absence, Mrs. Minot beheld the countenances of the workers
adorned with gay stamps, giving them a very curious appearance.
“My dears! what new play have you got now? Are you wild
Indians? or letters that have gone round the world before finding
the right address?” she asked, laughing at the ridiculous sight, for
both were as sober as judges and deeply absorbed in some doubtful
specimen.
“Oh, we just stuck them there to keep them safe; they get lost if we
leave them lying round. It’s very handy, for I can see in a minute
what I want on Jill’s face and she on mine, and put our fingers on
the right chap at once,” answered Jack, adding, with an anxious
gaze at his friend’s variegated countenance, “Where the dickens is
my New Granada? It’s rare, and I wouldn’t lose it for a dollar.”
‘Why, there it is on your own nose. Don’t you remember you put it
there because you said mine was not big enough to hold it?”
laughed Jill, tweaking a large orange square off the round nose of
her neighbor, causing it to wrinkle up in a droll way, as the gum
made the operation slightly painful.
“So I’d id, and gave you Little Bolivar on yours. Now I’ll have
Alsace and Lorraine, 1870. There are seven of them, so hold still
and see how you like it,” returned Jack, picking the large, pale
stamps one by one from Jill’s forehead, which they crossed like a
band.
She bore it without flinching, saying to herself with a secret smile,
as she glanced at the hot fire, which scorched her if she kept near
enough to Jack to help him, “This really is being like a missionary,
with a tattooed savage to look after. I have to suffer a little, as the
good folks did who got speared and roasted sometimes; but I won’t
complain a bit, though my forehead smarts, my arms are tired, and
one cheek is as red as fire.”
“The Roman States make a handsome page, don’t they?” asked
Jack, little dreaming of the part he was playing in Jill’s mind. “Oh,
I say, isn’t Corea a beauty? I’m ever so proud of that”; and he gazed
fondly on a big blue stamp, the sole ornament of one page.
“I don’t see why the Cape of Good Hope has pyramids. They ought
to go in Egypt. The Sandwich Islands are all right, with
heads of the black kings and queens on them,” said Jill, feeling
that they were very appropriate to her private play.
“Turkey has crescents, Australia swans, and Spain women’s heads,
with black bars across them. Frank says it is because they keep
women shut up so; but that was only his fun. I’d rather have a
good, honest green United States, with Washington on it, or a blue
one-center with old Franklin, than all their eagles and lions and
kings and queens put together,” added the democratic boy, with a
disrespectful slap on a crowned head as he settled Heligoland in its
place.
“Why does Austria have Mercury on the stamp, I wonder? Do they
wear helmets like that?” asked Jill, with the brush-handle in her
mouth as she cut a fresh batch of flaps.
“Maybe he was postman to the gods, so he is put on stamps now.
The Prussians wear helmets, but they have spikes like the old
Roman fellows. I like Prussians ever so much; they fight
splendidly, and always beat. Austrians have a handsome uniform,
though.”
“Talking of Romans reminds me that I have not heard your Latin
for two days. Come, lazybones, brace up, and let us have it now.
I’ve done my compo, and shall have just time before I go out for a
tramp with Gus,” said Frank, putting by a neat page to dry, for he
studied every day like a conscientious lad as he was.
“Don’t know it. Not going to try till next week. Grind away over
your old Greek as much as you like, but don’t bother me,”
answered Jack, frowning at the mere thought of the detested
lesson.
But Frank adored his Xenophon, and would not see his old friend,