The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1888-04-27
A ROW OF PUMPKIN PIES.
The True Story of How We Peeled OF
Their Skins.

A ROW OF PUMPKIN PIES.
The True Story of How We Peeled OFF
Their Skins.
They sat in a row on the buttcry
shelf-seven crinkly edged. spicy,
steaming pumpkin pies. They were
on blue earthcn plates and they had
little sugary bubbles all over their hot
faces. They smelled good. they tast-
ed good, they were good.
Mother had shut the buttery door,
for she said: what if old Peter
should get in here and eat my piesr'
Old Peter was our biggest cat, and he
always would steal whenever he was
hungry.
When mother had put the last pie
on the shelf and shut the buttery door,
she did not sec Lizzie and / hiding be-
hind the flour barrel.
All this happened long. long time
ago when sister Lizzie and l were lit.
tie girls. We could not hide behind a
flour barrel now if we should try.
When we heard mother hang up the
pie fork in the cook room, we crawled
out and stood before the seven pies.
How good they did smell! Lizzie
reached up and picked tiny bit of
sweet, crisp, golden-brown skin from
the top of one pie and ate it. Then
she picked off bigger piece and ate
thaA. Lizzie was Older and taller than
L / couldn't reach the pies, though
| stood on tiptoe and tried 10.
Pumpkin pies peel very easily. Very
little bits of fingers can pick hole in
them and peel them.
When Lizzie had eaten the skin of
one pie, she peeled the skin off the
next one, ito make mates." she said.
She gave me the bubbles in the peel
ing to eat. Then she made .mates,
of the next two pies on the SHELF and
of the next two, and the next one.
We wished mother had baked a mate
to that last one.
Once mother had punished our fin
gers for picking off 1.-THE crust crinkles
to q custard-pie. She told us never to
pick off pie -crinkles again. Lizzie
remembered what she said and did
not pick one crust crinkle off those
seven pumpkin pies. All we ate was.
just their skins.
Then we came out and shut the
buttcry door very softly and went be.
hind the stable to play in the water
ing-troughs. There were two troughs
there, and the wafer ran through q
little spout from the high trough to
the low trough. If we put a chip in
this spout the water would flow over
and make little falls.
By and by, we heard mother call
'Lizzie!"
We didn't answer.
Mother called again: '.Liz -zie! Adj
die!''
We peeped around the corner and
she was standing in the shed door.
She saw our pink sunbonnets and
called again: Girls. did you peel my
pumpkin pies?"
II skinned half pie, mamma,
Lizzie answered so low that nobody
but mother could have heard her,
did you peel more than half a
pleP"
IL skinned one whole pie" Liz
zie's answer went round the stable
corner.
did you peel more than one whole
pieP"
IL did skin three pies, mamma"
Lizzie was brave little girl. She
didn' say "we," she said 81" though
I had helped eat the pie-skins.
odd you peel more than three pies,
Lizzie?" Mothers voice was just as
patient as ever.
IL peeled mates, mamma, all the
mates there were and one mate over"
"Then my little girls will come into
the house. " And we went in with
mother; but before she shut the shed
door she broke off a tiny switch from
the lilac bush growing near it, bit of
alilac twig that couldn't hurt fly
wing, but small as it was, in mothers
hand 1t helped us to remember never
again to peel the skins from the
pumpkin pies. - CLarissa Potter, in
Wide AaU0ke.