THE CALICO PAPER. 187

But to paper a room, — a live, respectable room! It looked
appalling at first.

“What if we should spoil it? Twelve by fifteen, eight-
foot post.” Alta flitted about in her white wrapper, with her
little foot measure. “‘ Say eleven rolls, Mari? Now, thirty
cents a roll will get a lovely pattern, if you only think so —
eleven times thirty — three dollars and thirty cents. A pa-
perer would cost two dollars and a half, if he didn’t three.
But for three dollars and thirty cents, Mari! Turn father
into the spare room, you see. Don’t you remember how glib
the newspapers went on the tool-house? I never yet saw the
thing I could n’t do, if I would, Mari! Well go over to
Henry Haspy’s this living morning.”

When Alta has made up her mind to do a thing, she never
stops to think again whether she can do it or not ; so over to
Henry Haspy’s we went, as soon as the dishes were over.
Emma Elizabeth, to be sure, raised grave objections to our
"leaving the front hall unswept and the currants for her to
stem ; in fact, we escaped only on the ground of being in im-
perative need of cheese to eat with the apple-pies, and were
punished for our duplicity by finding a cold boiled-rice dessert
on our return.

Henry Haspy keeps the post-office in our town, and the
store. He keeps calico and raisins and butter and tape and
needles and molasses and wall-paper and perfumery and
hooks and eyes; and if there is anything which Henry
Haspy does n’t keep, he is sure to have something which will