“Come and help me, Hilda. Tiptoe over here. Oh, you can’t leave the baby. Well, I’ll scatter it out a little.”
“Scattering the sheet out” was effective, and Cricket turned the crank with all her might, not noticing that the long squeezed end was piling up on the floor till the last corner slipped through and fell down.
“It’s all on the floor,” observed Hilda from her perch. “Won’t it get all dirty and wet again?”
“So it has,” cried Cricket, disappointedly, picking the sheet up. “Won’t it brush off?” rubbing at the dirt that had collected on it, and thereby making it ten times worse. “I should have put something there to catch it. Why do I always think behindhand better than beforehand? How can people think of everything at once? Never mind; I guess it will come off when I iron it. I’ll squeeze another; there’s a pan for it to go into. Don’t you want to come and help me? Tie Mosina to that chair over in that corner; it’s dry over there.”
Fishing out the ends of the sheets and turning the wringer was really great fun, and in their zeal the children quite forgot Mosina for a time. Suddenly a roar, behind them, startled them. Mosina seldom cried, but when she did it was with a ponderousness that was quite in keeping with her plump body.
CHAPTER XII.
KEEPING HOUSE.
Poor little Mosina had crawled around her chair till her length of string had given out, and then, endeavouring to crawl between the chair-legs, had fallen forward on her face, and lay sprawled out like a little turtle. The girls flew for her, and rescued her by drawing her out by the heels. She refused to be comforted, however, and continued to roar.
“I suppose she’s hungry,” said Cricket, at last, in a tone of despair. “Hilda, please look in the closet and see what there is for her luncheon. Mosina, do hush, baby! What, Hilda?”
“I said that there isn’t a thing in the closet but two plates and a stone mug, and such things,—not a single thing to eat.”
“Look in that little cupboard by the chimney, then. Shouldn’t you think she must have something to eat around? What shall we do if there isn’t anything to eat anywhere?” in deeper despair.