"Oh, yes, Ruth," declared the boy. "I just ran and asked her." "What did she say?" "We-ell," Sammy admitted slowly, "she was busy cutting out something on the dining-room table and her mouth was full of pins. I had to ask her two or three times before she seemed to hear me." "And then what did she say?" insisted Ruth, with suspicion, knowing both Sammy and his mother pretty well. "Why, she said: 'If you will only go out and stop bothering me for an hour I don't care _what_ you do.' So, ain't that saying I can?" demanded Sammy. "I should say she had given you _carte blanche_," chuckled Neale, while the older Corner House girls laughed. "I think you may go as far as to get the wire, pulleys, and other things needed," Ruth said. "I will ask Sammy's mother myself when she is not so strenuously engaged." Dot listened to this and gazed after the departing older sister in something like awe. "What is it, Dottums?" asked Agnes, chucking the little fairy-like child under her soft chin. "Oh, our Ruth does talk so beautifully," sighed the smallest Corner House girl. "What does 'strain--strain-u-ous-ly' mean, Aggie?" "Exactly that," laughed her sister. "Mrs. Pinkney certainly was working under a 'strain.' You have hit the meaning of 'strenuously' better even than Mr. Dick." "Who is Mr. Dick?" demanded Dot, the unappeasable. "The man who knows everything," said Neale, throwing away the core of his apple and strolling to the gate on his way to the hardware store to purchase the materials for the Aeriel tramway. "The dictionary, goosey," said Tess in explanation to Dot. "Don't you know yet what they mean when they are joking us?" "I only wanted to _know_," said Dot rather grieved. "Never mind," said Sammy, being left alone with the two smaller girls. "Let 'em laugh. We won't get mad at 'em till that wire's up and the car is running all right." Oh, Sammy Pinkney was a practical lad. Dot, unable long to keep any exciting happening or interest to herself, was disseminating the news of the proposed "airship line" throughout the Corner House household. Uncle Rufus, the brown black-man, who was working just then in the garden, was vastly astonished. "Ma 'Lantic Ocean!" he gasped. "What will dese yere chillun be doin' next, I want to know! Puttin' up a trolley line, is they, fo' airships? Who ever heard de like?" "Oh, air-re-ro-planes!" said Dot, having heard a new word and rather liking the rolling syllables of it. "Air-re-ro-planes are getting very common, so Aggie says. There is going to be one at the County Fair. Why, people will be riding in them just like trolley cars, pretty soon!"