Uncle Ben, seriously.

The girls were pleased at this news, but the boys were hilarious to find
that a clever business man approved of the plan they were working out.

"When will the machinery be here, Uncle Ben?" asked Ned.

"It is coming by freight and will take a few days, but you will be kept
busy until then in finishing the shop-work," returned Uncle Ben.

"Yes, indeed, we will have to build some stands for type, too, with the
boxful you got for us," answered Ned.

"We Blue Birds spent all of our afternoon engaging editors to take
charge of the pages," ventured Ruth, who thought the Blue Birds had been
quiet too long.

"You'll have to have all the pages ready to hand over to me by the tenth
of October, you know; I'll need about three days for making linotype and
then you can have the proofs back," said Uncle Ben.

"Oh, we will have everything ready long before the tenth," laughed Mrs.
Talmage.

"From the way the Blue Birds are working, I should say that each one
will have about five hundred pages written by that time," added Aunt
Selina, smilingly.

"In that case, we will have to have each page add a notice at the
bottom: 'To be continued in our Nest.'"

CHAPTER VII

BLUE BIRD WISDOM AND BOBOLINK WORK

"There! my page is all done!" exclaimed Ruth, holding a sheet of paper
away to admire the neatly written notes for "Household Hints."

"Mine's done, too, but I'm going to copy it over to-night to make it
look neat as a pin," said Norma.

"Did you get any new candy recipes?" asked Dot eagerly.

The little Blue Bird who took charge of the "Candy Kettle" smacked her
lips emphatically.

"I haven't started to ink the pencil lines of my cut-out paper
furniture, but that won't take long," explained Dot. "I started with the
kitchen because Mumzie said no good housekeeper would furnish a parlor
if she had no kitchen equipment."

"I did my drawing lesson, but I haven't written the lesson telling the
children how to make the picture," said Betty, with a worried look
toward Mrs. Talmage.

"Plenty of time, dear," soothed Mrs. Talmage. "You know Uncle Ben said
we would have until the tenth of the month."

The Blue Birds were gathered in the cherry-tree Nest after school, one
day, waiting for the signal from the Publishing House which would tell
them they might run over and inspect the huge pieces of machinery that
had arrived that day from New York. Ike and Simon had to help the three
truckmen as