She laughed a great deal, and squeezed Dorry’s arm very tight, but that was all. Dorry was more explicit.

‘I mean to have turkey every day,’ he declared, ‘and batter-puddings; not boiled ones, you know, but little baked ones, with brown shiny tops, and a great deal of pudding sauce to eat on them. And I shall be so big then that nobody will say, “Three helps is quite enough for a little boy”.’

‘Oh, Dorry, you pig!’ cried Katy, while the others screamed with laughter. Dorry was much affronted.

‘I shall just go and tell Aunt Izzie what you called me,’ he said, getting up in a great pet.

But Clover, who was a born peacemaker, caught hold of his arm, and her coaxings and entreaties consoled him so much that he finally said he would stay; especially as the others were quite grave now, and promised that they wouldn’t laugh any more.

‘And now, Katy, it’s your turn,’ said Cecy; ‘tell us what you’re going to be when you grow up.’

‘I’m not sure about what I’ll be,’ replied Katy, from overhead; ‘beautiful, of course, and good if I can, only not so good as you, Cecy, because it would be nice to go and ride with the young gentlemen sometimes. And I’d like to have a large house and a splendiferous garden, and then you could all come and live with me, and we would play in the garden, and Dorry should have turkey five times a day if he liked. And we’d have a machine to darn the stockings, and another machine to put the bureau drawers in order, and we’d never sew or knit garters, or do anything we didn’t want to. That’s what I’d like to be. But now I’ll tell you what I mean to do.’

‘Isn’t it the same thing?’ asked Cecy.

‘Oh, no!’ replied Katy, ‘quite different; for you see I mean to do something grand. I don’t know what, yet; but when I’m grown up I shall find out.’ (Poor Katy always said ‘when I’m grown up’, forgetting how very much she had grown already.) ‘Perhaps,’ she went on, ‘it will be rowing out in boats, and saving people’s lives, like that girl in the book. Or perhaps I shall go and nurse in the hospital, like Miss Nightingale. Or else I’ll head a crusade and ride on a white horse, with armour and a helmet on my head, and carry a sacred flag. Or if I don’t do that, I’ll paint pictures, or sing, or scalp – sculp – what is it? you know – make figures in marble. Anyhow, it shall be something. And when Aunt Izzie sees it, and reads about me in the newspapers, she will say, “The dear child! I always knew she would turn out an ornament to the family.” People very often say, afterward, that they “always knew”,’ concluded Katy, sagaciously.

‘Oh, Katy! how beautiful it will be!’ said Clover, clasping her hands. Clover believed in Katy as she did in the Bible.

‘I don’t believe the newspapers will be so silly as to print things about you, Katy Carr,’ put in Elsie, vindictively.

‘Yes, they will!’ said Clover; and gave Elsie a push.

By and by John and Dorry trotted away on mysterious errands of their own.

‘Wasn’t Dorry funny with his turkey?’ remarked Cecy; and they all laughed again.

‘If you won’t tell,’ said Katy, ‘I’ll let you see Dorry’s journal. He kept it once for almost two weeks, and then gave it up. I found the book, this morning, in the nursery closet.’

All of them promised, and Katy produced it from her pocket. It began thus:

‘March 12. – Have resolved to keep a jurnal.

‘March 13. – Had rost befe for diner, and cabage, and potato and appel sawse, and rice puding. I do not like rice puding when it is like ours. Charley Slack’s kind is rele good. Mush and sirup for tea.

‘March 19. – Forgit what did. John and me saved our pie to take to schule.

‘March 21. – Forgit what did. Gridel cakes for brekfast. Debby didn’t fry enuff.

‘March 24. – This is Sunday. Corn befe for dinnir.