“Not a small thing, my love,” returned Mr. Dunlee. “It shows that the boy has character. I am as happy about it as you.”
Jimmy thought it a remarkably pleasant dinner-party. There was maccaroni soup, which reminded Lucy at once of the singular sort of feather which “that Yankee Doodle boy” had stuck in his cap.
“This is Yankee Doodle soup!” said she in a loud whisper to her brother, who nearly choked from trying not to laugh.
Sister Kyzie scowled darkly. When would Lucy learn not to whisper at table? How often must she be told to move her spoon away from, and not towards, herself in taking soup?
When the dessert came on, strange to say, it was that same “Fourth-of-July-Washington-pie,” no longer brown and ragged, but shining as white as the far-off mountains at Christmastide. What had Vendla done to it? And why did mamma smile every moment? Was she thinking how much fairer the great cake looked now in this creamy covering? Jimmy knew she was not thinking of the cake!
After dinner he entertained Aunt Vi and Mr. Sanford on the veranda by firing off a round of crackers.
“Jimmy, Jimmy!” pleaded his aunt at last. “If you’ll only be quiet a moment, I’d like to show you something.”
She opened an old book, and he and Lucy drew near to look at the picture of a man in a military coat and cocked hat.
“I know who that is!” exclaimed Jimmy; “that’s George Washington!”
“Right,” said Mr. Sanford; “the very man you said Vendla made the pie for. And who was he? What did he do?”