Page:Carroll Rankin--Dandelion Cottage.djvu/39

 Rh  It is hard to imagine what Mrs. Tucker would have done without her cheerful little daughter. Bettie always spoke of the boys as "The children," and she helped her mother darn their stockings, sew on their buttons and sort out their collars. The care of the family baby, too, fell to her lot.

The boys were good boys, but they were boys. They were willing to do errands or to pile wood or to carry out ashes but none of them ever thought of doing one of these things without first being told—sometimes they had to be told a great many times. It was different with Bettie. If Tom ate crackers on the front porch, it was Bettie that ran for the broom to brush up the crumbs. If the second baby but one needed his face washed—and it seemed to Bettie that there never was a time when he didn't need it washed—it was Bettie that attended to it. If the cat looked hungry it was Bettie who gave her a saucer of milk. Dick's rabbits and Rob's porcupine would have