The grocery store was a place full of interest—there were such delightful things to be seen. There was a box full of oranges and another full of grapefruit, and a lady was buying some raisins. Peggy was sure her mother would like some raisins if she had only happened to remember about them, and it would be such a good chance to get some oranges and grapefruit. But she remembered that her mother had not liked it at all when she had brought back some oranges once that she had not been told to order, so she turned regretfully from the oranges and grapefruit to the lemons that were in another box.
“I’d like six lemons, please,” she said to the clerk, “and two pounds of sugar and a box of Butter Thins.”
“Is that all?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Peggy. She never once thought of the yeast-cake, for so many exciting things had happened since she left home.
When she reached the house her mother said, “What have you been doing, Peggy? You are an hour and a half late. There is no use now in starting my bread before night.”
It was then that Peggy remembered the yeast-cake. She turned red and looked very unhappy.
“Mother, I forgot all about the yeast-cake,” she confessed miserably. “I remembered everything else.”
“You remembered all the things you wanted yourself, but the one thing you were sent for, the only important thing, you forgot. I wonder what I can do to make you less careless. What is this smell? Why, it comes from your frock! Peggy, what mischief have you been in now?”
Peggy and her mother were intimate friends, and they shared each other’s confidence, but Peggy had not intended to tell her about the frock until the next day. However, there was no escape now.
“Christopher and I climbed the pine tree, the one by the Thornton place, and I got pitch all over me, and I thought you’d be so discouraged that he took me to his Aunt Betsy’s house and she got the spots out.”