While Dorothy worked away at the table close inside the kitchen window, enveloped in an all-over white apron, on the other side of the lattice, Pinkie, sitting on a small bench in the corner of the back porch, delved away at the churning, while they exchanged reports of progress that were rather discouraging to the butter maker.
It seemed to Pinkie that she had only fairly begun when Dorothy called out, “First pan gone in the oven.”
“Ker-chunk—ker-chunk, ker-chunk,” answered the dasher in the churn, saying by the tone of its voice as plainly as any words, “Only cream yet, and thin at that.”
“Butter’s come!”
Pinkie stopped for a moment and brought out Julia Minnehaha, her favourite doll, whom she stood close beside her for company.
“First panful baked, and they are lovely. Crisp and good if the butter in ’em is lard,” called Dorothy, in a mumbling voice that proclaimed that she was eating.
“You mustn’t eat them, they are for the dog company,” expostulated poor Pinkie.
“I’m only eating the broken ones,” said Dorothy.
“Was there more’n one?”