Bettie, grasping the situation and the Milligan baby at the same time, promptly set the boy outside. She had handled him with the utmost gentleness, but he always roared if anyone touched him, and he roared now.
"Yah!" yelled Laura, "I'll tell my mother you pinched him—slapped him, too."
"Sapped him, too," wailed the baby.
"Well," said Jean, turning the key in the lock, "we'll have to keep the door locked after this. Mercy! I never behaved so dreadfully to anybody before and I hope I'll never have to again."
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CHAPTER 11
An Embarrassing Visitor
Up to the time of the unpleasantness with Laura, the girls had unlocked the cottage in the morning and had left it unlocked until they were ready to go home at night, for the girls spent all their waking hours at Dandelion Cottage. Bettie, indeed, had the care of the youngest two Tucker babies, but they were good little creatures and when the girls played with their dolls they were glad to include the two placid babies, just as if they too were dolls. The littlest baby, in particular, made a remarkably comfortable plaything, for it was all one to him whether he slept in Jean's biggest doll's cradle, or in the middle of the dining-room table, as long as he was permitted to sleep sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. When he wasn't asleep, he sucked his thumb contentedly, crowed happily on one of the cottage beds, or rolled cheerfully about on the cottage floor. The older baby, too, obligingly stayed wherever the girls happened to put him. After this experience with the Tucker infants, the Milligan baby had proved a great disappointment to the girls, for they had hoped to use him, too, as an animated doll; but he had refused steadfastly to make friends even with Bettie, whose way with babies was something beautiful to see.