“Oh, it positively must be!” Sidney said virtuously, but there was a wicked gleam in her eye that prepared him for her sudden descent upon the office two days later, with the startling news that now she had positively stopped, but fourteen children had been asked!

Barry, rather to her surprise, remained calm.

“Well, I’ve got an idea,” he said presently, “that will make that all right, fourteen children or twenty, it won’t make any difference.  Only, it may not appeal to you.”

“Oh, it will—­and you are an angel!” said the lady fervently.

“I’ve got a friend up the country here in a lumber-mill,” Barry explained, “Joe Painter—­he hauls logs down from the forest to the river, with a team of eight oxen.  Now, if he’d lend them, and you got a hay-wagon from Old Paloma, you wouldn’t have any trouble at all.”

“Oh, but Barry,” she gasped, her face radiant, “would he lend them?”

“I think he would; he’d have to come too, you know, and drive them.  I’ll ride up and see, anyway.”

“Oxen,” mused Mrs. Burgoyne, “how perfectly glorious!  The children will go wild with joy.  And, you see, my Indian boys—­”

“Your what?”

“I didn’t mention them,” said Sidney serenely, “because they’ll walk alongside, and won’t count in the load.  But, you see, some of those nice little mill-boys who don’t go to school heard the girls talking about it, and one of them asked me—­so wistfully!—­if there was anything they could do.  I immediately thought of Indian costumes.”

“But how the deuce will you get the costumes made?” said Barry, drawing a sheet of paper toward him, and beginning some calculations, with an anxious eye.

“Why, it’s just cheese-cloth for the girls.  Mrs. Brown and I have our machines up in the barn, and Mrs. Carew and Mrs. Adams will come up and help, there’s not much to that!  Barry, if you will really get us this—­this ox-man—­nothing else will worry me at all.”

“You’ll have to put the beasts up in your barn.”

“Oh, surely!  Ask him what they eat.  Oh, Barry, we must have them!  Think how picturesque they’ll be!  I’ve been thinking my entry would be a disgrace to the parade, but I don’t believe it will be so bad.  Barry, when will we know about it?”

“You can count on it, I guess.  Joe won’t refuse,” Barry said, with his lazy smile.

“Oh, you’re an angel!  I’m going shopping this instant.  Barry, there will be room now for my Ellen, and Billy, and Dicky Carew, won’t there?  It seems their hearts are bursting with the desire.  Bunting,” murmured Sidney, beginning a list, “cheese-cloth, pink, blue, and cream, bolts of it; twine, beads, leather, feathers; some big white hats; ice-cream, extra milk—­”

“Hold on!  What for?”