The milk had not been skimmed. All the old milk had been churned that day. There was nothing left but buttermilk, the woman told them.
“Buttermilk!” cried the girls in chorus.
“I jutht love buttermilk!” declared Tommy. “Do you have buttermilk cowth? Ithn’t that fine? I’m going to make my father buy me a buttermilk cow.”
“Well, I was going to feed that buttermilk to the hogs, but seeing as you want it I suppose you may have it,” decided the woman with some reluctance. “Do you like it cold?”
The party answered in the affirmative. The housewife lowered a pail of buttermilk into the well to cool, the party sitting down under an apple tree in the yard to rest themselves in the meantime. Margery lay down and went to sleep. Tommy amused herself by tickling Buster’s ear with a long, dead stalk of timothy grass. Margery in her sleep thought it a fly. She fought the fly for some time, then finally opening her eyes, she caught Tommy red handed. Tommy fled into the farm house, where she pretended to be much interested in the housewife’s work. She soon won her way into the good graces of the woman, and when, finally, the little lisping girl emerged from the house she was carrying a tin tray of food.
“Jutht thee what I’ve got,” she cried. “It taketh Tommy Thompthon to get thingth to eat.”
There were sandwiches, ginger cookies—great fat brown fellows—and a large dish of apple sauce.
“Oh, girls!” cried Margery her eyes glistening at the prospect of a feast. “I could die eating that food.”
“Tommy, did you beg for this?” demanded the guardian.
“I gueth not. I jutht athked for it,” returned Tommy calmly. “When you want thomething you want, jutht athk for it, and if you don’t get it you haven’t wasted anything but your breath.”