MUD PIES
Sally sat out in the back garden making mud pies.
‘Sand pies are cleanest,’ said Sally, ‘but mud pies are rich.’
Indeed, they were rich-looking pies that Sally had spread on a board
before her in the sun. Some of them were ornamented with tiny white
pebbles, some of them were crimped round the edges like a real crusty
pie. But all of them were as smooth as patting could make them, because
patting was the part of mud-pie making that Sally liked best of all.
‘I like to mix and I like to stir,’ said Sally, ‘but, oh! I love to
pat.’
This morning it looked as if Sally had done a great deal of patting.
Her hands were black and sticky and her romper was well spattered all
up and down the front.
But how could Sally help this when she was stirring up a great bowlful
of thick brown mud?
‘I will make a big cake, I think, for Paulina,’ decided Sally. ‘Perhaps
it will be a birthday cake with little sticks for candles.’
So round and round in the battered bowl went the old tin spoon, and out
of Sally’s little blue watering-can came the water in a lively shower.
Sally stirred and stirred and added more dirt.
‘It is too thin,’ said Cook Sally. ‘It is like jelly. I shall have to
dig more dirt from this hole.’
But before Sally could even turn round she heard Mother’s voice calling.
‘Sally! Sally!’
Down went the spoon and up rose Sally. It was too bad to be
interrupted, but when Mother called there was nothing to do but to go.
‘Well, Cooky!’ said Mother from the back porch steps. ‘You do look like
black Dinah.’
For by this time there were smudges of mud on Sally’s cheeks and even
on the tip of her nose.
‘It is a birthday cake for Paulina,’ explained Sally. ‘Mother, would
you put pebbles on it for trimming or candles of little sticks?’
‘You won’t have time to make the cake this morning, Sally,’ said
Mother. ‘You know I am going to have company at luncheon, and you must
be washed and dressed at once.’
Yes, Sally remembered that Mother had told her of the two friends who
were coming from the city to-day to have luncheon with Mother and Aunt
Bee. Sally herself was to sit at the table and was to be ‘as quiet as a
mouse and as polite as a lady.’
Those were Mother’s own words, and Sally meant to do just what Mother
said.
‘What dress am I to wear?’ asked Sally, as scrubbed and brushed, she
stood waiting for Mother to slip her frock over her head.
‘It really doesn’t matter what dress you wear, answered Mother,
stepping into Sally’s closet, ‘so long as you yourself are clean and
good.’
‘If it doesn’t matter, then,’ replied Sally, ‘I think I should like to
wear my new white dress. I think it is the very prettiest dress I have
ever seen.’
So Mother, laughing, Sally didn’t quite know why, put on the new white
dress, and Sally soon settled herself on the back steps to wait for the
guests to arrive.
Mother and Aunt Bee were going to the train to meet them, and Sally was
to take care of the house until they came home again.
‘But I will lock the doors,’ said Mother, ‘so that you won’t have to
think of the house. Then, if you grow tired of sitting on the steps,
you may go and swing, if you like. But keep yourself clean, Sally,’
said Mother, in a warning voice, ‘keep yourself clean.’
‘I will,’ promised Sally earnestly, ‘I will.’
So Mother and Aunt Bee, who, like Sally, was dressed in a pretty new
white frock, rode away in Aunt Bee’s little car, and for a long time,
perhaps as much as two minutes, Sally sat still on the steps.
Then she stood up and practiced making a curtsy.
‘This is the way I will do when the ladies come,’ said she.
She sat down again and wished that the door were open, so that she
might bring Paulina out to hold on her lap and talk to her for a while.
‘I could tell her about the birthday cake,’ thought Sally. ‘Oh, I wish
I could get in the house and bring her out.’
Sally stood up and pulled at the screen door. It was firmly hooked, and
the wooden door behind it was locked, Sally knew.
‘The front door is locked, I am sure,’ said she to herself. ‘What shall
I do? I know. I will just walk down and look at my pies. I won’t touch
them, not even with my little finger, for Mother said to keep clean.
But it can’t do any harm to look at the pies, can it? Just to _look_ at
them, you know.’
Oh, Sally, Sally! If only the big brown-and-gold bumble bee, humming
over the roses, could have droned, ‘Sally, keep away from those mud
pies.’ If only the birds, flying high in the sky, could have chirped,
‘Sally, keep away from those mud pies.’ If only Snow White, Sally’s
little wooden dove, could have warned her away. But Snow White was
fastened to Sally’s window-sill in the front of the house, so of course
he couldn’t know what Sally was about. And Buff was asleep on the
window-sill, and Tippy was tied in Aunt Bee’s cellar. There was really
no one to keep Sally away from those mud pies.
So off ran Sally to the end of the garden, where, baking in the sun,
lay her row of pies.
Sally counted them.
‘There are four big pies,’ counted Sally, ‘and five little ones, and
two crooked little cakes that I must make over again to-morrow, if I
can.’
Next, daintily holding back her white skirts, Sally stepped over toward
her bowl and spoon and watering-can that were lying where she had left
them when Mother called.
‘How I would love to stir this jelly round just once,’ said Sally,
looking longingly at the big bowl of soft, brown mud. ‘But I don’t
suppose I ought.’
Slowly Sally stretched out her hand toward the spoon, but at that
moment a large and hungry mosquito lighted on the back of Sally’s neck.
‘Oh!’ cried she, and gave a little jump.
Poor Sally! If she had jumped to the right or to the left or even
backward, nothing would have happened at all. But instead of that,
Sally jumped forward. She stepped on the spoon, it turned over under
her foot, and down she went with a splash! right into the bowlful of
soft, brown ‘jelly.’
‘Mother!’ cried Sally in a piteous voice, ‘Mother!’ and struggled to
her feet.
Mother was far away, Sally well knew, but who else was there to save
her from this dreadful plight?
The new white dress was covered with mud, wet and soft black mud.
Muddy were Sally’s shoes and stockings, muddy were her knees.
Sally looked at herself in dismay. Then she began to cry. She put her
hands up to her face, she cried and rubbed, she rubbed and cried.
And when Sally put her hands down, you could call her nothing but a
black-a-moor. Instead of a pink-and-white little girl, dressed in a
fresh white frock, there stood in Sally’s back garden a black child,
only faintly streaked with white, who stood first on one foot and then
on the other, because she simply didn’t know what else to do.
Where could she go? Who would help her? What would the company think?
And what, oh! what, would Mother say?
At the thought of Mother, Sally fairly danced up and down.
‘Oh! Oh!’ wailed Sally, remembering how Mother had told her to be ‘as
quiet as a mouse and as polite as a lady.’ ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’
How could a wet, uncomfortable black-a-moor be ‘as quiet as a mouse
and as polite as a lady’? It simply couldn’t be done.
I really do not know what would have happened next if, just then, Sally
had not heard some one unlocking the back door.
Then came Mother’s voice calling, ‘Sally! Sally!’
Sally didn’t stir. She was hidden from the house by a great forsythia
bush, whose branches, long and slender, trailed upon the ground.
Mother called once more and then went into the house.
Presently, out came Aunt Bee, in her pretty white frock, looking for
Sally.
She walked down to the swing: no Sally there. She stood still and
looked about her. Sally made herself as small as ever she could. But
did Aunt Bee catch a glimpse of her behind the bush?
At any rate, Aunt Bee turned and came straight toward Sally. And what
do you think Sally did? Down on the ground she went in a little heap
and crawled under the forsythia bush. There she rolled herself into a
ball and waited.
Nearer came Aunt Bee, nearer and nearer, until she reached the bush.
Sally could feel her stop and look at the mud pies in a row, at the
overturned bowl, at the great muddy spot in the grass.
Then Aunt Bee stooped and looked under the bush. For a long time she
didn’t say a word, and Sally kept her head down and her eyes shut tight.
At last Sally opened one eye. She stole a glance at Aunt Bee. Aunt
Bee’s face was very red, and Sally couldn’t tell whether she were going
to laugh or to cry.
Either way it would be dreadful. It would break Sally’s heart to make
Aunt Bee cry, but she simply couldn’t bear it if Aunt Bee should laugh
at her when she was in such trouble. So Sally herself began to cry
again. It was the only thing she could think of to do.
Then Aunt Bee spoke. She was neither laughing nor crying, and her voice
was very gentle indeed.
‘Sally, don’t cry,’ she whispered, ‘don’t let Mother hear you cry. She
is going to have such a nice party to-day. You and I will slip into the
house. We won’t let any one see us. And I will put clean clothes on you
as fast as I can. Come, Sally, come!’
Aunt Bee held out her hand with such a sweet, inviting smile that
Sally, miserable as she was, scrambled out from under the bush and
hurried on tiptoe after Aunt Bee into the house.
Up the back stairs they went as quiet as could be. Mother and her
friends, talking busily together, did not hear them at all. And once
safely upstairs, Aunt Bee’s fingers were so nimble and Sally stood so
still that, in less time than you might think, she was turned from a
black-a-moor into a pink-and-white little girl again.
[Illustration: AFTER THE MUD PIES]
Mother opened her eyes in surprise when Sally came walking into
the room wearing a pink frock instead of the new white dress, but she
didn’t ask any questions, not a single one.
So Sally made her curtsy, as she had planned to do. And at the luncheon
table she was ‘as quiet as a mouse and as polite as a lady,’ just as
Mother had said.
When the party was over and the guests were gone, Sally sat on Mother’s
lap and told her all about it.
‘I felt dreadfully to spoil my new white dress, Mother,’ said Sally,
when the story was ended. ‘But I remembered what you said, that it
didn’t matter what dress I wore so long as I was clean and good.’
‘Do you know who I think was good to-day?’ asked Mother, looking down
into Sally’s upturned face. ‘Some one who was ready for a party in her
new white frock, and yet who washed and dressed a muddy little girl so
that she might come to the party, too.’
‘Aunt Bee,’ said Sally quickly, ‘Aunt Bee. She was good. She was the
best in the world.’
‘I think so,’ said Mother.
‘And so do I,’ said Sally.