“We could borrow Sammy’s alligator to make everybody remember about Plam Island,” went on Dot.
“’Tisn’t Plam—” began Tess, but she stopped, for she, as well as the others, had begun to realize that it was of no use to correct Dot in this respect. To her it was “Plam Island,” and it always would be so.
“Yes, we can get Sammy’s alligator,” agreed Tess, falling in with the scheme of her younger sister. “But all it can do is to walk around the room drawing the little cart. Sammy’s trained it to do that very well. But there isn’t anything very exciting about that.”
Tess, be it known, liked excitement.
“Well, maybe Sammy can think up some other way to have fun,” said Dot. “We’ll go ask him, and if they don’t let us come in to their old party we’ll have one of our own.”
“I guess they’re not going to let us in,” remarked Tess, as they crawled from the dark closet beneath the stairs. “I heard Ruth tell Mrs. Mac to set some places for us up in the playroom. Pooh! It isn’t any fun for us to eat ice cream and cake up there all alone when they’re having loads and loads of fun down here.”
“No, it isn’t,” agreed Dot. “There, Alice-doll, don’t you cry,” she added, as she soothed the pretend child she carried in her arms. “You’re going to come to the party all right.”
“Are you going to take her along over to Sammy’s?” inquired Tess.
“Take my Alice-doll? Of course!” cried Dot, for they were now out on the side porch. “You’d cry, wouldn’t you, Alice-doll, if I left you behind?”
“She’ll only be in the way, and Sammy doesn’t like dolls,” went on Tess. Sometimes the solicitude of Dot for the Alice-doll rather got on Tess’s nerves—or she would so have expressed it had she been a little older.