"Wash together! We'll wash together!
And we'll be happy forever!"
When all the pink clean tiny hands were wiped dry, or as nearly dry as little girls do wipe tiny pink hands, on the pink checked towel held for them by Sister Angela, then Sister Angela hung the pink checked towel on the lowest limb of the arbor-vita tree. Then the little girls all ran to sit down in a row on the lowest step of the back gallery, with their little feet on the gravel below. Sister Angela walked the length of the row, and gave to each little girl in the row a sweet tiny cake, or maybe Sister Angela walked twice down the row and gave to each little girl two cakes, or sometimes maybe she walked three times down the row, and then each little girl had three cakes; but no one little girl ever had more than every other little girl.
Always Sister Angela sat a little way off from the row of the little girls. She always sat on a bench under the great magnolia-tree and watched the tiny girls as they ate their tiny cakes.
And always the pink checked towel waved itself ever so softly to and fro on the lowest limb of the arbor-vitae-tree, for that was the way that pink checked towels did to help to dry themselves after helping to dry so many little pink fingers. Often, so often, little brown sparrows came hopping to the gravel to pick up any tiny crumbs of cake that the little girls dropped, but you may be sure that they did not drop so very many, many little brown crumbs for little brown birds to find.
But if they were dropped, even if by rare chance were the crumbs so large as to be nearly as large as half of a cake—why then, that crumb had to stay for those little birds. It was the law! The law that the little girls had made for themselves, and nobody but themselves knew about that law—for the good of the birds. But no little girl cared to disobey that law of their own that nobody but themselves knew about, for if one had—how dreadful it would have been—no little girl would have played with her until—oh, so long, so long—until she might at last have been forgiven!
So all the little brown crumbs that the tiny little girls did drop, why the tiny little brown birds did pick up,—and they never said whether they liked caraway seeds or not!
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One day when the tiny little girls were all in a row eating cakes, Sister Angela, sitting on a bench under the magnolia, said quite suddenly: "Good morning!"
She rose up from her seat under the great magnolia.
Then the little brown birds fluttered up from the gravel.