The poor children on the stoop (I call them poor just so you'll know they didn't have much money) these poor children were pretending so hard to have a party, that they never noticed Bunny Brown, and his sister Sue, with Wopsie, watching them.
"When are we goin' to eat?" asked a ragged little boy, who sat on the lowest step.
"When I says to begin, dat's when you eat," said the big, ragged girl, who seemed to have gotten up the play-party. "And I don't want nobody to ask for no second piece of cake, 'cause there ain't enough."
"Is there any pie?" asked a little boy, whose face was quite dirty. "'Cause if there's pie, I'd just as lief have that as cake."
"There ain't no pie," said the big girl. "Now we'll begin. Mikie Snell, you let that ice-cream alone, I tells you!"
"I—I was jest seein' if it was meltin'," and Mikie drew back a dirty hand he had reached over toward a big empty clam shell. That shell was the make-believe dish of ice-cream, you see.
"Say, dis suah am a funny party," whispered Wopsie to Sue. "I—I don't see nuffin to eat!"
"Hush!" whispered Sue. "You never have anything to eat at a play-party; do you, Bunny?"
"Nope. But when we have one we always go in the house afterward, and mother gives us something."
"Let's watch them play," whispered Sue.