So first of all, Sally buttered pans with might and main. Then she spun Aunt Bee’s little egg-beater round and round and round until her bowl of eggs was as white and frothy as cream.
‘Better than I could do it myself, Sally,’ said Aunt Bee with a smile.
Last of all she watched Aunt Bee mix the batter, and pour it into the pans, and shut it in the oven. She watched her make the icing, chocolate icing, too.
Then Sally stopped watching because she was scraping, scraping the bowls and eating what she scraped. She ate a whole spoonful of cake batter and more than a spoonful of icing.
‘You have scraped the bowls so clean I am afraid you won’t be able to eat your luncheon,’ said Aunt Bee.
But that was not true. Sally did eat her luncheon, running out to the pantry only twice to see whether the icing on the cake had grown quite hard.
For the cake was to be used at a party later that afternoon.
‘We will carry a little table out into the garden, Sally, under the black-cherry tree,’ said Aunt Bee. ‘You would like that better than going down to the rocks this afternoon, wouldn’t you?’
Sally, you must know, lived by the sea, and almost every day went down to play on the rocky shore. A garden party would be much more of a treat, and Sally said so, with her arms about Aunt Bee’s neck in a tight, tight squeeze.
‘I thought you would like a party,’ said wise Aunt Bee. ‘You shall set the table with the dishes I had when I was a little girl, and then you and I will sit down like ladies at tea and have the party.’