Betsy adores her younger sister, Margaret, but does not really spend much time with her. Margaret is six years younger, quiet and reserved, and tends to keep to herself, preferring the company of her dog, Abie, and her cat, Washington, to a circle of friends like Betsy’s. When Margaret asks Betsy to help her throw a birthday party for the animals, Betsy is delighted to be asked, and Margaret is thrilled that Betsy has agreed.

They decide to hold the party on the Thursday in February between Abrahan Lincoln’s and George Washington’s (the animals’ namesakes) birthdays. Betsy plans decorations and a feast. But then she mostly puts the party out of her mind. When Thursday arrives, she is late coming home, having stopped at Heinz’s after school with Tib, Cab, and Dennie. When she arrives, the house is dark and somber, and Margaret can not be immediately located.

Betsy finds Margaret sobbing in her room. She had begun the party festivities without Betsy, and had attempted to light the gas stove herself. It exploded, burning and curling Margaret’s eyelashes. Luckily, her vision seems unimpaired. Lighting a gas stove of that era was a manual process, one that could be quite dangerous, especially for a ten-year-old girl.

Betsy prepares dinner and bakes a cake for Abie and Washington, but is shaken, “her conscience aching” (p. 189, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1994). She had intended to step into Julia’s shoes, once Julia left for college, and be the exemplary older sister. She realizes that she has failed, and that Margaret could have paid the price with her vision. On her knees, she promises God that she will never neglect Margaret again.

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On the gas stoves of the early 1900s, see: https://evolutionhomeappliances.weebly.com/kitchen-stoves-1900-1919-steel-gas–electricity.html, especially the units at the bottom of the page