"Gee, she's got a parrot!" cried a ragged, redheaded little boy
who was trying to walk on top of the sharp pickets.

He was barefooted and the pickets were very sharp, so when the
moving--van man, having put down the parrot and its cage on the
porch, pretended to run straight toward him, the boy lost his
balance and fell. He was up in a moment and running down the
street as fast as though the furniture man were really chasing
him.

"Sister!" Brother spoke excitedly. "That's the little boy I told
you about. We saw him downtown, Louise and I, when we were buying
things for the fishpond for my birthday; remember? Only he didn't
have a rag on his foot today."

"He used to be in my class at school," said Nellie. "Oh, look at
all the boxes of books!"

Brother meant to ask Nellie what the redheaded boy's name was, but
she had danced out to the van to see how large it was inside, and
when she came back Brother had forgotten his question.

"My father says an old lady is going to live here," volunteered
Francis Rider, a freckle-faced lad of ten or twelve. "She lives all
by herself, and she doesn't like noise. Her name is Miss Putnam."

Neither, they were to learn, did Miss Putnam like company,
especially that of boys and girls.

When the last piece of furniture had been carried in, and the van