"Would the others go?" Nettie questioned eagerly, and Norm, laughing, said he reckoned they would go quick enough if they got a chance; invitations to take boat rides were not so plenty that they could afford to lose them.

Then was time for Nettie's great surprise.

"And, Norm, will you bring them all home to supper with you? I'll have everything ready to cook the fish in a hurry as soon as you get into the house, and you can visit in the new room until they are ready."

Now indeed, I wish you could have seen Norm! It never happened to him before to have a chance to invite anybody home to supper with him. He looked at Nettie in silent bewilderment for a minute; he even rubbed his eyes as though possibly he might be dreaming; but she looked so real and so trim, and so sure of herself standing there quietly waiting his answer, that at last he stammered out:

"What do you mean, Nannie? You aren't in dead earnest?"

"Why, of course," said Nettie, deciding in a flash upon her plan of action; she would do as Jerry had, and take all this as a matter of course. "I'm going to make a lovely johnny-cake for supper, and some new-fashioned potatoes, and we have cream for the coffee. You shall have an elegant supper; only be sure you catch lots of fish."

It was all arranged at last to their satisfaction, and the two conspirators turned away to get ready for their part of the business.

"Norm liked it," said Jerry. "Couldn't you see by his face that he did? I believe we can get hold of him after awhile, by doing things of this kind; things that make him remember he has a home, and pleasant times, like other boys."

If Jerry had waited fifteen minutes he might have been surer of that even than he was. Norm's second invitation followed hard on the first; and Norm, who felt a little sore over certain meannesses of the night before, and who knew his foreman was within hearing and would be sure to object to this young fellow who had come to ask him to go to the island, answered loftily: "Can't do it; I've promised to go out fishing with a party; and besides, our folks are going to have company to tea."

Company to tea! He almost laughed when he said it. How very strange the sentence sounded.

"O, indeed," said Jim Noxen from the saloon. "Seems to me you are getting big."

"It sounds like it," said Norman. "I wonder if I am?" But this he said to himself; for answer to the remark, he only laughed.

"If I had a chance to keep company with a young fellow like Jerry, and a trim little woman like that sister of yours, I guess I wouldn't often be found with the other set."

This the foreman said, with a significant nod of his head toward the young fellow who represented the other set. And this, too, had its influence.

Jerry and Nettie had a glimpse of one of Norm's friends as they passed his shop on their homeward way.

"He has a good face," said Nettie. "Poor fellow! Hasn't he any home at all? Don't you wish we could get hold of him so close that he would help us? He looks as though he might."

Then she stepped into the boat and floated idly around, while Jerry ran for the oars; and while she floated, she thought and planned. There was a great deal to be done, both then and afterwards.

"I wish you could go with us and catch a fish," said Jerry, as he saw how she enjoyed the water, "but maybe it wouldn't be just the thing."

"I know it wouldn't," said Nettie; "besides, who would make the johnny-cake, and the potato balls? There is a great deal to be done to make things match, when you are catching fish."

The fishing party was a complete success. Jerry said afterwards that the very fish acted as though they were in the secret and were bound to help. He had never seen them bite so readily. By seven o'clock, the boat was headed homeward, with more fish than even four hungry boys could possibly eat.

"Now for supper," said Norm, who with secret delight had thought constantly of the surprise in store for Alf and Rick. "Boys, I'm going to take you home with me and show you what a prime cook my little sister is. We'll have these fish sizzling in a pan quicker than you have any notion of; and she knows how to sizzle them just right; doesn't she, Jerry?"

But Jerry was spared the trouble of a reply, for Alf with incredulous stare said, "You're gassing now."

"No, I'm not gassing. You can come home with me, honor bright, and you shall have such a supper as would make old Ma'am Turner wild."

Old Ma'am Turner, poor soul, was the woman who kept the wretched boarding house where these homeless boys boarded, and she really did know how to make things taste a little worse, probably, than any one you know of.

"What'll your mother say to your bringing folks home to supper?" questioned Rick, looking as incredulous as his friend. "She'll give us a hint of broomstick, I reckon, if we try it."

"Well," said Norm, unconcernedly, dipping the oar into the water, "try it and see, if you are a mind to, that's all I've got to say. I ain't going to force you to eat fish; but I promise you a first-class meal of them if you choose to come."

"Oh! we'll go," said Alf, with a giggle; "if we are broomed out the next second, we'll try it, just to see what will come of it. Things is queerer in this world than folks think, often; now I didn't believe a word of it, when you said we was going out in a boat to-night; I thought it was some of your nonsense; and here the little fellow has treated us prime."

The "little fellow" was Jerry, who smiled and nodded in honor of his compliment, but said nothing; he resolved to let Norm do the honors alone.

They went with long strides to the Decker home, Jerry waiting to fasten the boat and pay his bill. Each boy carried a fine string of fish of his own catching; and appeared at the back door just as Nettie came out to look.

"O, what beauties!" she said, gleefully; "and such a nice lot of them! I'm all ready and waiting. You go in, Norm, with your friends, and we'll have them cooking as soon as we can."

"Not much," said Norm, coming around to the board which she had evidently gotten ready for cleaning the fish, and diving his hand in his pocket in search of his jack-knife. "Let's fall to, boys, and clean these fellows. I know how, and I think likely you do, and they'll taste the better, like enough."

"Just so," said Rick Walker, who owned the face that Nettie had decided was a good one. "I'm agreeable; I know how to clean fish as well as the next one; used to do it for mother, when I was a little shaver."

Did the sentence end in a sigh, or did Nettie imagine it? All three went to work with strong skilful hands, and Nettie hopped back and forth bringing fresh water, and fresh plates, and feeling in her secret heart very grateful to the boys for doing this, which she had dreaded.

They were all done in a very short time, and each boy in turn had washed his hands in the basin which shone, and then, the shining, or the smoothness and beautiful cleanness of the great brown towel, or something, prompted Rick to take fresh water and dip his brown face into it, and toss the water about like a great Newfoundland dog.

"I declare, that feels good!" he said. "Try it, Alf." And Alf tried it.

Then Norm led the way to the new room. It would have done Nettie's heart good if she had known how many times he had thought of that room during the last hour. He knew it would be a surprise to the boys. They had never seen anything but the Decker kitchen, and not much of that, standing at the door to wait a minute for Norm, but the few glimpses they had had of it, had not led them to suppose that there was any such place in the house as this in which he was now going to usher them. Their surprise was equal to the occasion. They stopped in the doorway, and looked around upon the prettiness, the bright carpet, the delicate curtains, the gay chairs! nothing like this was to be found at Ma'am Turner's, nor in any other room with which they were familiar.

"Whew!" said Rick, closing the word with a shrill whistle; "I think as much!" said Alf. "Who'd have dreamed it. I say, Norm, you're a sly one; why didn't you ever let on that you had this kind of thing?"

How they entertained one another during that next hour, Nettie did not know. Eyes and brain were occupied in the kitchen. Jerry came, presently, but reported that they were getting on all right in the front room, and he believed he could do better service in the kitchen; so he set the table with a delicate regard for nicety which Nettie had been taught at Auntie Marshall's, and which she knew he had not learned at Mrs. Job Smith's. Sarah Jane was rigidly clean, but never what Nettie called "nice."

"We'll take the table in the front room," decreed Nettie as she surveyed it thoughtfully for a few minutes. "It is very warm out here, and they will like it better to be quite alone; we can put all the dishes on, with the leaves down, and set them in their places in a twinkling, after we have lifted it in there. Won't that be the way, mother?"

"Land!" said Mrs. Decker, withdrawing her head from the oven, whither it had gone to see after the new-fashioned potato balls, "I should think they could eat out here; you may depend they never saw so clean a kitchen at old Ma'am Turner's. But it is hot here, and no mistake; and I should not know what to do with myself while they was eating. Please yourself, child, and then I'll be pleased. I'm going to save one of these potatoes for your pa; I never see anything in my life look prettier than they do."

Mrs. Decker's tones told much plainer than her words, that she liked Nettie's idea of putting the table in the front room for Norm's company. She would not have owned it, but her mother-heart was glad over a "fuss" being made for her Norm.

So the table went in; Jerry at one end, and Nettie at the other. They hushed a loud laugh by their entrance, but Jerry went immediately over to Rick Walker to show a new-fashioned knife, and Nettie's fingers flew over the table, so by the time the knife had been exhausted, she was ready to vanish.

Confess now that you would like to have had a seat at that table when it was ready. A platter of smoking fish, done to the nicest brown, without drying or burning; a bowl of lovely little brown balls, each of them about the size of an egg, a plate of very light and puffy-looking Johnny-cake, and to crown all, coffee that filled the room with such an aroma as Ma'am Turner perhaps dreamed of, but never certainly in these days smelled. Mrs. Job Smith at the last minute had sent in a pat of genuine country butter, and Sate had flown to the grocery for a piece of ice with which to keep it in countenance.

Jerry set the chairs, and Nettie poured the coffee, and creamed and sugared it, and then slipped away.

She knew by the looks on the faces of the guests, that they were astonished beyond words, and she knew that Norm was both astonished and pleased. There was another supper being made ready in the kitchen. Mrs. Decker had herself tugged in the box which had been lately set up as a washbench, and spread the largest towel over it, and was serving three lovely fish, and a bowl of potato balls for "Decker" and herself.

"I guess I'm going to have company too," she said to Nettie, her face beaming. "Your pa has gone to wash up, and I thought seeing there was only two chairs, and two plates left, you wouldn't mind having him and me sit down together, for a meal, first."

"Yes, I do mind," said Nettie; "I think it is a lovely plan; I'm so glad you thought of it, and Jerry and I will keep watch that they have everything in the other room, while you eat." If you are wondering in your hearts where those important beings, Sate and Susie, were at this moment, I should have told you before, that Sarah Jane had a brilliant thought, but an hour before, and carried them out to tea. So all the Decker family were visiting that evening, save Nettie, and I think perhaps she was the happiest among them all. Every time she heard a burst of fresh fun from the front room, she laughed, too; it was so nice to think that Norm was having a good time in his own home, and nothing to worry over.

It is almost a pity that, for her encouragement, she could not have heard some of the conversation in that room.

"I say, Norm," said his friend Alf, his tones muffled by reason of a large piece of johnny-cake, "what an awful sly fellow you are! You never let on that you had these kind of doings in your house. Who'd have thought that you had a stunning room like this for folks, and potatoes done up in brown satin, to eat, and coffee such as they get up at the hotels! It beats all creation!"

"That's so," said Rick, taking in a quarter of a fish at one mouthful, "I never dreamed of such a thing; what beats me, is, why a fellow who has such nice doings at home, wants to loaf around, and spend evenings at Beck's, or at Steen's. Hang me if I don't think the contrast a little too great. 'Pears to me if I had this kind of thing, I should like to enjoy it oftener than Norm seems to."

Norman smiled loftily on them. Do you think he was going to own that "this kind of thing" had never been enjoyed in his home before, during all the years of his recollection? Not he; he only said that folks liked a change once in awhile, of course, and he only laughed when Rick and Alf both declared that if they knew themselves, and they thought they did, they would be content never to change back from this kind of thing to Ma'am Turner's supper table so long as they lived.

How those boys did eat! Nettie owned to herself that she was astonished; and privately rejoiced that she had made four johnny-cakes instead of three, though it had seemed almost extravagant until she remembered that it would warm up nicely for breakfast. Not a crumb would there be for breakfast. She had one regret and she told it to Jerry as she went out to him on the back stoop, having poured the third cup of coffee around, for the three in the front room.

"Jerry, I am just afraid there won't be a speck of johnny-cake left for you to taste. Those boys do eat so!"

"Never mind," laughed Jerry. "We will eat the tail of a fish, if any of them have a tail left, and rejoice over our success; this thing is going to work, I believe, if we can keep it going."

"That's the trouble," said Nettie, an anxious look in her eyes. "How can we? Fish won't do every time; and there are no other things that you can catch. Besides, even this has cost a great deal. I paid eight cents for lard to fry the fish, and the butter and milk and things would have cost as much as fifteen cents certainly. Mrs. Smith furnished them this time, but of course such things won't happen again."

"A great many things happen," said Jerry, wisely. "More than you can calculate on. 'Never cross a bridge until you come to it, my boy.' Didn't I tell you that was what my father was always saying to me? I have found it a good plan, too, to follow his advice. Many a time I've worried over troubles that never came. Look here, don't you believe that if we are to do this thing and good is to come from it, we shall be able to manage it somehow?"

"Why, y-e-s," said Nettie, slowly, as though she were waiting to see whether her faith could climb so high; "I suppose that is so."

"Well, if good isn't going to come of it, do we want to do it?"

"Of course not."

"All right, then," with a little laugh. "What are we talking about?" And Nettie laughed, and ran in to give her father his last cup of coffee, and to hear him say that he hadn't had so good a meal in six years.

It was a curious fact that Susie and Sate were the chief movers in the next thing that these young Fishers did to interest the particular fish whom they were after.

It began the next Sabbath morning in Sabbath-school. There, the little girls heard with deep interest that on the following Sabbath there was to be a service especially for the children. A special feature of the day was to be the decoration of the church with flowers, which the children were to bring on the previous Saturday. Susie and Sate promised with the rest, that they would bring flowers. Promised in the confident expectation of childhood that some way they could join the others and do as they did; though both little girls knew that not a flower grew in or about them. During the early part of the week they forgot it, but on Saturday morning they stood in the little front yard and saw a sight which recalled all the delights of the coming Sunday in which they seemed to be having no share. The little girls from the Orphanage on the hill were bringing their treasures. Even fat little Karl who was only five, had a potted plant in full bloom, which he was proudly carrying. Little Dutch Maggie, in her queer long apron, carried a plant with lovely satiny leaves which were prettier than any bloom, and behind her was Robert the Scotch gardener with his arms full; then young Rob Severn, Miss Wheeler's nephew, had a lovely fuchsia just aglow with blossoms, and Miss Wheeler herself, who was the matron at the Orphanage, was carrying a choice plant. All these the hungry eyes of Sate and Susie took in, as the procession passed the house, then they ran wailing to Nettie who had already become the long suffering person to whom they must pour out their woes.

"We promised, we did," explained Sate, her earnest eyes fixed on Nettie, while her arms clasped that young lady just as she was in the act of throwing out her dishwater. "We did promise, and they will 'spect them, and they won't be there."

"Well, but, darling, what made you promise, when you knew we had no flowers? Mrs. Smith would give you some in a minute if hers were in bloom. Why didn't they wait a little later, I wonder? Then Mrs. Smith could have given us such lovely china-asters."

"We must have some to-morrow," said the emphatic Susie, and she fastened her black eyes on Nettie in a way that said: "Now you understand what must be, I hope you will at once set about bringing it to pass."

Nettie could not help laughing. "If you were a fairy queen," she said, "and could wave your wand and say, 'Flowers, bloom,' and they would obey you, we should certainly have some; as it is, I don't quite see how they are to be had. We have no friends to ask."

"I can't help it," said Susie, positively, "we promised to bring some, and of course we must. You said, Nettie Decker, that we must always keep our promises."

"Now, Miss Nettie Decker, you are condemned!" said Jerry, with grave face but laughing eyes; "something must evidently be done about this business. Dandelions are gone, except the whiteheads, and they would blow away before they got themselves settled in church, I am afraid. Hold on, I have a thought, just a splendid one if can manage it; wait a bit, Susie, and we will see what we can do."

Susie, who was beginning to have full faith in this wise friend of theirs, told Sate in confidence that they were going to have some flowers to take to church, as well as the rest of them; she did not know what Jerry was going to make them out of, but she knew he would make some.

After that, Jerry was not seen again for several hours. In fact it was just as the dinner dishes were washed, that he appeared with a triumphant face. "Have you made some?" asked Sate, springing up from her dolly and going toward him expectantly.

"Made some what, Curly?"

"Flowers," said Sate, gravely. "Susie said she knew you would."

Jerry laughed. "Susie has boundless faith in impossibilities," he said. "No, I haven't made the flowers, but I have the boat. That old thing that leaked so, you know, Nettie; well, I've put it in prime order, and got permission to use it, and if you and the chicks will come, we will sail away to where they make flowers, and pick all we want; unless some wicked fairy has whispered my bright thought to somebody else, and I don't believe it, for I have seen no one out on the pond to-day."

Then Sate, her eyes very large, went in search of Susie to tell her that this wonderful boy had come to take them where flowers were made, and to let them gather for themselves.

"I suppose it is heaven," said Sate, gravely, "because the real truly flowers, you know, God makes, and he has his things all up in heaven to work with, I guess."

"What a little goosie you are!" said Susie, curling her wise lip; "as if Jerry Mack could take us to heaven!"

However, she went at once to see about it, and was almost as much astonished to think that they were really going out in a boat, as she would have been if they were going to heaven. "I s'pose it's safe?" said Mrs. Decker doubtfully, watching the light in the little girls' eyes, and remembering how few pleasures had been offered them.

"O, yes'm," said Jerry, "as safe as the road. I could row a boat, ma'am, very well indeed, father said, when I was six years old; and you couldn't coax that clumsy old thing to tip over, if you wanted it to; and if it should, the water isn't up to my waist anywhere in the pond."

Mrs. Decker laughed, and said it sounded safe enough; and went back to her ironing, and the four happy people sailed away. If not to where the pond lilies were made, at least to where they grew in all their wild sweet beauty.

"How very strange," said Nettie, as they leaned over the great rude, flat-bottomed boat and pulled the beauties in; "how very strange that no one has gathered these for to-morrow. Why, nothing could be more lovely!"

"Well," said Jerry, "only a few people row this way, because it isn't the pleasantest part of the pond, you know, for rowing; and I guess no one has remembered that the lilies were out; there don't many people, only fishermen, go out on this pond, you know, because the boats are so ugly; and fishermen don't care for flowers, I guess. Anyhow, they haven't been here, for the buds are all on hand, just as I thought they would be by this time, when I was here on Tuesday. But I never thought of the church; so you see how little thinking is done."

Well, they gathered great loads of the beauties, and rowed home in triumph, and put the lilies in a tub of water, and sat down to consider how best to arrange them. It was curious that Mrs. Job Smith should have been the next one with an idea.

"I should think," she said, standing in the doorway of her kitchen, her hands on her sides, "I should think a great big salver of them laid around in their own leaves, would be the prettiest thing in the world."

"So it would," said Nettie, "the very thing, if we only had the salver."

"Well, I've got that. Mrs. Sims, she gave me an old battered and bruised one, when they were moving. It is big enough to put all the cups and saucers on in town, almost; when I lugged it home, Job, he wanted to know what on earth I wanted of that, and says I, I don't know, but she give it to me, and most everything in this world comes good, if you keep it long enough. Sarah Ann, you run up to the corner in the back garret and get that thing, and see what they'll make of it."

So Sarah Ann ran.