The next morning dawned with a dull, dreary drizzle coming noisily down on the red and yellow leaves of the maple by the window; but the three rose joyously and their ardor was not damped.
"Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work," quoted Allison at the breakfast-table. "Cloudy, we've got to hustle. Do you mind if it does rain? We've got our car."
But Julia Cloud smiled unconcernedly.
"I should worry," she said with a gay imitation of Leslie's inimitable toss of the head, and the two young people laughed so hilariously that the other staid couples already in the dining-room turned in amaze to see who was taking life so happily on a day like this.
They piled into the car, and hied themselves to town at once, chattering joyfully over their list as to which things they would buy first.
"Let's begin with the kitchen," said Leslie. "I'm crazy to learn how to make cookies. Cloudy, you'll teach me how so I can make some all myself, won't you?"
"And waffles!" said Allison from the front seat.
"Um-mmm-mmmm! I remember Cloudy's waffles. And buckwheat cakes."
"We're going to have everything for the kitchen to make things easy, so that when we can't get a maid Cloudy won't be always overdoing," said Leslie. "Guardy told me especially about that. He said we were to get every convenience to make things easy, so the cook wouldn't leave; for he'd rather pay any amount than have Cloudy work herself to death and have to break down and leave us."
So it was the house-furnishing department of the great store to which they first repaired, and there they hovered for two hours among tins and aluminum and wooden ware, discussing the relative charms of white-enamel refrigerators and gas-ranges, vacuum cleaners and dish-washers, the new ideas against the old. Julia Cloud was for careful buying and getting along with few things; the children were infatuated with the idea of a kitchen of their own, and wanted everything in sight. They went wild over a new kind of refrigerator that would freeze its own ice, making ice-cream in the bargain, and run by an electric motor; but here Julia Cloud held firm. No such expensive experiment was needed in their tiny kitchen. A small white, old-fashioned kind was good enough for them. So the children immediately threw their enthusiasm into selecting the best kind of ice-cream freezer.
When they finally went to the tea-room for lunch, everything on Julia Cloud's list was carefully checked off by Allison with its respective price; and, while they were waiting to be served, he added the column twice to make sure he was right.