Dick gave several vicious thrusts to his dough, and looked up at last to say very much against his will, “Thank you,” and adding brightly, “but you know I’m getting big, sir, and you’d better give up.”

“All right,” said Van, with that smile in his heart feeling equal to anything.

“Now,” cried Jasper, with a flourish of his baking apron, “mine are ready.  Here goes!” and he opened the oven door and pushed in a pan of biscuit.

“Jappy’s always ahead in everything,” grumbled Percy, laboring away at his dough.  “How in the world do you make the thing roll out straight?  Mine humps up in the middle.”

“Put some more flour on the board,” said Polly, running over to him.  “There, now see, Percy, if that doesn’t roll smooth.”  “It does with you,” said Percy, taking the rolling-pin again, to send it violently over the long-suffering dough, “and—­I declare, it’s going to do with me,” he cried, in delight at the large flat cake staring up at him from the board.  “Now, says I, I’ll beat you, Jappy!” And presently the whole kitchen resounded with a merry din, as the several cakes and biscuits were declared almost ready for their respective pans.

“But, I can tell you, this gingerbread boy is going in next,” declared Mr. King from Phronsie’s baking-board.  “It’s almost done, isn’t it, child?”

“Not quite, Grandpapa,” said Phronsie; “this eye won’t stay in just like the other.  It doesn’t look the same way, don’t you see?” pointing to the currant that certainly showed no inclination to do its duty, as any well-bred eye should.  “Wait just a moment, please; I’ll pull it out and stick it in again.”

“Take another,” advised the old gentleman, fumbling over the little heap of currants on the saucer.  “There, here’s a good round one, and very expressive, too, Phronsie.”

“That’s lovely,” hummed Phronsie, accepting the new eye with very sticky fingers.  “Now, he’s all ready,” as she set it in its place, and took the boy up tenderly.  “Give me a pan, do, Polly.”

“Did you cut that out?” cried Dick, turning around in his chair, and regarding her enviously, “all alone by yourself?  Didn’t Grandpapa help you just one teeny bit to make the legs and the hands?”

“No; she made it all herself,” said the old gentleman, with justifiable pride.  “There, Phronsie, here’s your pan,” as Polly set it down before her with a “You precious dear, that’s perfectly elegant!”

Phronsie placed the boy within the pan, and gave it many a loving pat.  “Grandpapa sat here, and looked at it, and smiled,” she said, turning her eyes gravely on Dick, “and that helped ever so much.  I couldn’t ever have made it so nice alone.  Good-by; now bake like a good boy.  Let me put it in the oven all by myself, do, Polly,” she begged.

So Phronsie, the old gentleman escorting her in mortal dread that she would be burned, safely tucked her long pan into the warmest corner, shut the door, and gravely consulted the clock.  “If I look at it in twenty-one minutes, I think it will be done,” she said, “quite brown.”