‘Sally, this is Alice, Alice Burr,’ said Aunt Bee, ‘and she has come with her mother to spend the summer here at Miss Neppy’s house. Now if you little girls will set the table, I will bring out the refreshments for our party.’
The two little girls soon made friends as they spread the cloth over the low table set in the cool shade of the black-cherry tree.
‘Don’t you think my Aunt Bee’s dishes are beautiful?’ asked Sally, setting out cups and saucers in a series of gentle thumps.
Alice was putting round the plates, but she stopped to admire the gay pink-and-white china with her head tilted on one side.
‘It is the prettiest set I have ever seen,’ said she earnestly. ‘I always like pink flowers best of all.’
‘Now Tippy must have his bone,’ said Sally, when the table was set and they were ready to sit down. ‘And I think I will run home for Buff and bring him over to have a saucer of milk. It is too bad he should miss the party just because he is not very sociable.’
So Buff was coaxed through the hedge to join the party, and Tippy was placed the other side of the tree to gnaw his bone. The cake was cut and passed about. Milk was poured from a tall amber pitcher into the delicate pink-and-white cups. And Sally and Alice and Aunt Bee smiled at one another as they said over and over again what a pleasant party they were having under the black-cherry tree.
‘It won’t take us a moment to clear away,’ said Aunt Bee, when the pitcher was empty and the cake half gone. ‘I think, Sally, that you and Alice will have time to play in the garden.’
And so they did.
First Sally showed Alice all about Aunt Bee’s garden, and then they squeezed through the hedge into Sally’s yard.