Gilbert only laughed at these remarkable tales; but they annoyed Jamie, because they made him feel so very inferior.
He tried in his turn to remember and relate strange things that had happened to him or that he had seen; but he did not succeed very well. Dick despised rattlesnakes, horned toads, gophers, and road-runners. He wouldn’t believe there are quicksands in California, where you can “slump down, down, clear out of sight.”
“Pooh! you needn’t tell me!”
It was very discouraging to talk to Dick; still Jimmy was always ready to talk.
One Saturday morning, Dick and Gilbert came over to the Dunlees’ to play with Jimmy, who was glad to see them. It was very still in and about the house that morning. Mr. Sanford had been gone to the city of Washington for many weeks, and it always seemed odd without Mr. Sanford. To-day papa was visiting a sick man just out of town; Mrs. Porter, over the way, had borrowed the baby; Kyzie and Edith were having a botany lesson with Aunt Vi somewhere in a canyon; and Lucy had gone to Lincoln Heights to spend the day.
“What a merry time the little boys seem to be having in the stable!” remarked Mrs. Dunlee to Vendla, as they heard the sound of childish laughter floating in on the air.
She had asked Jimmy to get some hens’ eggs; for she and Vendla were to make some cake for tea by a new recipe. There was no haste about the eggs, however. Vendla stood by the pantry window rolling out pie-crust with a glass rolling-pin, and would not be ready to begin upon the cake till her four pies had gone into the oven.
Ah, that cake which had not been baked yet, that cake by the new rule! If Mrs. Dunlee and Vendla had only known what strange thing would happen to it that afternoon they certainly would not have made it at all! But they did not know; and Mrs. Dunlee very soon took down a large baking-pan and buttered it, saying to herself all the while that she hoped the baby was behaving well at Mrs. Porter’s. She missed him, and missed her three girls, and thought what a happy mother she was with five such dear children. Yet, after all, she was not sorry to have them out of the house for once on a Saturday morning.
“There’s Jimmy laughing again, above the other boys. He’s a noisy child; I wonder if Baby Eddy will be as fond of fun as Jimmy? Well, at any rate, I hope they’ll both grow up to be good.