Tea Time with Betsy-Tacy

This tea time passage is from the book Betsy-Tacy. It's a delightful scene where five-year-old Betsy and Tacy have dressed up in grownup clothes and have gone "calling" on a neighbour, Mrs. Benson. Being such a good neighbour (one that bought the coloured sand from the girls in an earlier chapter), Mrs. Benson plays along nicely by treating the girls as though they really were lady callers.

"I hear you bought some sand, Mrs. Benson," said Betsy in the grown-up tone.

"Yes, I did. Would you like to see it?" asked Mrs. Benson, and she went to her desk and brought out the two bottles full of sand which Betsy and Tacy had coloured, the perfume bottle with the blue coloured stopper and the big fat jar.

"Mercy, what beautiful sand!" said Betsy.

"Isn't it!" cried Mrs. Benson. "I bought it from two little girls named Betsy and Tacy."

Tacy looked up then, her blue eyes dancing into Mrs. Benson's. "I know those little girls," she said.

"I thought maybe you did," said Mrs. Benson.

After a minute Mrs. Benson asked, "Wouldn't you like some tea?"

"Tea?" asked Betsy, so surprised that she forgot to talk like her mother.

"Afternoon tea," explained Mrs. Benson. "What ladies drink when they go calling."

"Oh, of course," said Betsy. "I'd love some. Wouldn't you, Tacy?"

So Mrs. Benson gave them some tea... cambric tea, she called it, and it was delicious. They had cookies with their tea, and Betsy and Tacy nibbled them daintily. But they ate them to the very last crumb.

Taken from:
Lovelace, Maud Hart. Betsy-Tacy (1940), p. 78-79.