“I wasn’t hurting Wash’ton’s Fourthy July pie; ’course I wasn’t,” returned the little mischief very innocently.
“I never saw such a girl. You’re as bad as the captain’s monkey,” said Jimmy severely. But he was not looking at Lucy; he was looking at the pie. “Go right away and let it alone! I suppose you don’t mean to go, though. Why, how you have dented it up!” Here Jimmy seized a knife, and made a neat little dash at the frosting. “There, that doesn’t leave any mark.”
A large bit was left on the knife, a much larger one than Lucy had been able to secure. She opened her mouth expectantly; but, strange to say, the dainty morsel went straight into Jimmy’s own mouth, not hers!
“Hello! that’s good,” said he. “I don’t like frosting after it’s all dried up.”
“Nor me, either! Give me some!” pleaded the little sister.
“There, take that; I’m only smoothing it off. You were a naughty girl to touch it in the first place. Maybe when you get as old as I am you’ll have some sense. You see,” he added, as he went on making repairs, “I have to smooth it off, or mamma’ll know what you’ve done, and you’ll get a snipping.”
It was very interesting business “smoothing it off;” it gave the children so many chances to find out just how the frosting tasted.
But alas! Jimmy’s knife made worse havoc than Lucy’s finger had done. Though he tried his best, it would leave deep tracks like a wagon-wheel in the mud. Or you might have fancied a dozen mischievous brownies had been driving over that beautiful cake pell-mell on their bicycles.