"Oh, it will be in the ash-barrel long before that," said Mrs. Jones. "Here's a cake for you and one for Bessie."
"No, thank you," said Maggie; "mamma said we musn't eat any cakes or candies this morning, because we'll want some to-night."
"That's a good girl to mind so nice," said Mrs. Jones; "and your ma's a real lady, and she's bringing you up to be ladies too."
Maggie ran off to the parlor, glad that she had made friends with Mrs. Jones. She found her mother and Aunt Helen and Aunt Annie all making mottoes. They had sheets of bright-colored tissue paper, which they cut into small squares, fringed the ends with sharp scissors, and then rolled up a sugar-plum in each. They allowed Maggie and Bessie to help, by handing the sugar-plums, and the little girls thought it a very pleasant business. And once in a while mamma popped a sugar-plum into one of the two little mouths, instead of wrapping it in the paper; and this they thought a capital plan. Then came a grand frolic in the barn with father and Uncle John and the boys, Tom and Walter being of the party, until Mrs. Bradford called them in, and said Bessie must rest a while, or she would be quite tired out before afternoon. So, taking Bessie on his knee, Grandpapa Duncan read to them out of a new book he had given Maggie that morning. After the early dinner, the dolls, old and new, had to be dressed, and then they were dressed themselves, and ready for their little visitors.
The piazza and small garden and barn seemed fairly swarming with children that afternoon. And such happy children too! Every one was good-natured, ready to please and to be pleased. And, indeed, they would have been very ungrateful if they had not been; for a great deal of pains was taken to amuse and make them happy. Even Mamie Stone was not heard to fret once.
"I do wish I had an Uncle John!" said Mamie, as she sat down to rest on the low porch step, with Bessie and one or two more of the smaller children, and watched Mr. Duncan, as he arranged the others for some new game, keeping them laughing all the time with his merry jokes,—"I do wish I had an Uncle John!"
"You have an Uncle Robert," said Bessie.
"Pooh! he's no good," said Mamie. "He's not nice and kind and funny, like your Uncle John. He's as cross as anything, and he wont let us make a bit of noise when he's in the room. He says children are pests; and when papa laughed, and asked him if he said that because he remembered what a pest he was when he was a child, he looked mad, and said no; children were better behaved when he was a boy."
"I don't think he's very better behaved to talk so," said Bessie, gravely.