ewhere," where they
were to have the party.

Fanny and Blanche, and nearly everybody else, had arrived already, in
clean frocks, with faces just washed; and, dear! dear! who wanted those
Proudfits? But the little girls in Laurel Grove were for the most part
very well-bred, so they said, "How do you do, Patty?" and "How do you
do, Gretty?" and "How do you do, Baby?" just as if they had expected the
whole family; though it was really a picnic party, and nobody had a
right to come to it without an invitation. Patty kept close beside
Flaxie; but Bubby, the fourteen months' old baby, made himself generally
disagreeable by wiping the candy and sand off his hands upon the little
girls' skirts.

"Let's play something," said Flaxie nervously.

It was a beautiful place to play. There were trees for hide-and-seek,
flat spots for croquet, and little hills and hollows for everything
else. The village children used this for a sort of park, and the river
seemed to look on and laugh to see them so gay. It was a very sober,
steady river above and below, but right here it went leaping and
tumbling over some rocks, making a merry cascade,--just for fun, you
would think. The children liked to skip stones and see them spin up and
down in the foam; but they had been warned not to go too near the bank.
Nobody had ever fallen in yet, but it wasn't a safe place for very
little folks, certainly not for roly-poly babies like Bubby Proudfit. He
was very clumsy, falling down, rolling over, and picking himself up
again every five minutes. Patty meant to watch him, but he was not very
interesting, and the little girls quite bewitched her with their kind
smiles and pretty ways.

Flaxie Frizzle was one of the youngest, but led off in most of the
games. She was little Eva, and died on a bed of grass "elegantly," while
everybody else groaned and howled, especially poor Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom
was Milly, in a black mask of Preston's, which had been played with till
it was cracked in fifty places, and made Uncle Tom look about two
hundred years old.

Then they had the "Old Woman in the Shoe," and Flaxie was a fierce and
cruel mother, whipping her children so "soundly" that you could hear
them scream half a mile off.

Patty thought all this was beautiful, and a longing look came into her
bold black eyes, as she gazed at the old woman.

"Oh, if _I_ could wear red stockings, with flowers on them, like Flaxie!
If _I_ could be a doctor's little girl, and