“When Maybee says ‘Please,’ mamma will help her.”
But Maybee wouldn’t say Please, and the little bent shaker wandered off to the play-room. She was never tired of “keeping house”; but—in a sun-bonnet! Oh dear! She tried to “make believe” it was a cap like old Mrs. Pratt’s, but all the same, it would be dreadfully in the way. When she wanted to look for anything, she must turn way around; she couldn’t “cuddle up” Loretta Luella the least bit; she couldn’t play go to parties, and as for going to bed, there would be nothing to do but lie flat on her back and stare at the ceiling.
She ran hopefully down stairs when the dinner-bell rang, sure that mamma would relent; for how could she ever manage to find her wee mouth inside that big bonnet?
“Say ‘Please,’” said mamma.
Maybee shook her head and clambered sulkily into her high chair.
“What’s this,—a small butcher wagon? Bless me! if there isn’t somebody inside!” said papa taking the shaker between his two hands and tipping it back till he could see the grimy little face. “Isn’t it time the colt had its blinders off, mamma?”
“When she will say ‘Please,’” said mamma pleasantly.
“Oh! that’s the way the wind blows,” and papa, after asking a blessing, began carving the nice roast.
Jenny King had come home with Sue, and try as hard as they could, the triangular sun-bonnet, bobbing this way and that, was too much for their gravity. They all laughed at last, which sent Maybee off in high dudgeon, although she had scarcely eaten a mouthful. There was to be chocolate blanc-mange for dessert: she really must have some of that, and slipping into the kitchen she began coaxing Bridget to untie the knot.
“Shure, an’ it’s beyant me,” said Bridget, after two or three ineffectual efforts. “It’s too big an’ clumsy me fingers are intirely.”