The most wonderful thing has happened. I shall be able to fill the last two pages of my diary with such news,—and all because Ernie and I determined to clean house!

“It’s absurd to miss them so,” said Ernie, as she set Bobsie’s books straight in the nursery book-shelf yesterday afternoon. “But, somehow, I can’t get used to seeing this room so tidy!”

“And how queer it is not having any trays to carry,” I answered. “Mother and Bobs have never been away from us before. I wonder if there will be another letter this evening.”

“Mother writes such lovely letters, and Geof’s postscripts are so funny,” chuckled Ernie, with a slap at the front of her sailor blouse, where the last family epistle reposed. “Fancy Robin refusing clam-fritters, and telling the head waiter all about Abraham Lincoln in the hotel dining-room!”

“Well, I shall be glad when they are home again,” I admitted. “Perhaps that sounds selfish, since the change is doing them so much good; but I can’t help feeling lonely when you are at school, dear.”

“Elizabeth, don’t you think it would be nice to have a little surprise for mother?” asked Ernestine. “Something useful that would save her work or trouble, after she comes back? I’ll tell you what,—suppose we clean house! You, and Rose, and I could do it perfectly well; and this place hasn’t had a good raking out in ages!”

“That’s rather a sensible idea,” I agreed; “especially now, when the family is so small. We could manage the attic, the basement, and the parlour floor, perhaps; but we mustn’t disturb the boarders. Have you noticed, Ernie, that the Lysles have been receiving summer resort pamphlets in almost every mail this week? I am afraid it means they are planning to leave the city early,—and Miss Brown told me Monday that she had an invitation to spend July and August with her nieces in the Adirondacks. I try not to worry; but we have drawn our last money from the bank, and, oh, I do dread the summer!”

“Don’t think about it, then,” returned Ernie, stoutly. “We’ve weathered a good many storms, honey, and it would be pretty ungrateful for us to fret now. Perhaps something will turn up at the last moment. I wish we were going to the country, too!” she added, with an inconsistent little sigh.

“Robin has never seen a clover field,” I answered, “nor a live cow. And I haven’t tasted buttermilk since I was seven years old. Just think, the woods are full of violets this very minute,—and thrushes, and bluebirds!”

“I know it,” returned Ernie, glancing pensively out the window at the battered row of ash-cans that lined our dusty street. “I wish we could rent this old house,” she added, vindictively, “and go away, and start a chicken farm! I’m tired of boarders, Elizabeth;—even when they are as kind and considerate as Miss Brown and the Hippo family!”

“You can’t be as tired of them as I am,” I answered,—“because you don’t have to order their meals! But we would need the front stoop browned over, and the cellar concreted, before we could dream of letting; and such things cost money. It just seems as if our hands were tied.”

“Which needn’t prevent them from wielding a broom!” exclaimed Ernie, springing up with an energetic shake of her short skirts. “Come on, child,—I’m ashamed of us! A little hard work is the medicine we need. The idea of sitting here in opposite rocking-chairs, croakin’ at one another like a pair of discontented grannies, when Robin and Geof are growing fat in Atlantic City, and mother is having a really truly holiday for the first time in years! I’m going up to begin on the attic this instant; and if we have to feel blue in June,—why, that’s nearly two months off, yet.”

“But it’s four o’clock, Ernie,” I protested. “Don’t you think we had better put off the house-cleaning till to-morrow?”

“No, I don’t,” returned Ernie, impetuously. “There is a pile of magazines in the workshop that hasn’t been looked over since the year 1, Tecpatl! Mother told me weeks ago that she wanted them sent to the Philippines. She asked me to go through them then. So, come on.”

“Very well,” I answered, meekly. And a few moments later Ernie and I were seated on the workshop floor, each with our separate bunch of dusty literature.

“Here’s that nice story about the rogue elephant,” began Ernie, comfortably. “I don’t think we can let that go. And, oh! here’s the copy of Scribbler’s with The Magic Ring. Do you remember, we read it aloud one Christmas? It is about the two little boys who went to the Circus.”

“I thought,” returned I, severely, “that we came up here to get these magazines ready to send to the Philippines?”

“So we did,” mumbled Ernie, “but if we don’t go through them, how are we to know which ones we ought to send?”

At that moment I came upon an odd instalment of The Refugees, a thrilling historical romance that had haunted my memory for years. “Of course,” I agreed, with suspicious alacrity; and after that we sat together on the workshop floor, and read and read; till the shadows began to steal out from the corners, the room grew dusk and gloomy, and I looked up with straining eyes to remark,—

“Ernestine, it is simply provoking! Why will editors always break off at the most exciting spot? The Indians are attacking the blockhouse, I can’t find the next instalment, and——”

“Whoop-ee!” rang the shrill war-cry. “Whoop! Whoop! hurrah! hur-roo-o!”

For a moment I glared about me in terror. Was I in the workshop or the Canadian backwoods? Was the wildly whirling figure that pranced and capered about me, now advancing, now retreating, my own little sister Ernie, or a bloodthirsty Iroquois savage?

“I’ve found it! I’ve found it!” shrilled the jubilant song. “After all my hunts, Elizabeth! In the cuckoo-clock, under Hazard’s bed!—And to think we nearly sent it to Manila!”

“What are you talking about, Ernestine?” I demanded, severely. “No matter what you have found, you ought to be ashamed to shout so! You know that Miss Brown has a headache, and besides I quite mistook you for an Indian!”

Ernie dropped down beside me, and flung her arms about my neck. “Honey,” she breathed,—“it’s the contract,—the Dump-Cart Contract, at last! Stuck between the pages of an old copy of Cayler’s Engineering Magazine! And to think, we almost sent it to Manila!”

So! I understood. The room began to swim about me. My head sank limply to Ernie’s supporting shoulder.

“Don’t you dare go and faint on me!” threatened that unsympathetic young person. “If you do, I’ll spill water over your new rosebud stock. I mean it, Elizabeth!”

“You shan’t!” I retorted; and sat up, clutching my precious embroidered collar with one hand, while I extended the other for the contract.

Ernie picked up the yellow-backed magazine, which she had dropped in the window when she began her wild war-dance, and extracted a legal-looking document.

“Here it is,” she said; “and it was by the merest chance I found it. I knew there would be nothing in Cayler’s to interest us, though some stray engineer in Manila might like it. And I was just about to put it with these other magazines we don’t want,—when I noticed the date, and that made me think of dear father. So I opened it, just to see what he had been reading, and the first thing I came on was the contract! Oh, Elizabeth, he must have slipped it in here on his way home from Mr. Perry’s office that very afternoon! How natural it seems! And Rose cleared it away later, and we never suspected! Well!”

By this time Ernie and I were reading the document through, our heads close together in the window, our hearts thumping. Despite the legal verbiage which we did not altogether understand, despite the fast-fading light, there could be no doubt. The Dump-Cart Contract was found! It was also dated, witnessed, and signed, with a pathetic little blot of ink under the dear familiar G stem in father’s name.

At first we could hardly believe our good fortune!

“Five per cent. of whatever profits the invention is making,” gasped Ernie,—“and perhaps some back money, too! Oh, Elizabeth, the boarders can leave whenever they like, now! The quicker the better—We can shut up this house, and go away to the country. Robin shall play in the clover fields, you shall drink buttermilk, and I will start a chicken farm! What a lovely surprise for mother!”

And she threw her arms about my neck, and for a while we wept and laughed together.

“And to think how ungrateful we were this very afternoon! It makes one rather ashamed doesn’t it, dear?” I concluded, with a penitent sniff. “Haze and I will go and see Uncle George this evening. He will advise us.”

“About what?” asked Hazard’s voice, with a worried little accent, from the attic stairs. “Has anything happened? Is there bad news from mother?”

“No, indeed,” we answered. “Come in. Light the gas. We’ve something to show you.”

So Hazard came. Ernie struck a match, and again in the dear, familiar workshop, where so many important councils have been held, so many family problems settled, we read the contract through together.

“Well,” says Haze, with a little sigh. “So it is really found! What a scamp that Perry is! Yes, Elizabeth, you and I will see Uncle George this evening.”

“I’m coming, too,” piped Ernie. “I found it! I want to see what he will say!”

So after dinner,—where it was rather trying, I can tell you, to talk and eat as if nothing had happened because we did not think it wise for the boarders to suspect till things should be a little more definitely settled,—we slipped into our hats and jackets and hurried around to Uncle George’s.

He sat at his desk in the library with a number of papers before him, and he looked up, rather surprised and displeased, as William ushered us into the room.

“Anything wrong at home?” he began. “You are not in trouble again, I hope, Hazard?”

“No, sir,” says Haze, importantly. “Not this time, thanks.” And he handed Uncle George the contract.

Well, you just ought to have seen Uncle George’s face change as he read it.

“Where did this come from?” he asked, abruptly. “Who found it? when?”

“I did,” piped Ernie; “this afternoon in an old copy of Cayler’s Engineering Magazine. And, oh, Uncle George, it was the narrowest escape! We nearly sent it to Manila, to the sick soldiers!”

“H-m-m!” says Uncle George, surveying the signatures again. “You are to be congratulated, young lady.” And then he added in a lower tone, as if to himself:—“I’ve done poor Dudley a great injustice. Apparently he wasn’t altogether a fool.” And, turning to Haze, he continued, “I’ll keep this paper, my boy, and look out for your interests. Undoubtedly you have all been very badly treated. With the contract here to prove it, we could prosecute Perry, and perhaps even land him behind the bars, but that would be a rather poor satisfaction, after all, and if you follow my advice you will use your power to settle things as expeditiously and as much to your advantage as possible.”

“Oh, yes!” answered Ernie, Haze, and I, together. “We don’t want to put anybody in jail. All we want is a little money.”

“Well,” returned Uncle George, “I’ll do my best to get it for you.” And then he took us into the drawing-room, and we related the story again to Meta and Aunt Adelaide, who listened with all their ears.

“How perfectly dandy!” cried Meta, clapping her hands when the last explanation had been made, and the last question answered. “Oh, I am so glad, and I guess you are, too, Elizabeth,—even if you didn’t mind being poor!”

“Indeed I am,” I agreed. “And I never said I didn’t mind, Meta;—only that there were certain advantages which one had to experience to find out.”

And then Aunt Adelaide rang the bell, and ordered seltzer lemonade and strawberry shortcake, and we feasted and planned. And later we came home and planned some more, after writing the good news to mother; till now it is nearly twelve o’clock, and I am sitting at my desk pouring out the wonderful story afresh, while Ernie lolls on the side of the bed, and maunders drowsily:—

“I think I’ll try Cochin Chinas, unless they’re the kind that wear ruffly pantalets. Did you ever hear of the lady that started with one egg, and ended with fifty thousand dollars? Oh, do come to bed, Elizabeth, or it will never be to-morrow morning. Our luck has changed!—and we want to wake up and find that we haven’t dreamed it.”

What Ernie says is true. Our luck has changed, indeed! And yet,—what is luck? I like to remember something the kind “Hippopotamus” said to mother one evening this winter when Robin was very sick, when Rose seemed extra-incompetent, when we were all feeling blue.

“Mrs. Graham,” he remarked, “you’re a lucky woman. I don’t care how vexatious things may seem, I don’t care how unfortunate:—with four such children as you have, there’s bound to be luck in a house!”

Wasn’t it pretty of him? And now that the Dump-Cart Contract is found, now that we are poor no longer, it will be good to remember that, for better or worse, we, ourselves, must always be the real luck of the Dudley Grahams.