Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: With Mamma Away I EING the oldest, I think I ought to run the house," I said, settling down to talk things over with Bess, as I mamma's trunks retired down the street, majestically piled on the very top of the wagon. "No, I want to; I'm so much neater than you are. You don't care if the beds have wrinkles in the sheets, and you never notice dust." "But I love to market, and you know we always have good things to eat when I have charge. Do let me run it." "You'll run it into the ground and break it off," put in Jamie. "No, I don't mean that, France. I'll never go back on a girl that gets up such spreads as you do. Bess, let France do it." "I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll take the table and you take the rest of the house, Bess. I admit that I hate to fuss with the draperies and bric-a-brac and things, and you don't like to know what we are going to have for dinner." "All right; that just suits me." "And now, whenever three or four people come in, in the evening, we'll serve an ice. How does that strike you?" "It strikes me delightfully. What else shall we do?" " Well, have company every Sunday to dinner, so as to fill in that yawning gap between two o'clock and four, which means an extra-good dinner, always with salad and ice-cream." Jamie wriggled with delight as I unfolded these modest plans concerning the weeks when we would be at the head of the house—in the daytime, at least. With the greatest difficulty mamma had provided two excellent servants, who promised to be contented in the small basement bedrooms, which were the servants' quarters, until the new house was finished. No matter how devoted girls are to their mother, nor what a dear, sweet mother they have, as we have, it is fun to have her go away sometimes and leave them in char...