“Then we will,” said Calista, promptly. Of course they would not have the heart to forbid us to eat it in, say, June. About a foot down in the ground we set the two tins side by side in an aperture lined and packed with snow and filled in with earth. Over it we made a mound of all the snow we could find in the garden. Then we adjourned to the woodshed and sat on the sill and the sawbuck and the work-bench. “What makes us give it away?” said Delia Dart, abruptly. “Why don’t we sell it? We’d ought to get fifteen cents a dish for it by June.” We began a calculation, as rapid as might be. Each tin would hold at least six dishes. “Why didn’t we bury more?” said Calista, raptly. “Why didn’t we bury a tubful?” “It’d be an awful job to dig the hole,” I objected. “Besides, they’d miss the tub.” The latter objection was insurmountable, so we went off to the garden to hunt pig-nuts. A tree of these delicacies grew in the midst of the potato patch, and some of the nuts were sure to have lain winter-long in the earth and to be seasoned and edible. “Let’s all ask to go to the Rodmans’ this afternoon and tell Margaret Amelia and Betty about the snow,” Calista suggested. “I can’t,” I said. “I’ve got to go calling.” They regarded me pityingly. “Can’t you come over there afterwards?” they suggested. This, I knew, was useless. We should not start calling till late. Besides, I should be hopelessly dressed up. “Well,” said Delia, soothingly, “_we’ll_ go anyhow. Are you going to call where there’s children?” “I don’t think so,” I said, darkly. “We never do.” That afternoon was one whose warm air was almost thickened by sun. The maple buds were just widening into little curly leaves; shadows were beginning to show; and everywhere was that faint ripple of running water in which Spring speaks. But then there was I, in my best dress, my best coat, my best shoes, my new hat, and gloves, faring forth to make calls. This meant merely that there were houses where dwelt certain Grown-ups who expected me to be brought periodically to see them, an expectation persevered in, I believe, solely as a courtesy to my family. Twice a year, therefore, we set out; and the days selected were, as this one, invariably the crown and glory of all days: Days meet for cleaning out the play-house, for occupying homes scraped with a shingle in the softened soil, for assisting at bonfires, to say nothing of all that was to be done in damming up the streams of the curbs and turning aside the courses of rivers.