"Oh I know," agreed Kit. "It's just because I'm disappointed in the place. Mrs. Stacey, who is a girlhood friend of mother's, wrote that she had a lovely big yard for me to play in. And it is the biggest yard on that street, but after the desert and the mountains that go on for miles and miles, why this is just nothing at all, and I feel as if I were a wild bronco put out on a hobble."
At which everybody laughed heartily and the ice was forever broken.
"Come over on the other side of the wall," invited Bet, and seeing the girl hesitate with a glance at the sign she added: "Oh don't mind that sign. That's only for tramps. This is my home, I'm Bet Baxter and these are my two chums, Shirley Williams and Joy Evans."
Kit hesitated once more. "Were you having a picnic or something? Perhaps I'm not wanted."
"It's a picnic and you are wanted," cried Bet. "We all want her, don't we girls? All right, give her the welcome!"
Instantly the girls raised a chorus:
"Do we want her!
Do we want her!
Yes, we do, do, do!"
This cheering call echoed through the woods and it filled the heart of the little mountain girl with happiness.
It seemed to be Kit's unlucky day, for as she climbed down the wall her skirt caught once more on the wire and completed its destruction.
"Now that dress is done for! What a clumsy colt I am! You'd think I'd never been broken to saddle!" exclaimed Kit as her brown eyes snapped. "Don't I look a sight?"