In fact, she said the Fair was held partly to celebrate her
being six years old. This would happen on the seventeenth of October.
Molly insisted that that was PLENTY close enough to the ninth of
September to be celebrated then. This made Betsy feel like laughing out,
but observing that the Putneys only looked at each other with the
faintest possible quirk in the corners of their serious mouths, she
understood that they were afraid that Molly's feelings might be hurt if
they laughed out loud. So Betsy tried to curve her young lips to the
same kind and secret mirth.
And, I can't tell you why, this effort not to hurt Molly's feelings made
her have a perfect spasm of love for Molly. She threw herself on her and
gave her a great hug that tipped them both over on the couch on top of
Shep, who stopped snoring with his great gurgling snort, wriggled out
from under them, and stood with laughing eyes and wagging tail, looking
at them as they rolled and giggled among the pillows.
"What dress are you going to wear to the Fair, Betsy?" asked Cousin Ann.
"And we must decide about Molly's, too."
This stopped their rough-and-tumble fun in short order, and they applied
themselves to the serious question of a toilet.
When the great day arrived and the surrey drove away from the Wendells'
gate, Betsy was in a fresh pink-and-white gingham which she had helped
Cousin Ann make, and plump Molly looked like something good to eat in a
crisp white little dimity, one of Betsy's old dresses, with a deep hem
taken in to make it short enough for the little butter-ball.
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