“Oh!” said Betsey.
“Now, deary me!” cried Dr. Lawrence, pretending to be quite put out. “I suppose the child wants my cotton, too. Mr. Avery, make Betsey stop saying ‘Oh!’ I won’t have a thing left to give the little girl down the road, if this child takes all my pills, and boxes, and wire,—and now my cotton!”
Betsey slipped off the couch and danced around happily. She loved to hear Dr. Lawrence joke. “It makes such perfectly beautiful snow,” she said. “And just imagine my little automobile plowing along in it, making wheel-ruts just like yours.”
“Well, I suppose you’ll have to have it,” said Dr. Lawrence, resignedly. “I’ll charge your father for it, though,—see if I don’t. And poor Tom what will he do?”
“O you can have enough for his thumb,” said Betsey.
“Hmmmm!” buzzed on the doctor, winding away. “Down the road is a little girl nine years old. She has three dolls, and they’re about as long as Tom’s thumb.”
“Tom Thumb!” interrupted Betsey.
“Yes’m,” laughed Dr. Lawrence. “Well, this little girl Molly has a lame knee,—a very lame knee, and I had to send her to bed for a month.”
“A month!” echoed Betsey.
“Does it seem long to you?” asked Dr. Lawrence thoughtfully. “That’s just how it seems to her.”