“You sha’n’t have a single bite if you don’t!”
The boys grinned sheepishly. The cookies resting joyfully in their barbarian young stomachs could not very well be restored.
“I’ll tell Mother on you,” put in Chicken Little as a last threat.
“Tattle-tale, much good it’ll do you. Here’s your old plate, and we’ve eaten the cookies. Trot along for the rest of your stuff—we won’t take any more,” said Ernest.
“Well, you boys can’t have but one doughnut apiece, now.” Katy tossed her head indignantly.
However Katy herself was the first to suggest dividing her second doughnut with the boys when the time came.
Ernest and Sherm had begun to treat the doll’s table idea with more respect as one after another tid-bit appeared. Quince preserves settled the matter for Sherm, and Ernest’s last objection to doll parties vanished when Alice appeared with a custard pie.
Alice, who had heard Chicken Little’s complaint about the way the boys were behaving, found time to linger till the little party was well started to the great improvement of the lads’ manners.
“It is customary, Carol, to serve the ladies first,” she admonished when Carol made a dive for a coveted dainty ahead of the others.
And when the sugar mysteriously disappeared into Ernest’s pocket, she picked up the pie without comment and started for the house. The sugar was immediately restored and order reigned during the rest of the meal. The boys appreciated the girls’ truck the more because their own cooking had hardly been a success. The potatoes were half done and the apples tasted alarmingly of ashes. The moment the last morsel had vanished the boys cleared out for the ball field and the little girls looked longingly after them, as they surveyed the messy dishes.