“Yes,” said another voice, “it’s cute as can be!” And there was “Cousin Callena’s” little girl, part of the company, simpering and bridling with delight, and holding up a big doll in a pink satin dress and a red hat and white lace veil.
Sally’s mouth opened wide, but she had no time nor breath to scream. The minute Cousin Callena’s little girl saw her, she lowered the doll immediately to put both arms around it. “You shan’t see it,” she declared, with all the triumph of possession.
“For shame, Flora!” cried her mother, “when you’ve come visitin’.”
But Flora, not considering it necessary to part with her usual manners just because she was visiting, kept on hugging her doll and swaying back and forth, repeating in a sing-song voice, “You shan’t see it—you shan’t.”
“I will,” declared Sally, passionately, and with very red cheeks trying to thrust herself nearer for a better view.
“And so you may,” said Cousin Callena, very much ashamed, and reaching over she first bestowed a smart slap on Flora’s shoulder; then she twitched the doll out from her arms. “There, now, I’ll take it myself. Come over here, Sally, and I’ll show it to you.”
Flora gave a loud scream, but, seeing it was useless to follow her mother, she threw herself flat on the floor and sobbed and kicked her heels all the while the resplendent doll in the pink satin dress and red hat and white lace veil was being exhibited in another corner of the kitchen.
And when Sally Brown next remembered the message to the Peppers, it was along toward the middle of the following morning. She had “eaten and slept” on nothing but that magnificent doll, being unable to get it out of her thoughts for a moment. When the message did flash through her mind, she started, and without a word to any one, raced off across lots as fast as she could to the Little Brown House. It was as silent and empty as when the stage-driver had visited it.
“Oh, well, Mr. Tisbett’s taken Joel and Davie,” said Sally to herself, running all about the Little Brown House, and peeping into the west window where Mrs. Pepper usually sat sewing. “An’ the rest have gone, too,” she added enviously; “an’ I hain’t never been a stage-ridin’,” and she disconsolately got herself back home.
It was just about this time that Mrs. Pepper, sewing away for dear life over in Grandma Bascom’s cottage, looked up.