!
And be friends forever!
Wash together!
And be friends forever!"

Then Sister Angela held a long pink checked towel in her hands while
the little tiny girls came as their tiny hands were washed and wiped
them on the pink checked towel.

Then if two little girls took hold of the pink checked towel at once
they both laughed and sang:

"Don't wipe together,
Or we'll fight
Before night."

And the other little girls that were still washing their hands in the
white basins on the low shelf by the back-gallery lattice sang over and
over again:

"Wash together! We'll wash together!
And we'll be happy forever!"

When all the pink clean tiny hands were wiped dry, or as nearly dry as
little girls do wipe tiny pink hands, on the pink checked towel held
for them by Sister Angela, then Sister Angela hung the pink checked
towel on the lowest limb of the arbor-vita tree. Then the little girls
all ran to sit down in a row on the lowest step of the back gallery,
with their little feet on the gravel below. Sister Angela walked the
length of the row, and gave to each little girl in the row a sweet tiny
cake, or maybe Sister Angela walked twice down the row and gave to each
little girl two cakes, or sometimes maybe she walked three times down
the row, and then each little girl had three cakes; but no one little
girl ever had more than every other little girl.

Always Sister Angela sat a little way off from the row of the little
girls. She always sat on a bench under the great magnolia-tree and
watched the tiny girls as they ate their tiny cakes.

And always the pink checked towel waved itself ever so softly to and
fro on the lowest limb of the arbor-vitae-tree, for that was the way
that pink checked towels did to help to dry themselves after helping to
dry so many little pink fingers. Often, so often, little brown
sparrows came hopping to the gravel to pick up any tiny crumbs of cake
that the little girls dropped, but you may be sure that they did not
drop so very many, many little brown crumbs for little brown birds to
find.

But if they were dropped, even if by rare chance were the crumbs so
large as to be nearly as large as half of a cake--why then, that crumb
had to stay for those little birds. It was the law! The law that the
little girls had made for themselves, and nobody but themselves knew
about that law--for the good of the birds. But no little girl cared to
disobey that law of their own that