Mrs. Chick had just put her second pie into the oven. She went out to the shed, wondering what Jimmy meant, for she was sure the butter had not come. She took off the cover of the churn and looked in.
“Why! what’s this?” cried she.
She put in her hand then, and drew out that dirty, dirty doll.
She could not help laughing, though she was very sorry. It was quite too bad to spoil so much cream, and she was by no means a rich woman.
“I’m glad I didn’t put in all my cream,” she thought. “I had sense enough to save out half of it.”
But she was just as much amused as either of the children. She never was cross or sad, whatever happened.
“Of course Baby Morse has been here,” said she; “nobody else would cut up such a caper. But I haven’t seen her or heard a sound of her all the morning.”
“I saw her,” said Jimmy. “She was playing in the dirt with that horrid black thing; but who’d ’a’ thought of her dropping it in the churn?”
Then they had another hearty laugh, all three of them; and Jimmy never dreamed that he had been at all to blame. The cream was the color of Mrs. Chick’s gray gown. She poured it into a pan, to save it for the animals, and then washed the churn.