“Yes, I’m just going in a bag,” Betty assured her laughingly, “and coming right back to Lakeside for Sunday. But perhaps in September—well, we need not think about September when it’s only the middle of August; isn’t that so, little sister?”
The Smallest Sister stared solemnly at her. “We ought to make plans, Betty. Now Celissa Hooper wants me to be her chum if I’m going to school in Cleveland this winter, but if I’m going to be at Miss Dick’s again why of course I can’t be chums with Celissa, ’cause I’m chums with Shirley Ware. So I really ought to know before long who I’m to be chums with.”
“You certainly ought,” agreed Betty earnestly. “But you’ll just have to be very good friends with Celissa and with Shirley and with all the other girls until I come back, and then mother and father and you and I can have a grand pow-wow over you and me and the tea-shop and Miss Dick’s and everything else under the sun. Now, who’s going to wipe dishes for me this morning?”
“I am. What’s a grand pow-wow?”
“We’ll have one in the kitchen,” Betty explained diplomatically, hurrying off with both hands full of dishes.
But the pow-wow was a rather spiritless affair.
“You’re thinking of something else, Betty Wales,” declared the Smallest Sister accusingly, right in the midst of the story of the Reckless Ritherum, who is second cousin to the Ploshkin and has a very nice tale of its own. “If you’re going to look way off over my head and think of something else, I guess I’d rather go up-stairs and make beds all by my lonesome.”
“I’m sorry, dearie,” Betty apologized humbly, “but you see I feel just like a reckless ritherum myself this morning—going out to play with three terrible giants.”
“What giants are you going to play with?” demanded the Smallest Sister incredulously.
“The fierce giant, the wise giant, and the head of all the giants,” Betty told her. “The fierce giant eats reckless little ritherums for his breakfast—that’s Mr. Morton. The wise giant laughs at them when they try to show him how to make the house that Jack built—that’s the New York architect. The head of all the giants—that’s Prexy—shakes the paw of the poor little Ritherum kindly, and asks it not to be so silly again as to try to play with giants, and it gets smaller and smaller and smaller——”