Magic Elizabeth by Norma Kassirer

ground. Bub was sucking his thumb and looking inquiringly at them with his clear round eyes, and Mrs. Niminy Piminy was composedly blinking her green eyes at them. Her children, except for Tom, who watched from the gooseberry bush, had all gone back to sleep.
    “Please have some pumpkin pie,” said Sally, offering Patience the center of a daisy upon a little china plate.
    “Thank you,” said Patience, and pretended to nibble at it, her eyes lowered.
    Then she began to grin again. The lashes fluttered up. A last giggle shook her body. “Jumped right into the cup,” she said.
    “Yes,” said Sally, “spilled the whole thing.”
    “Funny Salwy,” said Bub, removing his thumb from his mouth and holding it over his head. He lay on his back, gazing up at it, as if he found his thumb most remarkable.
    Sally picked Elizabeth up and straightened herbonnet. “Elizabeth saved that toad’s life,” she said. “Tom was just going to get it when she fell over. It looked just as if she was pointing at Tom to show me.” She kissed the little doll.
    “Maybe she
is
magic,” breathed Patience, looking with deep respect at Elizabeth.
    “Maybe,” said Sally, feeling very proud of her pretty doll.
    But Elizabeth just went on smiling her usual sunny smile.
    Tom came padding back and warily placed his head upon Elizabeth’s lap.
    “Naughty Tom,” Sally scolded. “But I guess you can’t help it. You’re just a cat. And Elizabeth seems to like you.” She placed the little doll’s hand on Tom’s head, and Tom purred and closed his eyes.
    Sally and Patience spent the rest of the afternoon quite pleasantly. Sally showed her the store of pepper boxes made from the seed containers of poppy plants that she kept in a hollow in one of the apple trees, along with some acorn cups. They sprinkled the seeds over a stew of leaves and berries they mixed together and cooked in the sun and then fed to Elizabeth. Holding Bub’s hands while he toddled along between them, they pushed through a gap in the lilac bushes and sat for a time in the field, hidden from sight by the blowing foxtails. Theymade daisy chains while they were sitting there, from daisies they gathered by armfuls. And they made a hat for Elizabeth from a castor-bean leaf and tied it with dandelion stems, and then they made dandelion-stem curls and hung them on their ears and tucked them beneath Elizabeth’s bonnet. When Bub begged them to do so, they placed some on his ears too.
    “What a pretty girl you’d be, Bub,” said Sally.
    “P’etty gi’l,” Bub crowed.
    Then, holding Bub’s hands again, and leaving Elizabeth behind in the garden with the cats, they even went into the cool-smelling woods. They surprised a rabbit, who jumped across their path, scattering pine needles as it went. Its white tail flashed as it vanished into the green darkness beyond the sunny clearing in which they stood.
    When Bub began to cry with tiredness, they took him back to the garden, and rather tired themselves, flopped down on the grass and made hollyhock dolls, with twigs for arms. They danced the dolls about by blowing on them, to amuse Bub.
    Meantime the shadows were growing longer, till at last they could scarcely see each other at all. The bright roses seemed to be floating on the soft darkness, the white ones shining like moons. Their sweetness spilled over into the garden. Sallyyawned and stretched. Patience’s eyes were drooping. Bub was crying again.
    The footsteps of the girls’ mothers crunched on the graveled path. Their long skirts whispered over the grass, ballooned over the sea shells, and scattered little pieces of gravel.
    “Time to go home,” said Patience’s mother.
    “Time to go in,” said Sally’s mother, and she picked up Bub and kissed his fat warm neck.
    “Please, may I light the gas plant first?” begged Sally.
    Her mother sighed. “All right,” she said, patting Bub’s shoulder and then placing him on the ground once more. He gave a loud sniff and