“Nellie, oh, Nellie!” called Sister.  “Come on, let’s play jackstones.”

“Haven’t any,” answered Nellie Yarrow, a little girl a year or so older than Sister.  “All I have left is my ball.”

“Well, get that and we can play,” Sister told her.  “I’ve found something we can use—­see!”

Nellie admired the collar buttons immensely and thought it would be great fun to play with them.  She ran and got her ball and the two little friends sat down on the concrete walk to play jackstones, heedless of the hot morning sun.

Sister had won one game and Nellie two, when they heard Louise calling.

“Sister!  Sister!  Where are you?  If you want to help fix the fishpond, you’ll have to come right away.”

Sister stuffed the buttons in her pocket and ran home, eager to see what Louise and Brother had bought.

CHAPTER IV

PARTY PREPARATIONS

When Mother Morrison had suggested a fishpond for the party, Louise and Grace had protested.

“Oh, Mother!” they cried.  “That’s so old!”

“But the children like it,” said Mother Morrison mildly.

“It’s fun,” urged Brother.  “It’s fun to fish over the table and catch something!”

Sister, too, had asked for the pond, so it was decided to have one.  Louise and Grace might not care for such things at their birthday parties, but this, as Sister said, was “different.”

“We bought bushels and bushels,” Brother informed Sister as she bounded through the hedge and up to the front porch.  “Little colored pencils, and crayons, and games, and dolls, and oh!—­ everything!”

Louise, whose shopping bag was certainly bulging with parcels, laughed merrily.

“We bought all the little gifts for the fish-pond and for the —­there!  I almost told you.”  She clapped her hand over her mouth and laughed again.

“For the what?” teased Sister.  “Tell me, Louise—­I won’t tell.”

“No, Mother said no one was to know,” declared Louise firmly.  “Now all these packages you may open, and after lunch I’ll help you tie them up again and fix the pond.  But these other parcels go upstairs to Mother’s room and no one is to touch them.”

She tumbled half the contents of her bag on the porch floor and then ran upstairs with the rest.

“Let’s look at them,” said Sister eagerly.  “What’s the matter, Roddy?”

“I was thinking,” explained Brother, making no move to open the packages.  “We saw a little boy down town and his foot was all tied up in a rag, and I know it hurt him ’cause he limped.”

“Maybe he sprained his ankle,” said Sister.  “Like Dr. Yarrow’s cousin, you know.”

“It wasn’t his ankle—­it was his foot,” insisted Brother.  “And I told Louise Mother said we mustn’t go on the ground without our sandals, and she said she guessed the boy didn’t have any sandals; she said he prob’bly didn’t have any shoes, either.”