“Well, ma’am, I can’t say, unless they’re in the cherry-tree. Becky! Tiza!”
A faint “Yis” came from the other end of the garden, but still Milly and Olly could see nothing but a big cherry-tree growing where the voice seemed to come from.
“You go along that path, missy, and call again. You’ll be sure to find them,” said Mrs. Backhouse, pointing to the tree. “And won’t you come in, ma’am, and rest a bit? You’ll be maybe tired with walking this hot day.”
So Mr. and Mrs. Norton went into the farmhouse, and the children went hand-in-hand down the garden, looking for Becky and Tiza.
Suddenly, as they came close to the cherry-tree, they heard a laugh and a little scuffling, and looking up, what should they see but two little girls perched up on one of the cherry-tree branches, one of them sewing, the other nursing a baby kitten. Both of them had coloured print bonnets, but the smaller had taken hers off and was rolling the kitten up in it. The little girl sewing had a sensible, sober face; as for the other, she could not have looked sober if she had tried for a week of Sundays. It made you laugh only to look at Tiza. From the top of her curly head to the soles of her skipping little feet, she was the sauciest, merriest, noisiest creature. It was she who was always playing tricks on the cows and the horse, and the big sheep-dogs; who liked nothing so well as teasing Becky and dressing up the kittens, and who was always tumbling into the milkpail, or rolling downstairs, or losing herself in the woods, without somehow ever coming to any harm. If she and Olly had been left alone in the world together they must have come to a bad end, but luckily each of them had wiser people to take care of them.
“Becky,” said Milly, shyly, looking up into the tree, “will you come down and say how do you do to us?”
Becky stuck her needle in her work and scrambled down with a red shy face to shake hands; but Tiza, instead of coming down, only climbed a little higher, and peeped at the others between the branches.
“We came down to the house when fayther took the milk this morning,” said Becky. “We thought maybe we’d see you in the garden. Only Tiza said she’d run away if she did see you.”
“Why doesn’t Tiza come down?” asked Olly, looking hard up into the tree. “I want to see her.”
Thump! What was that rattling down on Olly’s head? He looked down at his feet very much astonished, and saw a bunch of green cherries which Tiza had just thrown at him.