one was very much interested in the first batch of cookies, and
Aunt Polly gave each one a sample, which was pronounced delicious.

Then Aunt Polly put on her big kettle and started to fry some
doughnuts.

Dot, when no one was looking, took Spotty out into the hall and gave
him half a cookie. Then they both came back into the kitchen wearing
such an innocent air that Aunt Polly had to laugh.

"Spotty has a sweet tooth, all right," she declared. "Don't let him
tease all your cookies away from you, dear. Twaddles, look out!"

The warning came too late, for Twaddles, reaching across the bowl of
freshly fried doughnuts to get something, caught his sleeve on the rim
of the bowl and succeeded in turning the whole thing upside down over
himself.

"I really think," said patient, long-suffering Aunt Polly, when the
doughnuts had been picked up and brushed off and Twaddles had
explained how it happened, "I really think, that four children and a
dog are too many to have in the kitchen on baking day. Anyway, the
turnovers are done. I'll slip them on a plate and let Meg carry it out
under the chestnut tree. Then you may have your picnic." And so it was
settled.

"I wish," confided Meg, as she bit into a juicy bit of pie--Aunt Polly
made wonderful berry pies--"I had my 'Black Beauty' book."

"I'll never have another doll like Geraldine!" sighed Dot. "Never! And
what good are all her clothes? I haven't any doll to fit 'em."

"You might take a tuck in 'em for Totty-Fat," suggested Bobby, using
the disrespectful name he had invented for Dot's old doll. "She's a
sight. Oh dear! I wish I had tried to fly my airplane just once before
I lost it."

"Well, there's my bird," mourned Twaddles. "Aunt Polly never heard it
sing. And now she never will."

"I dripped a little juice on my dress," announced Dot doubtfully,
after Meg had gone in to help her aunt wash dishes.

"I should think you had," said Bobby, gazing severely at the little
girl. "I don't believe blackberry juice comes out, either. Prob'ly
that dress will always be spotted now."

"Linda said when she was a little girl her mother made her wash her
own dresses if she got too many dirty in one day," Dot declared.
"Maybe I could wash this."

Twaddles and Bobby hadn't a very clear idea of how to wash a dress,
and because it was something they had not done before, the idea
appealed to them.

"We'll help you," offered Bobby generously. "I saw a piece of soap out
at the b