“A spoon, I think,” said Jessie, “for then if I want to eat any preserves I can do it easier, and a spoon will do to spread with, too.”
“One of the kitchen spoons, Minerva,” said Mrs. Loomis. “We don’t want the silver lost at the bottom of the brook.”
Jessie was quite satisfied with a kitchen spoon and went happily on her way, holding the little basket and her doll, carefully. “We’re going over to Playmate Polly’s, Charity,” she informed her doll. “You don’t know her, but she is a very nice little girl, just the kind I like. She knows all about the flowers and birds and such things, for she lives right down by the brook where they live. She told me this morning that she is very intimate with the birds especially, and now that they are going south for the winter she would be very lonely if I didn’t play with her. I think she will be glad to see you, too, for I am sure she doesn’t have much company these days. Mrs. Mooky comes pretty often, but then she is not a little girl like me, and that makes a great difference.”
Talking thus to her doll, she went on her way and soon reached the brook. The marmalade was still warm, but when it was spread on the bread which Jessie laid out on the red doily, it soon cooled, and if Jessie was obliged to eat both Polly’s and Charity’s share by proxy, she did not have to eat for the birds, who were glad of the crumbs, and who, when the last speck had vanished, came near enough to look inquiringly with their bright eyes as if to ask, Is that all?
“Now, Polly,” said Jessie, “I’m going to ask you to take care of Charity for me a little while. She isn’t very well this morning, and I want to see the doctor about her. You know Dr. Bramble, of course.”
Polly, answering in Jessie’s voice, said she knew Dr. Bramble very well indeed, that he was a sharp sort of person, and often very disagreeable, but that he was a good doctor and his cordial fine stuff.
So, leaving Charity in Polly’s care, Jessie went to hunt up Dr. Bramble. She was obliged to stay quite a while for when she reached his house she found that Mrs. Bramble had a few belated blackberries for her, and they were so tempting that Jessie was obliged to gather them all. “They’ll do finely for pills for Charity,” she said, “or maybe I’d better make medicine of them; I can mash them in the jar with the spoon and give her a teaspoonful at a time!”
The berries were rather hard and could not be easily crushed, but finally Jessie accomplished the work and Charity was given her first dose, though she cried a good deal over it and insisted that she could not take it. “But you must, my dear,” said Jessie firmly, “or you will not get well. Do you want to be ill and not have any more of the nice marmalade Minerva is making?”
Charity deciding that she preferred marmalade to illness, at last took the medicine by means of Jessie’s mouth, and was then put to bed and covered up with leaves. Then Jessie amused herself a long while with Playmate Polly. They talked about many things; the birds, the fishes, the flowers, the gray kitten and of Charity’s illness, and the time went so pleasantly that when the dinner horn sounded Jessie had no idea that it was so late. She had enjoyed her morning hugely, and had come to have a great affection for her new friend, Playmate Polly.