With the girls, this continued to be a kind of game. They not only prided themselves on keeping their chambers clean, but they actually tried to match the flowers they placed there to the chintzes and wallpapers. “It’s fun to take care of these darling rooms,” Rosie declared again and again. “They’re so little I feel as though we ought to buy a doll’s broom and a doll’s carpet-sweeper and a doll’s dust-pan and brush. I never saw such sweet furniture in all my life, and how I love the roof slanting down like that!” “I feel that way too--exactly as though I were putting a doll’s house in order,” Laura coincided happily. As for the boys--they bothered with no flowers. Indeed a military plainness prevailed in the barn. This of course meant also a military neatness to which no one of them was accustomed but Harold. Harold constituted himself critic-in-chief. And he proved a stern critic indeed. He would not permit the sheets on the bed to deviate one hair’s breadth from perfect horizontality or absolute verticality. A bit of paper on the floor elicited an immediate rebuke. He even stipulated the exact spots on the chiffonier-tops where brush, comb and mirror were to be kept and he saw that the other boys kept them there. The victims of his passion for military order had to roll their pajamas in a certain way and put them in a certain place. A similar neatness characterized the closets. Coats and trousers had to be hung on special hangers; ties on special hooks. As for bureau drawers--Harold maintained that there was a place for everything and woe to Dicky or Arthur when everything was not in its place. Immediately after the rooms were done in the morning came errands. The first morning, Granny let the Big Six do all the marketing, even what could have been done over the telephone; so that they could get to know where the shops were. They proceeded on their bicycles, with Maida for a guide, to Satuit Center. Maida took them to the Post Office; to the butcher; the grocer; the coalman; the wood-man; the hardware shop; the ice cream establishment--even to the little dry-goods shops and to the cobbler. She introduced them to all these village authorities. “After to-day,” Maida explained, “we’ll have to do only part of Granny’s marketing for her. And only one of us need attend to it.” “Oh let’s do it every day--and all together,” Dicky burst out impulsively. “You think you’ll enjoy that because it’s new to you,” Maida laughed, “but you’ll soon get tired of it. No, we’d better take turns.” Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday went by. More and more certainly Granny Flynn’s prophecy seemed on the way to be proved true. The twin sets of plans worked perfectly. It looked as though the summer were going by without a hitch. Then came Thursday--Floribel’s and Zeke’s day out. CHAPTER X RESPONSIBILITY