"You can sit on the back seat and look like a guest; Margery and I will drive," said Happie. She danced ahead of the others towards the kitchen, swinging Penny to her shoulder as she ran. She stopped short in the doorway with a shocked little cry.
"What's the matter?" said Margery.
"We have no horse to blush for, but we must blush for ourselves; the bread has run over the pans, and down on the table! Only look! And we are all so hungry! It must be as sour as sour! I'm so scatter-brained!" And Happie pulled her own bright locks with a contrite face, offering Penny the ear nearest the shoulder on which she was seated to be boxed. But Penny kissed her sister's flushed cheek instead.
[CHAPTER VII]
THE DOVE'S ALIGHTING
"It's all my fault," cried Margery repentantly, assuming the blame and the duty of repairing the damage to the snowy pine table at one and the same time. "I promised to look after the bread and put it into the oven, and between Aunt Keren's going and our trip to the attic, I never thought of it again. Bread is not such a simple thing; I wish we could buy our bread, as we did in town."
"No work is simple I find, dear," said her mother. "It takes all kinds of qualities to do anything well—which accounts for the prevalence of poor labor. Never mind the bread; it is beyond sweetening by any amount of soda. We will make more to-night, and subsist on biscuits and buckwheat cakes for dinner and supper."
"Buckwheat cakes are far from simple," Happie remarked, suggestively surveying a burn on her forefinger, the result of her recent failure with the delicacy in question.
"The cakes are simple; it's the griddle where the stick comes," said Margery.