Part 12 (2/2)

”Tattle-tale, much good it'll do you. Here's your old plate, and we've eaten the cookies. Trot along for the rest of your stuff--we won't take any more,” said Ernest.

”Well, you boys can't have but one doughnut apiece, now.” Katy tossed her head indignantly.

However Katy herself was the first to suggest dividing her second doughnut with the boys when the time came.

Ernest and Sherm had begun to treat the doll's table idea with more respect as one after another tid-bit appeared. Quince preserves settled the matter for Sherm, and Ernest's last objection to doll parties vanished when Alice appeared with a custard pie.

Alice, who had heard Chicken Little's complaint about the way the boys were behaving, found time to linger till the little party was well started to the great improvement of the lads' manners.

”It is customary, Carol, to serve the ladies first,” she admonished when Carol made a dive for a coveted dainty ahead of the others.

And when the sugar mysteriously disappeared into Ernest's pocket, she picked up the pie without comment and started for the house. The sugar was immediately restored and order reigned during the rest of the meal.

The boys appreciated the girls' truck the more because their own cooking had hardly been a success. The potatoes were half done and the apples tasted alarmingly of ashes. The moment the last morsel had vanished the boys cleared out for the ball field and the little girls looked longingly after them, as they surveyed the messy dishes.

”Let's leave them and go swing,” suggested Katy.

Chicken Little sighed.

”Mother'd never let me use them again if I didn't clean them up and put them away.”

”Well,” said Katy, ”I'll take my things home, but I don't think I ought to help you wash yours.”

”Why, Katy Halford, you asked me to use them!”

”Never mind, Jane, I'll help you. Katy can just go off if she wants to.

'Twon't take long and I love to wipe,” said peacemaker Gertie avoiding a storm.

Katy thought better of deserting and the work was soon done in their very best manner, which, however, did not include was.h.i.+ng the inside of the very sticky sugar bowl or gathering up the remains of the impossible potatoes. But Alice saved the day by attending to these small details and Chicken Little was free to worry over the hated patchwork.

”Wisht I could stay out here in the sun for always,” she sighed.

”Huh, I don't. There wouldn't be any coasting or skating or candy pulls or----”

”Well, I wisht there wasn't any sewing.”

”You don't either. Where'd you get any dresses or hats, Jane Morton?”

retorted practical Katy.

”Feathers might be nice,” put in Gertie, who loved birds.

”Well, I shouldn't want my clothes fastened on so I couldn't get them off at night,” announced Katy decidedly. ”And if you were a bird you couldn't read books or play dolls.”

”Well,” Chicken Little replied unwilling to concede the point entirely, ”snakes can slip their skins right off--my father said so--and I don't see why birds couldn't--anyway, I wish little girls didn't have to learn to sew, so there!”

”I don't mind sewing but I hate arithmetic,” said Gertie.

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