Sister flung her crumbs as far as her short arm would send them, and managed to hit an indignant old starling squarely in the eye.  He glared at her crossly.

“Birds don’t mind getting wet, do they?” said Brother, as the sparrows hopped about in the driving rain and pecked gratefully at the crumbs.  “Let’s hop the way they do, Betty.”

Sister obediently hopped, looking not unlike a very plump little robin at that, with her dark eyes and bobbing curls.  Only, you see, she and Brother were much heavier than any birds, and they made so much noise that Molly came to the door to see what they were doing.

“Another rainy day and the two of you bursting with mischief!” she sighed good-naturedly.  “Will you be quiet for an hour if I let you make a dough-man while I’m mixing my bread?”

Brother and Sister loved to make dough-men, and so while Molly kneaded her bread, they worked busily and happily at the other end of the table, shaping two men from the bit of sponge she gave them and quite forgetting to scold about the unpleasant weather which kept them indoors.

Their real names, you must know, were Rhodes and Elizabeth Morrison.  Rhodes was six, and Elizabeth five, and sometimes they were called “Roddy” and “Betty,” but most always Brother and Sister.

This was partly because they were so many Morrisons.

There was Daddy Morrison, who was a lawyer and who went to town every morning to a busy office that seemed, to Brother and Sister, when they visited him, to be all papers and typewriters.

There was dear Mother Morrison, who was altogether lovely, with brown eyes like Brother’s, and dark curly hair like Sister.

There were Louise and Grace, the twins; they were fifteen and went to high school, and were very pretty and important and busy.

Then there was Dick, the oldest of them all, and Ralph, who went to law school in the city, and Jimmie, who was seventeen and the captain of the high school football team.

Counting Brother and Sister, seven children, you see, and as Molly truly said, “a houseful.”  Molly had lived with Mother Morrison since Louise and Grace were babies, and they would not have known what to do without her.  She was as much a part of the family as any of them.

The Morrison house was a big, shabby, roomy place with wide, deep porches and many windows.  There was a large lawn in front and an old barn in back where the older boys had fitted up a gymnasium with all kinds of fascinating apparatus, most of which Brother and Sister were forbidden to touch.

The Morrisons lived in Ridgeway, a thriving suburb of the city, where Daddy Morrison, Dick and Ralph went every day.

And now that you are introduced, we’ll go back to Brother and Sister making dough-men in Molly’s kitchen.

“What makes my dough-man kind of dark?” inquired Sister, calling Molly’s attention to the queer-shaped figure she had pieced together.