“Wal’, I s’pose I did see her, but I didn’t ’specially notice her, ’cept that she was talkin’ to you children, for Mrs. Gray was tellin’ me a new way to make cookies with two eggs instead of four, and I made her tell me twice so’s I’d remember; two eggs is quite a savin’.” But this new bit of economy was lost on Randy.
“Did Mrs. Gray tell you her name?” asked Randy, eagerly.
“Seems to me she said it was Dayton, or something like that, but I was so took up with that two-egg rule for cookies that I didn’t notice.” So, failing to interest her mother, Randy subsided.
CHAPTER IV—PRUE’S MISHAP
Down the long, dusty road trudged Randy and Prue one hot morning on their way to the village store.
At every step the dust arose like smoke, then settled upon their shoes, making a thick coating like that which whitened the blackberry vines growing luxuriantly over the wall by the roadside.
Randy was far from pleased to be taking this long walk in the dust and heat. She had been sitting upon the rough, wooden seat just outside the kitchen door, reading the beloved fairy book, when her mother had stepped briskly to the doorway, calling her back from fairyland abruptly, saying: “Come, Randy, you must go down to the store after some sugar. I’ve got my cookies ’bout half done and my sugar’s given out, so you must put on your sunbonnet and take Prue, and go as quick as you can. Ye needn’t run, only don’t waste time.”
“Oh, mother,” said Randy, “it’ll take me twice as long if I have to take Prue, she’s so little, and she walks so slow.”
“I know it,” said Mrs. Weston, “but I’ve got lots to do while you’re gone, and I can’t watch her and work at the same time; so you take her ’long o’ you, and I’ll know she’s all right.”
Randy took her sunbonnet from its peg on the wall and called little Prue, who was playing in the sun. The child’s delight when told that she might go to the store with Randy made the elder girl regret that she had demurred when told that she must take her little sister with her.