Little Eva #16

When Little Eva and her friend Nipper decide to make a get-well gift for their ailing classmate Susie, they enthusiastically set about baking a cake—but their creative interpretation of cooking instructions leads to hilarious mishaps in the kitchen. Between measuring flour with a ruler and seasoning with car grease, the pair manages to produce something that's edible in the most technical sense, and the results speak for themselves when they deliver their surprisingly memorable creation.

Little Eva convinces her mother that the rain is too heavy for her dancing lesson, but her clever dog Nipper Nuggin has been creating the downpour all along. When Little Eva's dancing instructor cancels the session, she rewards her furry accomplice—though his rainy scheme may not stay secret for long.

Little Ike decides the fellas have been treating Eva too rough and proposes a week of kindness—mainly because he hears she's throwing a party and wants an invitation. The boys' well-intentioned efforts to be nice keep going hilariously sideways, turning every gesture into an accidental catastrophe. Will Eva see through their scheme, or will their bumbling actually earn them a spot at her party?

Little Eva reluctantly agrees to help her friend Nipper test out his homemade green soap—a concoction that turns out to include beer and her mom's perfume—only to end up with green-stained hands and face. When flour meant to cover the stain turns to paste in the rain, she's stuck at Nipper's house looking like a walking mess, but a quick fix with a potato peeler leads to an even bigger problem when Nipper's mother mistakes the green tint for illness and calls the doctor. Just when things seem hopeless, Eva spots a fashion magazine declaring green the height of style—and suddenly her accidental look becomes the hottest trend at dancing school.

Bored and looking for entertainment, Little Eva decides to eavesdrop on a party line call between two gossipy neighbors—only to discover they're talking about her father in glowing terms. It's a quick, charming reminder that sometimes the best way to cure boredom is to mind your own business.

Little Eva's peaceful morning stroll through the park takes an unexpected turn when she ends up holding a bunch of balloons—and gets swept sky-high into the zoo! Once she lands in the lion's cage, Eva has to use her wits (and some quick thinking from her friend Nipper) to survive an encounter with a very large, very awake cat.

Little Eva decides it's time to start planning for marriage, so she converts her toy chest into a hope chest and tries on her mother's wedding dress—only to discover that the neighborhood boys have very different ideas about what her fancy outfit means. As Eva attempts to get a proposal from each of them, their misunderstandings and competing priorities lead her on a humorous chase through town that doesn't quite go the way she imagined.