Page:An Old Fashioned Girl.djvu/339

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A Dress Parade.
323

children. Mother called us, but we had paraded out into the garden, after our ball, and were having a concert, as we sat about on the cabbages for green satin seats, so we didn't hear the call; and just as the company was going, a great noise arrested them on the door-step, and round the corner of the house rattled Ned in full costume, wheeling Kitty in a barrow, while Jimmy, Will, and I ran screaming after, looking like Bedlamites; for we were playing that Lady Fitz Perkins had fainted, and was being borne home senseless in a cab. I thought mother would kill herself with laughing; and you can imagine what a fine impression the strangers received of the model children."

Maud was so tickled with this youthful prank that she unguardedly sat down to laugh on the edge of an open trunk, immediately doubled up, fell in, and was with difficulty extricated.

"People in the country have great deal nicer times than we do. I never rode in a wheelbarrow, I never sat on cabbages, and I don't think it's fair," she said, with an injured expression. "You needn't save any old silk gowns for me; I don't mean to be a fine lady when I grow up, I'm going to be a farmer's wife, and make butter and cheese, and have ten children, and raise pigs," she added, in one enthusiastic burst.

"I do believe she will if she can find a farmer anywhere," said Fanny.

"Oh, I'm going to have Will; I asked him and he said 'All right.' He's going to preach Sundays, and work on the farm the rest of the time. Well, he is, so you needn't laugh, for we've made all our plans,"