y. Rousing herself to
make the effort, she bathed her face, smoothed her hair, and seizing her
hat and shawl, started with a sigh to fulfil her promise to Donald.

And all this time, Liddy sat stroking and folding the little pink dress
and black apron.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GYMNASIUM.

WHEN Dorry reached the "gymnasium," as Ed and Don called it, she could
not help smiling at the grand title they had given prematurely to a very
unpromising-looking place.

The building had been a fine carriage-house in its day, but of late it
had been used mainly by Jack, as a sort of store-house for old barrels,
boxes, wheels, worn-out implements, and odds and ends of various kinds.
Its respectable exterior had saved it from being pulled down when the
new carriage-house was built. Besides Jack's appropriation of a portion
of the building, Donald had planked off one end for his own special
purposes,--first as a printing-office, later as a carpenter's shop,--and
Dorothy had planted vines, which in summer surrounded its big window
with graceful foliage; and so it had come to be looked upon as the
special property of Jack and the D's.

Consequently, when Donald asked Mr. Reed to allow him to sell or send
away the rubbish, and, with the proceeds of the sale of the old iron,
added to his own saved-up pocket money, to turn the place into a
gymnasium, his uncle not only gave free consent, but offered to let him
have help and material, in case the young man should fall short of
funds--as he most undoubtedly would.

The project was but a few days old at the time of the house-picnic, but
being a vigorous little project, with life in its veins, it grew and
prospered finely. Sailor Jack entered heartily into the work--the more
so as his gallant fancy conceived the idea of some day setting up near
by a sort of ship's-rigging with shrouds and "ratlines," in which to
give the boys lessons, and occasionally disport himself, by way of
relief, when his sea-longing should become too much for him. Plans and
consultations soon were the order of the day, and Dorry, becoming
interested, learned more about pulleys, ropes, ladders, beams, strength
of timber, and such things, than any other girl in the village.

The building was kept moderately warm by an old stove, which Jack had
set up two years before, when Don and Dorry had the printing-press fever
(which, by the way, had broken out in the form of a tiny, short-lived
newspaper, called _The Nes