“I’m going to do them all, sometime,” Dicky prophesied. “Doc O’Brien says so.”
“I think Rosie the beautifullest little girl,” Maida said. “I wish she’d come into the shop so that I could get acquainted with her.”
“Oh, she’ll come in sometime. You see the W.M.N.T. is meeting now and we’re all pretty busy. She’s the only girl in it.”
“The W.M.N.T.,” Maida repeated. “What does that mean?”
“I can’t tell?” Dicky said regretfully. “It’s the name of our club. Rosie and Arthur and I are the only ones who belong.”
After that talk, Maida watched Rosie Brine closer than ever. If she caught a glimpse of the scarlet cape in the distance, it was hard to go on working. She noticed that Rosie seemed very fond of all helpless things. She was always wheeling out the babies in the neighborhood, always feeding the doves and carrying her kitten about on her shoulder, always winning the hearts of other people’s dogs and then trying to induce them not to follow her.
“It seems strange that she never comes into the shop,” Maida said mournfully to Dicky one day.
“You see she never has any money to spend,” Dicky explained. “That’s the way her mother punishes her. But sometimes she earns it on the sly taking care of babies. She loves babies and babies always love her. Delia’ll go to her from my mother any time and as for Betsy Hale—Rosie’s the only one who can do anything with her.”
But a whole week passed. And then one day, to Maida’s great delight, the tinkle of the bell preceded the entrance of Rose-Red.
“Let me look at your tops, please,” Rosie said, marching to the counter with the usual proud swing of her body.