Tess Kenway, who had administered the rebuke to the small boy when he gave a shout, thrusting his head in through the half-opened kitchen door, fanned herself with her apron as she closed the oven of the stove. Her sister Dot, who was pouring something from a brown bowl into a tin pan, set the former down on the table and shook her finger at Sammy.
“What are you doin’?” asked Sammy, as he slid farther into the kitchen and possessed himself of a chair near the table, looking casually over what it contained.
“Cakes,” answered Tess. “I guess the oven’s hot enough now, Dot,” she went on, again opening and closing the door.
“Cakes!” exclaimed Sammy, smacking his lips. “I should think if you made one cake it would be——”
“We’re each making a cake, if you please!” declared Tess, with a superior air. “And we wish you wouldn’t come around here bothering us—don’t we, Dot?”
“Yes, we do,” joined in the other small sister.
“And if you want any of my cake, Sammy Pinkney—Oh, don’t you dare sit in that chair!” she shrieked as, dropping a spoon covered with cake batter and thereby spattering the boy, she made a rush for him just in time to prevent him from occupying another chair nearer to the scene of the cake-making.
“What’s the matter with that chair?” protested Sammy, in a grieved tone, as he went back to his original place.
“My—my Alice-doll!” answered Dot faintly.
“You—you nearly squashed her, Sammy.” And, pulling the chair out from beneath the table, she disclosed her very choicest child—the loved “Alice-doll.”