"Blue," said Edna, and "Pink," said Cricket, in one breath. The children looked at each other and laughed.
"I'd just as soon have pale-green," said Edna, amiably.
"So would I," agreed Cricket. "Eunice is president, so let's vote for pale-green. How would this do? 'The club will have pale-green ribbon to tie its pencils round its necks.'"
"'Round its necks' sounds funny," commented Edna, writing.
"Round its neck, then. But that sounds as if we had only one neck."
"Say, the club will have pale-green ribbon to tie their pencils round their necks," amended Eunice.
"That will do. Now rule four," said Edna, waiting, with pencil raised.
"Shouldn't we have a by-law now?" asked Cricket. "For instance, By-law one: 'The club will buy foolscap paper to print on, and will take up a surscription of five cents to buy it with.'"
"_Sub_scription," corrected Eunice. "I should think that would do."
"Buy-law I. The club will take up a subscription of five cents each, and buy foolscap paper, as much as it needs."
"That's good. Do we need any more by-laws? What else have we to buy?"
"Ain't those enough rules?" asked Eunice. "I can't seem to think of any more rules we want to make."
"When will we have the paper?" asked Edna.
"Depends on when you send in your stories. This is Wednesday. Have you your stories nearly done, girls? I guess it will take some time to print them all out carefully."
"I can finish mine to-morrow," said Eunice.
"Mine's a horrid little thing, but I wasn't born bright," sighed Edna. "I'll get it done by Friday. I can't think up more than five lines a day."
"Mine's all done," said Cricket. "But, oh, girls! a newspaper ought to have ever so many more things than stories in it. We ought to have jokes, and advertisements, and deaths, and marriages, and all that. And puzzles, too."
"Oh-h!" groaned Edna. "Then you'll have to make them up, that's all. I think it's the editor's business, anyway."
"We'll each do a few. That won't be hard," suggested Eunice.
"Suppose nobody dies, or gets married, that we know of?" asked literal Edna.
"Make them up, child," answered Cricket, with a funny air of superiority. "In a paper you can make up _any_thing. It doesn't have to be true. Don't you know how often papa says 'that's only a newspaper story?'"