Then “the firm” had a hearty laugh at Nettie’s expense and set to work preparing for evening. I am not going to tell you the story of that summer and fall. It was beautiful; as any of the Deckers will tell you with eager eyes and voluble voice if you call on them, and start the subject. The business grew and grew, and exceeded their most sanguine expectations. Mr. Decker interested himself in it most heartily, and brought often an old acquaintance to get a cup of coffee. “Make it good and strong,” he would say to Nettie in an earnest whisper. “He’s thirsty, and I brought him here instead of going for beer. I wish the room was larger, and I’d get others to come.” In time, and indeed in a very short space of time, this grew to be the crying need of the firm: “If we only had more room, and more dishes!” There was a certain long, low building which had once been used as a boarding-house for the factory hands, before that institution grew large and moved into new quarters, and which was not now in use. At this building Jerry and Nettie, and for that matter, Norm, looked with longing eyes. They named it “Our Rooms,” and hardly ever passed, that they did not suggest some improvement in it which could be easily made, and which would make it just the thing for their business. They knew just what sort of curtains they would have at the the windows, just what furnishings in front and back rooms, just how many lamps would be needed. “We will have a hanging lamp over the centre table,” said Jerry. “One of those new-fashioned things which shine and give a bright light, almost like gas; and lots of books and papers for the boys to read.” “But where would we get the books and papers?” would Nettie say, with an anxious business face, as though the room, and the table, and the hanging lamp, were arranged for, and the last-mentioned articles all that were needed to complete the list. “Oh! they would gather, little by little. I know some people who would donate great piles of them if we had a place to put them. For that matter, as it is, father is going to send us some picture-papers, a great bundle of them; send them by express, and we must have a table to put them on.” So the plans grew, but constantly they looked at the long, low building and said what a nice place it would be. One morning Jerry came across the yard with a grave face. “What do you think?” he said, the moment he caught sight of Nettie. “They have gone and rented our rooms for a horrid old saloon; whiskey in front, and gambling in the back part! Isn’t it a shame that they have got ahead of us in that kind of way?” “Oh dear me!” said Nettie, drawing out each word to twice its usual length, and sitting down on a corner of the woodbox with hands clasped over the dish towel, and for the moment a look on her face as though all was lost.