There is your Mrs. Brown again."

"Oh, dear!" said Dimple. "Let us turn up this street; it is just as near
to go home this way." So they turned the corner and reached home before
Mrs. Brown knew which way they had gone.

"Suppose we watch Sylvy make cake," said Dimple, when they had delivered
their packages. "She always lets me watch her. And then we can scrape
the bowl. Don't you like to?"

"I never do at home," said Florence. "Our cook is so cross and mamma
does not like me to go into the kitchen."

"My mamma doesn't care; she lets me go whenever I please, and sometimes
I help Bubbles clean knives and do such things, so she can get through,
and play with me sooner."

"Sylvy, we are coming to watch you make cake; may we?"

"I'm not a carin'!" said Sylvy. "Git 'round on the other side of the
table."

"See her break the eggs," said Florence. "Could you do it, Dimple? I'd
be sure to get the yolks all mixed with the whites, and she just turns
one half into the other as easily."

"I'd be afraid to try," said Dimple; "but when I am a little bigger, I
mean to make a cake myself. I believe I could now if I had some one to
tell me."

"I wouldn't try just yet," said Sylvy, briskly beating the whites of the
eggs to a froth.

"Could you, Sylvy, when you were a little girl?" asked Florence.

"Laws, no. I was nigh as big as I am now, and then I made a poor fist at
it," said Sylvy, laughing at the recollection.

"What was the matter?" asked Dimple.

"Too much butter and sugar, and not enough flour; it rose up beautiful
at first and then down it went; when I took it out of the oven it was
like taffy. I felt plum bad, I tell you; but I did better next time;" so
saying, she turned her cake into the pans and giving each of the
children a spoon, bade them take the bowl between them out on the steps,
and "lick" to their hearts' content.

"You aren't going to make another cake right away, are you, Sylvy?"
asked Dimple, looking up from her bowl. "And--oh, Florence, see all
those turnovers. Are you really going to make another cake, Sylvy?"

"Yass, miss, some suveral of 'em."

"What for?"

"Yo' ma done tole me to," replied Sylvy, with a smile.

"I'm going to ask her about it. I know she doesn't intend we shall eat
them all. Perhaps there is going to be a church supper, or a strawberry
festival, or something. Come on, Florence, let's go and see about it."
And throwing down their spoons, they went to hunt up Mrs. Dallas.