Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family Read Free

to go somewhere.”
    Lost in the enchanted world of a storybook, Charlotte heard nothing.
    Mama raised her voice. “Charlotte! I’m talking to you!”
    Charlotte’s blue eyes fluttered upward. “Huh?”
    “Aunt Fanny wants you to mind Ruthie tonight.”
    Charlotte came to life. “Ooh yes!”
    “You’re lucky,” Sarah commented. “Aunt Fanny always asks you.”
    “It’s really Ruthie who wants her,” Mama explained. “She says Charlotte thinks up such interesting things to do and tells such good stories.”
    “I wouldn’t mind earning the money myself once in a while,” Sarah said.
    “What for?” scoffed Henny. “You’d only put the dime in your savings account. Now if it were me …”
    “If it were you,” interrupted Mama, “the dime would be spent even before you earned it.”
    “Want to come along?” Charlotte asked Gertie.
    Gertie hesitated.
    “Aunt Fanny’s very generous,” Charlotte urged. “Shealways leaves such good things around for me, like candy and cookies. I’ll give you half the money.”
    Gertie brightened. “Okay.”
    So that evening, the two sisters walked arm in arm to Aunt Fanny’s house.
    “Oh, the two of you! How nice!” Aunt Fanny cried as she opened the door. “Ruthie, look who’s here,” she called out to her daughter, who came running. “Your two cousins. They’re going to stay with you while Daddy and I go out. Isn’t that nice?”
    Little Ruthie hopped up and down gleefully. “Gertie, you going to play with Charlotte and me?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    After instructing Charlotte what to do and when, Aunt Fanny donned her hat and coat. “Good night, Ruthie darling,” she said, embracing her. “Be a good girl and listen to what Charlotte and Gertie tell you and maybe Mommy and Daddy will bring you back something special.”
    “What’ll you bring?”
    “You’ll see. Good night, girls.” And Aunt Fanny shepherded her husband out the door.
    “Have a good time,” the children yelled after them.
    No sooner had the door closed, when Ruthie asked, “What’ll we do first, Charlotte?”
    Charlotte’s brow wrinkled. “Well now, let’s see.… I know! We’ll make paper patterns.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Come on. We’ll get the scissors and some paper napkins and I’ll show you.”
    Soon all three were seated around the kitchen table. Charlotte picked up a napkin, folded it in half, and then again in quarters. “Now watch,” she said.
    Carefully spiraling the folded paper, she snipped this way and that. The cut-off pieces fell away, the paper unfolded, and there, spread out before Ruthie’s astonished eyes, was a lovely lace doily.
    “It’s beautiful!” Ruthie exclaimed. “Now you make one, Gertie.”
    Gertie cut away cautiously and turned out a pretty pattern of her own.
    “Now lemme try,” Ruthie said.
    “All right, but you’ll have to be careful with the scissors,” warned Charlotte.
    “Oh I will! I’ll be very careful,” Ruthie promised.
    Charlotte tried to guide her little hand, but Ruthie would have none of it. “No!” she yelled, shaking her head vehemently. “I wanna do it all by myself.”
    She worked away stubbornly, her lower lip sucked in, her straight brown hair straggling across her face. Repeatedly she pushed the locks back only to have them tumble forward again.
    “How can she see anything with that hair in her eyes all the time?” Gertie cried. “Couldn’t we pin it back?”
    “It wouldn’t stay. Her hair’s too soft. Say!” Charlotte’s face lit up with sudden inspiration. “Why don’t we cut bangs for her?”
    Gertie looked dubious. “Gee, do you think we ought to? Aunt Fanny might not like it.”
    “Nonsense,” pooh-poohed Charlotte. “She’d love it! Why with Ruthie’s little round face, she’d look cute as a bug with bangs. Ruthie, wouldn’t you rather have pretty bangs on your forehead instead of that long messy hair?”
    “You mean like Buster Brown in the funnies?”
    “Uh-huh. It’ll be so