Once out of the house, she walked slowly along through the shady orchard, swinging her sunbonnet by the strings.

After the orchard came the long leafy lane, with its double rows of cherry-trees, and then the gate at the end, leading into the public highway.
As she slipped her hand around the post to unfasten the chain that held the gate, little bare feet came pattering behind her, and a shrill voice called: "Wait, Betty, wait a minute!" It was Davy Appleton.

Betty's little lamb, they called him, and Betty's shadow, and Betty's sticking-plaster, because everywhere she went there was Davy just at her heels.
All the Appleton children were boys,--three younger and two older than Davy, whose last birthday cake should have had eight candles if there had been any celebration of the event.

But there never had been a birthday cake with candles on it on the Appleton table.

It would have been considered a foolish waste of time and money, and birthdays came and went sometimes, without the children knowing that they had passed.
Davy was a queer little fellow.