Kit thought so too before she had half started the winter’s work.  Shad became a tower of strength when it came to painting the old furniture.  They took one of the large upper chambers that was unoccupied, and set up a stove to keep it warm.  Helen called it the atelier, but it was more like a paint shop before Shad finished.

Jean did her share by sending up some stencils she had designed herself for the backs of the chairs and panels in the chests and headboards.

“They look just exactly like the painted furniture you see in the New York shops,” Cousin Roxy declared, the first time she inspected the results.  “When the Judge and I were down before Christmas, I saw a little dining-room set that looked kind of cute, although it wasn’t anything but plain gray with a few morning-glory vines trailing over it.  I think you’ve done splendidly, girls.  You’ve set your hand to the plow and started some fine deep furrows.  But just remember, it’s a long way around a ten-acre lot, so faint not in the heat of the day.”

Kit herself attacked the problem of winning over the Peckhams to her idea of Sally’s taking charge of a little store at the crossroads.  Sally herself sat with wide anxious eyes on the extreme edge of a black haircloth armchair, while her mother said over and over again it was utterly impossible.

“Why, I couldn’t get along without Sally, especially in the summer, with all the fruit to put up and the young ones home from school.”

“But, Mrs. Peckham,” pleaded Kit, “when you were Sally’s age, wasn’t there ever anything that you wanted to do or be with all your heart and soul?  Didn’t you ever just want to get away from what you had been doing for years, and start something new?”

“Well, come to think of it now,” smiled Mrs. Peckham, “I’d have given my eye-teeth to have left home and gone to be a teacher in some town.”

“Then please let Sally do this.  Cousin Roxy says she’s willing to keep an eye over everything, and one of us girls will probably be helping her out most of the time, too.  It would only be until the middle of September, although if it wasn’t too cold later on, we might be able to rent the tents and outfits to the hunters when they come up.  Piney’ll be home for vacation and Elvy and Sylvy can help you.  They’re eight years old now, and Anne’s fifteen and Charlotte’s twelve.  Why, it isn’t fair to them to let them think all Sally’s good for is to stay at home and do housework.  You will let her go, won’t you, Mrs. Peckham?”

Mrs. Peckham sighed and smiled at the same time.

“You’re a fearful good pleader.  I don’t suppose it would hurt the other girls any to take hold and help, but it’s such a nuisance to have to teach them everything when Sally can go right ahead.  Still, I’m willing, and if her father is, why, she can go.  Seems as if you girls are starting something you can’t finish, but mebbe you can.”

Piney Hancock had boarded in Willimantic that winter for her third year in high school.  So the girls had seen very little of her since the previous September, but Kit rounded up the old members of the Hiking Club, and welded them together into a sort of efficiency committee to help with the summer plan.