"Oh, Judy, I can't have you now. Come round and sit by the fire."
Judy went round to the back of Dilly's chair and washed over both ears in a very indignant manner.
The play was Fox and Geese. There was one red grain of corn for the fox and all the geese were white. One block at the side was left vacant. If you could pen the fox in there without losing a goose or at the most two or three, you were the winner. But if once you let the fox out the geese had to fly for their lives. Grandfather often let the little girl beat.
He was very fond of her, and he was a sweet-natured old man who liked to bestow what pleasure he could. Just now he was feeling impatient for the news and wanted to pass away the time.
Dilly was quite shrewd, too, for a little girl not yet seven. She considered now and moved a far off goose, and the fox knew that was sour grapes.
"Oh, you're a sharp one!" exclaimed grandfather. "I'll have to mind how I doze on this bout."
But alas! On the next move she let him in a little way, then she fenced him out again, and lost one goose repairing her defences. But it wasn't a bad move. The great art was to keep one goose behind another for protection. He couldn't jump over but one at a time.
She beat grandfather, who pretended to be quite put out about it and said she'd do for an army general. Grandmother was making a pumpkin pudding with milk and eggs and sugar and stick-cinnamon, which was quite a luxury. Then she poured it into an iron pan that stood upon little feet, drew out a bed of coal, and plumped it down. The cover had a rim around the top, and she placed some coals on the top of this. She baked her bread in it, too. Stoves were great luxuries and costly. Then she laid some potatoes in the hot ashes and hung a kettle of turnips on the crane.
Grandfather and the little girl had another game and she was the fox this time and lost, getting penned up.
"Grandfather," she said sagely, "if you know the good early moves and don't make any mistake, you're sure to win."