But finally Beckie and Neddie got to school and they were only about one forty-’leventh part of a second late, and that didn’t count.
I wish I could tell you all that happened in school that day—how Neddie went to the blackboard, and wrote a fine story of a poodle dog that could stand on its head. And how Joie Kat drew such a real-like picture of a mouse that Tommie Kat, Joie’s brother, wanted to chase it, and it was all his sister Kittie Kat could do to stop him.
But I haven’t room to tell you any of those things now. I must tell you about Beckie making her doll’s dress. Now, hold on, boys, if you please. You might think this is a girl’s story, but it isn’t—that is not all of it, even if it is partly about a doll’s dress.
If you just listen you’ll see that Beckie did a very brave thing, which shows you that girls can do things as well as boys can, and lots of times better. Take, for instance, braiding hair—a boy couldn’t braid his hair to save him, but look how easily a girl can do it, and chew gum, and read a book and talk, all at the same time. Well, I guess!
Anyhow, pretty soon it was recess time, and all the animal children could come out of school. Some went home to their dinner, and others, who had brought their lunch, found nice cozy places where they could eat it.
Neddie went off with Tommie and Joie Kat, and with Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys. And as soon as Beckie had finished her lunch she got out her needle and thread and thimble and the pieces of silk, and began to make a dress for her doll, Sarah Janet Picklefeather.
First she sewed in some—tuckers, I think they’re called, or maybe it was puckers. Anyhow, she sewed them in the dress, Beckie did, to make it look nice.
Then the little bear girl made a few frills around the neck and down the side she sewed in some rosettes. Around the middle she gathered some insertions, and then on the bottom—let me see now, what did she put on the bottom? Oh, I know, it was a ruffle. (You boys may skip this part if you like. I wouldn’t write it only I have to put in something about the dress, or the girls wouldn’t read the story.)
Where were we? Oh, I remember. We’d gotten to the bottom part of the dress. And that reminds me, if we’re at the bottom of the dress that’s all there is to it, and I can stop, and so I’m at the end of that part, and don’t have to write any more, thank goodness!
Anyhow, Beckie was sitting on the steps of the school, in the warm sunshine, sewing away on Miss Picklefeather’s dress, making her needle go in and out, when, all of a sudden, along came a bad old, big bear who didn’t like little bear girls, nor bear boys, either.