So she sat, feeling very lonesome and miserable, and "enjoying" it immensely. She need not have been lonely. She could hear the older girls and Luke laughing in the front of the house, and she would have been welcomed had she gone there. Ruth was always a comforter, and even Agnes seldom said the smallest girl nay. But Dot had managed to raise a laugh a little while before--she being the person laughed at. She chanced to hear Luke, who was running lightly over the old and yellowed keys of the piano, say: "No wonder these instruments cost so much. You know it takes several elephants alone to make these," and he struck another chord. Dot had heard about the intelligence of elephants and like most other little people believed that the great pachyderms could do almost anything. But this was too much for even Dot Kenway's belief. "Oh, Ruth! elephants can't work at that trade, can they?" she demanded. "What trade, honey?" asked the surprised older sister. "Piano making. I should think that carpenters built pianos--not elephants." Of course, the older ones had laughed, and Dot's spirits had fallen another degree, although Ruth was careful to explain to the little girl that Luke had meant it took the tusks of several elephants to fashion the ivory keys for one piano. However, Dot was in no mood for "tagging" after the older ones. She just wanted to sit still and suffer! She heard Mabel Creamer "hoo-hooing" for her from beyond the yard fence, but she would not answer. Had it not been for the Alice-doll (which of course she hugged tight to her troubled little breast) life would have scarcely seemed worth living to the smallest Corner House girl. And just then she looked up and saw a picture across the street even more woe-begone than the one she herself made. It was Sammy Pinkney, gloom corrugating his brow, an angry flush in his cheeks, and sullenly kicking the toe first of one shoe and then the other against the pickets of the fence where he stood. It was evident that Sammy had been forbidden freedom other than that of his own premises. He stared across at the smallest Corner House girl; but he was too miserable even to hail Dot. After all, it seemed to the latter, that Sammy was being inordinately punished for having given Sandyface and her family an aerial ride. Besides, misery loves company. Dot was in no mood to mingle with the joyous and free. But Sammy's state appealed to her deeply. She finally got up off the step and strolled out of the yard and across the street. "'Lo, Sammy," she said, as the boy continued to stare in another direction though knowing very well that she was present before him. "'Lo, Dot," he grumbled. "What's the matter, Sammy?" she asked. "Ain't nothin' the matter," he denied, kicking on the pickets again. "Dear me," sighed Dot, "_I_ just think _every_thing's too mean for _any_thing!" "Huh!"