would call in a body on Maida.  Then would follow long hours of such fun that Maida hated to hear the clock strike nine.  Always there would be molasses-candy making by the capable Rosie at the kitchen stove and corn-popping by the vigorous Arthur on the living-room hearth.  After the candy had cooled and the pop corn had been flooded in melted butter, they would gather about the hearth to roast apples and chestnuts and to listen to the fairy-tales that Maida would read.

The one thing which she could do and they could not was to read with the ease and expression of a grown person.  As many of her books were in French as in English and it was the wonder of the other W.M.N.T.’s that she could read a French story, translating as she went.  Her books were a delight to Arthur and Dicky and she lent them freely.  Rosie liked to listen to stories but she did not care to read.