The next morning he started before
daylight, the last words of the boys being: "Be sure, papa, to
bring the mosquito curtains for us all; they are getting worse and
worse. We hardly closed an eye all last night."
Hot as the weather now was, the boys worked incessantly at their
carpentering for the next week, and at the end had the satisfaction
of seeing a large table for dining at in the sitting-room, and a
small one to act as a sideboard, two long benches, and two short
ones. In their mother and sisters' rooms there were a table and two
benches, and a table and a long flap to serve as a dresser in the
kitchen. They had also put up two long shelves in each of the
bedrooms, and some nails on the doors for dresses. They were very
tired at the end of the week, but they looked round with a
satisfied look, for they knew they had done their best. The next
morning they were to ride to Rosario to meet the party. The carts
had gone off under the charge of Terence that day.
It was indeed a joyful meeting when Mr. and Mrs. Hardy and the
girls stepped off the steamer; but the first embrace was scarcely
over when the boys exclaimed simultaneously, "Why, girls, what is
the matter with your faces? I should not have known you."
"Oh, it's those dreadful mosquitoes; there were millions on board
the steamer last night.
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