"You're perfectly silly, Ted. You know it's simply a wonderful idea," she proclaimed loftily. "Do I." There was no question in the boy's tone. "Well, you ought to. But, of course, boys--" "Oh, there you go. Boys!!" No mistaking this tone. "Ted Brandon, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. To be so--so mean to mother." "Mean to mother! Who said anything about mother?" "This is mother's pet scheme." "Pretty queer scheme to keep us cooped up all vacation." He rocked the basket vigorously. "We won't have to stay in much at all. Why, just odd times, and besides--" Nancy paused to pat her hair. She might have patted it without pausing but her small brother Ted would then have been less impressed by her assumed dignity, "you see, Teddy, I'm working for a principle. I don't believe that girls should do a bit more housework than boys." "Oh, I know you believe that all-righty." Ted allowed himself to sigh but did not pause to do so. He kept right on rocking and snapping the blade of his pen-knife open and shut, as if the snap meant something either useful or amusing. "Well, I guess I know what I'm talking about," declared Nancy, "and now, even mother has come around to agree with me. She's going right on with her office work and you and I are to run this lovely little shop." "You mean _you_ are to run the shop and _I'll_ wash the dishes." Deepest scorn and seething irony hissed through Teddy's words. He even flipped the pen-knife into the sink board and nicked, but did not break, the apple-sauce dish. "Of course you must do your part." Nancy lifted up two dishes and set them down again. "And yours, if you have your say. Oh, what's the use of talkin' to girls?" Ted tumbled out of the basket, pushed it over until it banged into a soap box, then straightening up his firm young shoulders, he prepared to leave the scene. "There's no use talking to girls, Ted," replied his sister, "if you don't talk sense." "Sense!" He jammed his cap upon his head although he didn't have any idea of wearing it on this beautiful day. The fact was, Teddy and Nancy were disagreeing. But there really wasn't anything unusual about that, for their natures were different, they saw things differently, and if they had been polite enough to agree they would simply have been fooling each other. Nancy smiled lovingly, however, at the boy, as he banged the door. What a darling Ted was! So honest and so scrappy! Of all things hateful to Nancy Brandon a "sissy" boy, as she described a certain type, was the worst. "But I suppose," she ruminated serenely, "the old breakfast dishes have got to be done." Another lifting up and setting down of a couple of china pieces, but further than that Nancy made not the slightest headway. A small mirror hung in a small hall between the long kitchen and the store. Here Nancy betook herself and proceeded again to pat her dark hair.