with a loaf of election cake in her hands; that and the bread would be
ruined if they were not baked immediately, as they were raised enough.
Mrs. Dorcas had taken Thirsey and stepped out somewhere, and there was
no one in the kitchen. Ann set the election cake back on the table.
Then, with the aid of the tongs, she reached into the brick oven and
took out every one of Mrs. Dorcas' pies and loaves. Then she arranged
them deliberately in a pitiful semicircle on the hearth, and put
Grandma's cookery in the oven.

She went back to the southwest room then, and sat quietly down to her
spinning. Grandma asked if she had put the things in, and she said
"Yes, ma'am," meekly. There was a bright red spot on each of her dark
cheeks.

When Mrs. Dorcas entered the kitchen, carrying Thirsey wrapped up in
an old homespun blanket, she nearly dropped as her gaze fell on the
fireplace and the hearth. There sat her bread and pies, in the most
lamentable half-baked, sticky, doughy condition imaginable. She opened
the oven, and peered in. There were Grandma's loaves, all a lovely
brown. Out they came, with a twitch. Luckily, they were done. Her own
went in, but they were irretrievable failures.

Of course, quite a commotion came from this. Dorcas raised her shrill
voice pretty high, and Grandma, though she had been innocent of the
whole transaction, was so blamed that she gave Dorcas a piece of her
mind at last. Ann surveyed the nice brown loaves, and listened to the
talk in secret satisfaction; but she had to suffer for it afterward.
Grandma punished her for the first time, and she discovered that that
kind old hand was pretty firm and strong. "No matter what you think,
or whether you air in the rights on't, or not, a little gal mustn't