“I’ll do the dishes, too,” repeated Betsy, trying hard not to mind being laughed at, and keeping her eyes fixed steadily on the tickets to Hillsboro.
“Well, by gosh,” said the young man, laughing. “Here’s our chance, Annie, for fair! Come along!”
The girl laughed, too, out of high spirits. “Wouldn’t Momma be crazy!” she said hilariously. “But she’ll never know. Here, you cute kid, here’s my apron.” She took off her long apron and tied it around Betsy’s neck. “There’s the soap, there’s the table. You stack the dishes up on that counter.”
She was out of the little gate in the counter in a twinkling, just as Molly, in answer to a beckoning gesture from Betsy, came in. “Hello, there’s another one!” said the gay young man, gayer and gayer. “Hello, button! What you going to do? I suppose when they try to crack the safe you’ll run at them and bark and drive them away!”
Molly opened her sweet, blue eyes very wide, not understanding a single word. The girl laughed, swooped back, gave Molly a kiss, and disappeared, running side by side with the young man toward the dance hall.
Betsy mounted on a soap box and began joyfully to wash the dishes. She had never thought that ever in her life would she simply love to wash dishes beyond anything else! But it was so. Her relief was so great that she could have kissed the coarse, thick plates and glasses as she washed them.
“It’s all right, Molly; it’s all right!” she quavered exultantly to Molly over her shoulder. But as Molly had not (from the moment Betsy took command) suspected that it was not all right, she only nodded and asked if she might sit up on a barrel where she could watch the crowd go by.
“I guess you could. I don’t know why not,” said Betsy doubtfully. She lifted her up and went back to her dishes. Never were dishes washed better!
“Two doughnuts, please,” said a man’s voice behind her.
Oh, mercy, there was somebody come to buy! Whatever should she do? She came forward intending to say that the owner of the booth was away and she didn’t know anything about ... but the man laid down a nickel, took two doughnuts, and turned away. Betsy gasped and looked at the home-made sign stuck into the big pan of doughnuts. Sure enough, it read “2 for 5.” She put the nickel up on a shelf and went back to her dishwashing. Selling things wasn’t so hard, she reflected.