"I'm having the awfulest time. They asked me to plan a scene for 'The Steadfast Lead Soldier'—you know, that Hans Andersen fairy-tale. The children are going to do it. Nancy Lou's going to be the little dancer, though she's too fat, I think—a regular little butter ball. I just can't get anything decent."
"Let's see."
"No—it's awful!" She crumpled her sketch into a wad. "You try, Joe."
"I haven't any ideas."
But he fastened a fresh sheet of paper to the drawing board and began making a pool of color in the paint-box lid.
"There was a castle, wasn't there?"
"Wait. I'll read that part to you." She squatted on the floor by the bookcase and pulled out the stout little blue-and-gold volume with the broken back.
"'There were once five-and-twenty leaden soldiers' Wait a minute—here: 'A pretty little paper castle. . . . In front of the castle stood little trees, round a small piece of looking-glass that was meant to represent a transparent lake. Wax swans were swimming on its surface, that reflected back their image. . . . A diminutive lady . . . stood at the castle's open door. She, too, was cut out of paper; but she wore a dress of the clearest muslin, and a narrow blue ribbon over her shoulders, like a scarf; and in the middle of this was placed a tinsel rose, as big as her whole face. The little lady stretched out both her
