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diff --git a/old/68151-0.txt b/old/68151-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c12151b..0000000 --- a/old/68151-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5363 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Early candlelight stories, by Stella -C. Shetter - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Early candlelight stories - -Author: Stella C. Shetter - -Illustrator: Dorothy Lake Gregory - -Release Date: May 22, 2022 [eBook #68151] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY CANDLELIGHT -STORIES *** - - - - - - -[Illustration: _Bobby and Alice and Pink drew their stools closer and -waited eagerly for Grandma to begin_] - - - - - EARLY CANDLELIGHT - STORIES - - _By_ - STELLA C. SHETTER - - _Illustrated by_ - DOROTHY LAKE GREGORY - - [Illustration] - - RAND McNALLY & COMPANY - CHICAGO NEW YORK - - _Copyright, 1922, by_ - RAND MCNALLY & COMPANY - - _Copyright, 1924, by_ - RAND MCNALLY & COMPANY - - [Illustration] - - Made in U.S.A. - - - - -THE CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - Grandma Arrives 9 - - A Whistling Girl 16 - - Chased by Wolves 23 - - The Yellow Gown 30 - - A War Story 37 - - Easter 45 - - At a Sugar Camp 52 - - The New Church Organ 60 - - School Days 68 - - A Birthday Party 76 - - The Locusts 83 - - The Fourth of July 92 - - The Bee Tree 99 - - Brain Against Brawn 106 - - A Wish That Came True 114 - - Joe’s Infare 122 - - Pumpkin Seed 130 - - A School for Sister Belle 138 - - Andy’s Monument 146 - - Memory Verses 155 - - The Courting of Polly Ann 163 - - Earning a Violin 171 - - At the Fair 179 - - Hallowe’en 187 - - Measles 195 - - Something to be Thankful for 203 - - Taking a Dare 210 - - Dogs 218 - - The Last Indian 226 - - A Present for Mother 234 - - A Christmas Barring Out 243 - - _A Vocabulary_ 251 - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration: _Grandma’s Room ready for the housewarming_] - - - - -EARLY CANDLELIGHT STORIES - - - - -GRANDMA ARRIVES - - -Grandma had come to spend the winter, and Bobby and Alice and Pink were -watching her fix up her room. It was the guest room, and the children -had always thought it a beautiful room, with its soft blue rug, wicker -chairs, and pretty cretonne draperies. But Grandma had had all the -furniture taken out, and the rug, carefully rolled up and wrapped in -thick paper to keep the moths out, had been carried to the attic. - -Then Grandma—but Mother called Bobby and Alice and Pink to come and get -their wraps and go out to play a while. - -Grandma, seeing them edge reluctantly toward the head of the stairs, said -cheerfully, as she bustled about unpacking the great box that held her -“things,” “Never mind, dears. Run out and play now, and tonight we’ll -have a regular housewarming. Come to my room at seven o’clock and we -will have a little party.” - -Just as the clock in the hall downstairs struck the first stroke of -seven, Alice rapped loudly on Grandma’s door. - -Grandma opened the door immediately and the children stepped in—then -stared in astonishment. They had never seen a room like this before. -In place of the blue rug was a gayly colored rag carpet. The bed, to -which had been added a feather tick, was twice as high as any they had -ever seen. It was covered with a handmade coverlet of blue and white. -Patchwork cushions were on the chairs, and crocheted covers on bureau -and chiffonier. The windows were filled with blooming geraniums, and in -one window hung a canary in a gilt cage. On a round braided rug before -the fire lay a gray cat, asleep. By a low rocker stood a little table -that held a work basket running over with bright-colored patches, bits of -lace, balls of scarlet yarn, knitting needles, pieces of velvet, silk, -and wool. On the chiffonier stood a basket filled with big, red apples, -polished till they shone, and beside the apples was a plate covered with -a napkin. - -“Well, well,” said Grandma, “here you are, every one of you! Just on -time, too. Come right in and see my house and meet my family. This is -Betsy.” She touched the cat gently and Betsy lifted her head and started -to purr. “I raised her from a kitten and brought her here in a basket all -the way on the train. One conductor wouldn’t let me keep her in the coach -with me, so I went out and rode in the baggage car with Betsy.” - -“Did you bring the bird, too?” asked Pink, smoothing Betsy’s fur. - -“No, I just got the bird a little while ago. He hasn’t even a name yet. -I thought maybe I’d call him Dicky. That’s a nice name for a bird, don’t -you think so? My baby sent me the bird and the flowers, too. Aren’t they -lovely?” - -“Have you a baby, Grandma?” asked Alice, looking around the room -wonderingly. - -“Yes, I have a baby, but he isn’t little any more. Still he is my baby -all the same, the youngest of my ten children. Wasn’t it thoughtful of -him to send me the bird and the flowers?” - -Alice and Bobby and Pink looked at one another. They knew their daddy -had sent the flowers, for they had heard Grandma thank him for them. -The idea of their big, broad-shouldered daddy being anyone’s baby seemed -funny to them, and they giggled. - -“Say, Grandma, he’s some baby, all right,” Bobby remarked. - -“You can’t rock him to sleep the way I do my baby,” observed Pink. - -“Not now, but I used to,” said Grandma. Then she brought three stools -from the corner—low, round stools covered with carpet. “You children sit -on these stools and I’ll sit in this chair and we’ll spend the evening -getting acquainted. You must tell me all about yourselves.” - -The children told Grandma about their school and their playmates, their -dog and their playhouse, about how they went camping in summer time and -what they did on Christmas and Easter, and about the flying machine -that flew over the town on the Fourth of July, and about the Sunday -school picnic. When they finally stopped, breathless, Grandma looked so -impressed that Bobby said pityingly, “You didn’t have so many things to -do when you were little, did you, Grandma?” - -“Well, now, I don’t know about that,” Grandma answered slowly. “We didn’t -have the same things to do, but we had good times, too.” - -“Tell us about them,” Alice begged. - -“When I was a little girl,” Grandma began, “I lived in the country on -a large farm. All around our house were fields and woods. You might -think I would have been lonely, but I never was. You see, I had always -lived there. Then I had six older brothers and sisters, and one brother, -Charlie, was just two years older than I was. And there were so many -things to do! The horses to ride to water and the cows to bring from the -pasture field. On cool mornings Charlie and I would stand on the spots -where the cows had lain all night, to get our feet warm before starting -back home. I had a pet lamb that followed me wherever I went, and we had -a dog—old Duke. He helped us get the cows and kept the chickens out of -the yard and barked when a stranger came in sight. And when the dinner -bell by the kitchen door rang, how he did howl! - -“And the cats! You never saw such cats, they were so fat and round and -sleek. No wonder, for they had milk twice a day out of a hollow rock -that stood by the barnyard gate. - -“And birds were everywhere. Near the well, high in the air, fastened to a -long pole, was a bird house. Truman and Joe had made it, and it was just -like a little house, with tiny windows and doors and a wee bit of a porch -where the birds would sit to sun themselves. - -“Then there were the chickens to look after, often a hundred baby chicks -to feed and put in their coops at night. And in the spring what fun we -had hunting turkey hens’ nests! In February we tapped the sugar trees and -boiled down the sap into maple sugar and sirup. We had Easter egg hunts -and school Christmas treats, and in the fall we gathered in the nuts for -winter—chestnuts, hickory nuts, walnuts.” - -Grandma paused a moment and glanced at the clock on the mantel. - -“Dear me,” she exclaimed in surprise, “see what time it is! We must have -our refreshments right away. Bobby, will you pass the apples? And, Alice, -under the napkin are some ginger cookies that I brought with me. You may -pass them, please, and Pink and I will be the company. - -“These apples,” went on Grandma, helping herself to one, “are out of my -orchard. I sent two barrels of them to your daddy, and every night before -we go to bed we will each eat one. ‘An apple a day,’ you know, ‘keeps the -doctor away.’” - -When they had finished and were saying good night, Bobby said, “Lots of -things did happen when you were a little girl, Grandma. I wish you’d tell -us more.” - -“Not tonight,” said Grandma, “It’s bedtime now, but come back some other -night. If you still want me to tell you more about when I was a little -girl, tap on my door three times, like this, but if you only come to -call, tap once, like this.” - -Next time we’ll see how often they tapped on Grandma’s door. Can you -guess? - - - - -A WHISTLING GIRL - - -The next evening as Grandma sat before the fire knitting on a red mitten, -she was startled by three sharp knocks on her door. - -“Why, good evening,” she said, when she had opened the door to admit -Bobby and Alice and Pink. “Here you are wanting a story, and I haven’t -thought of a thing to tell you. Now you tell me what happened at school -today, and by that time I shall have thought of something to tell you.” - -So Alice told Grandma about chapel that morning. She told her about the -recitations and songs by the children and of a lady who had whistled “The -Star-Spangled Banner” and “America.” - -“Well, well, wasn’t that nice!” Grandma said. “I should have liked to -hear that. I always admired to hear any one whistle. I believe I’ll tell -you tonight about the time I whistled in meeting.” - -The children drew their stools a little closer, and Grandma began: - -“When I was a little girl, I wanted more than anything else to be able -to whistle. I kept this ambition to myself because it wasn’t considered -ladylike for girls to whistle. My mother often said, - - “A whistling girl and a crowing hen - Always come to some bad end.” - -“So I never told anyone, not even my brother Charlie, that I wanted to -whistle. But when I hunted turkey hens’ nests, or went after the cows, or -picked berries, I had my lips pursed all the time trying to whistle as my -brothers did. But, though I tried and tried, I never succeeded in making -a sound. - -“One Sunday in meeting I got awfully tired. To a little girl the sermons -were very long and tiresome in those days. For a while I sat still and -quiet, watching Preacher Hill’s beard jerk up and down as he talked and -looking at the queer shadows his long coat tails made on the wall. But it -was warm and close in the church, and after a while I grew drowsy. - -“‘Oh, dear!’ I thought to myself, ‘I mustn’t go to sleep. I must keep -awake somehow.’ Then I thought about whistling. I would practice -whistling to myself—under my breath. - -“The seats were high-backed and we sat far to the front. I could not -see any one except the preacher and John Strang, who kept company with -sister Belle. John sat in a chair at the end of the choir facing the -congregation, and several times I noticed him looking curiously at me as -if he wondered what I was doing. I would draw in my breath very slowly -and then let it out again. Of course I never dreamed of making a sound, -and no one could have been more surprised than I was when there came from -my lips a loud clear whistle as sweet as a bird note. - -“The preacher stopped talking. Mother looked embarrassed. Father’s face -turned red with mortification. Sister Belle put her handkerchief up to -her face, and Charlie sat up as straight and stiff as if he had swallowed -a ramrod. - -“As for me, I wished I could sink through the floor and disappear. -I thought everybody was looking right at me. I was sorry and I was -frightened, too. What would Father and Mother say to me? - -“When preaching was over, all of us except Mother went right out to the -sled and wrapped up in comforts and robes for the cold ride home. Mother -stayed behind to visit and invite people home to dinner just as she -always did. I was glad when we started. It was a dreary ride. Father -drove, and he sat so stern and silent that no one dared to speak. - -[Illustration: “_I drew in my breath very slowly and then let it out -again_”] - -“I hurried right upstairs to change my dress as I always did. Then, -because I was so miserable, I threw myself across my bed and cried. I -had disgraced Father and Mother. Nothing that they could do would be bad -enough for me. I was aroused by sister Belle’s voice. She was complaining -to sister Aggie, who had stayed at home to get dinner. - -“‘I don’t see why Charlie can’t behave himself once in a while. Now our -whole day is spoiled, and I had asked John and Isabel for dinner, too. -You know how sad it always makes Father if he has to punish one of the -boys, and the worst of it is that Charlie denies doing it. I could shake -Charlie good myself. You can’t believe, Aggie, how everyone looked at us. -I was that ashamed!’ - -“Charlie being accused in place of me! This was something that I had -never dreamed of. I jumped up and rushed past the two girls downstairs, -through the empty sitting room into the kitchen, where Mother stood -looking out a window, still in her gray silk dress. I caught her hand. - -“‘Charlie didn’t do it, Mother,’ I said. ‘I did it.’ - -“‘Oh, Sarah, you cannot whistle, dear,’ said Mother reproachfully. She -drew me to her and smoothed my hair and tried to comfort me, but I -broke away from her and ran into the kitchen chamber where Father sat -talking to Charlie. Father looked stern and Charlie sulky and cross, and -no wonder, poor boy, for he was guilty of enough things without being -accused of something he did not do. - -“‘Father!’ I cried wildly. ‘Charlie did not whistle in meeting. I did -it.’ - -“Mother and the girls had followed me, and they all, even Charlie, stared -at me in amazement. It was plain they did not believe me. They thought I -was trying to shield Charlie. - -“‘I did whistle,’ I said, crying. ‘I can whistle. I tell you I can -whistle.’ - -“‘Then whistle,’ said Father sternly. - -“And how I did try to whistle! I puffed my cheeks and twisted and turned -my mouth and blew and blew, but I couldn’t make a sound, not a single -sound. - -“Father looked so hurt and sorry that I longed to throw myself into his -arms and make him believe me. You see, it looked to Father as if Charlie -and I were both telling stories. Father said we were only making things -worse and ordered us all out of the room. - -“In the sitting room we found Truman and Joe, who had been tending the -horses, and John and Isabel Strang, who had come around past their house -to let their family out of the sled before coming on to our house for -dinner. - -“The minute I saw John I drew Mother’s head down and whispered to her, -‘Ask John. He knows, he saw me do it;’ and Mother in a hesitating way -said, ‘John, do you know who whistled in meeting this morning?’ - -“John turned as red as our old turkey gobbler and looked at me. - -“‘Why, I feel pretty sure,’ he said, ‘but I’d hate to say.’ - -“‘Oh, never mind that!’ I burst out. ‘I’ve told, and they won’t believe I -can whistle. They think it was Charlie.’ - -“Then, of course, John told all he knew. He had been watching me all the -time, as I had thought, and was looking right at me when I whistled. -Father was called in, and you may be sure he was glad to find that both -his children had been telling the truth. - -“‘It’s all right, Sarah,’ he said, ‘if you didn’t mean to.’ But Mother -made me promise not to try to whistle any more. - -“Well, I declare! I finished just on time. Mother’s calling you to bed. -Here, don’t forget your ‘apple a day.’ Now run along like good children, -and some other time I’ll tell you another story.” - - - - -CHASED BY WOLVES - - -“Seems to me you kiddies go to bed earlier than you used to,” their -father remarked one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink interrupted his -reading to kiss him good night. - -“We don’t go to bed,” Pink explained. “We go to Grandma’s room. She tells -us a story every night.” - -“Why, of course, I remember now. Isn’t that fine, though? A story every -night! Did she ever tell you a wolf story? Grandma knows a pippin of a -wolf story. She used to tell it to me when I was a little boy. Ask her to -tell you about the time she was chased by wolves.” - -And a few minutes later Grandma began the story. - -“It was in the spring. Father was making garden, and he broke the hoe -handle. All the boys were away from home helping a neighbor, so Father -wanted Aggie or Belle to take the hoe to have a handle put in at the -blacksmith shop at Nebo Cross Roads a mile away. But the girls were -getting ready to go to a quilting, and I begged to be allowed to take -the hoe to the blacksmith shop. - -“Mother was afraid at first, but Father said there was nothing to hurt -me, and Mother finally gave in. So right after dinner, carrying the hoe -and a poke of cookies to eat if I got hungry, I started out. - -“I was to leave the hoe at the shop and go on down the road to Strangs’ -to wait till the hoe was mended. I can remember yet how important I felt -going off alone like that. I picked wild flowers and munched cookies and -sang all the songs I knew. - -“Mr. Carson, the blacksmith, said it would be a couple of hours before -the hoe would be ready, and I went down to Strangs’ to wait. But when I -got there I found the house all locked up and no one at home. I sat down -on the steps to wait for some one to come, but the heat and the quiet -made me sleepy so I got up and moved around the yard. I was lonely there -by myself. I walked around looking at the flowers and the garden and the -chickens and played a while with a kitten I found sleeping in the sun. -I thought that afternoon would never end. Surely I had been there two -hours. I started for the blacksmith shop. Maybe it would be closed. I -ran all the way. Mr. Carson looked surprised when I asked for the hoe. - -[Illustration: _I played a while with a kitten_] - -“‘Why, it’s only been a half-hour since you went away,’ he said. - -“I went back to Strangs’, and this time I was determined to wait a -long time. After a while Isabel Strang came home. She had been at the -quilting, but all the rest of the family had gone away to stay several -days. Isabel was going to our house to spend the night if she got through -the evening’s work in time. She had come past our house, and Mother had -told her to keep me all night with her for company if she could not get -back before dark and to send me home early in the morning. - -“Isabel hurried, and while she milked the cows and fed the pigs and -chickens and got supper I went after the hoe. - -“It was growing late when we were ready to start home, but Isabel said we -could make it before dark. - -“We followed the road half a mile and then took a short cut through the -woods up Sugar Creek. We had come out of the woods and were halfway -across a big pasture field when from behind us we heard a sound that made -us stop in terror. We listened. It came again. It was the cry of a wolf! -I had often heard a wolf howl, but I had always been safe at home, and -even then it had scared me. - -“Again and again came the long drawn-out howl from the woods we had just -left. - -“Isabel took my hand and we ran as fast as we could toward the little -creek that ran through the field. It had been years and years since a -pack of wolves had been seen in our neighborhood, but before we reached -the foot-log another howl and another and another had been added to the -first. - -“Looking back over my shoulder as I ran, I saw a skulking form come out -of the woods and start across the field. Isabel saw it, too. - -“‘We’ll have to stop, Sarah,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to climb a tree.’ - -“There was a slender young hickory a little this side of the run. Isabel -lifted me as high as she could and I caught a branch and pulled myself up -into the tree. I turned to help Isabel when, to my horror, I saw that she -could never make it. A whole pack of wolves loping across the field were -almost upon her. - -“Catching up the hoe, Isabel ran for the foot-log. She had barely reached -the middle of it when the wolves halted at the creek bank. A few of them -had stopped at my tree and were howling up at me. If all had stopped, -it would have given Isabel a chance to get into one of the trees on the -other side of the creek. - -“But she couldn’t do it now. She walked back and forth on the log, -brandishing the hoe in the cruel eyes of the wolves. The wolves that had -stopped under my tree soon joined their friends on the bank, and Isabel -called out to me, ‘Do not make any noise, Sarah, and they will forget you -are there.’ I remembered hearing my father tell about some wolves that -had gnawed a young tree in two, and I clung there in fear and trembling. - -“Isabel held her own all right until one of the bolder wolves swam across -the creek and was soon followed by others. Then Isabel had to fight them -at both ends of the foot-log. It was dark now, and Isabel, striking at -the wolves from first one side and then the other, tried to cheer me up -all the time. - -“‘Help will soon come, don’t be afraid,’ she said over and over again. -She even tried to make me laugh by saying, ‘Now watch me hit this saucy -old fellow on the nose. There, that surprised you, didn’t it, Mr. Wolf?’ -as she hit him a sharp blow and he fell back. - -“What if the wolves should leap on Isabel? Or she might get dizzy -and fall in the water. When would help come to us in this lonely, -out-of-the-way place? My folks would think I had stayed the night with -Isabel, and there was no one at home at Isabel’s. - -“Dared I get down and go for help? I peered through the darkness and -shook all over when I thought that more wolves might be hidden there. -Hardly knowing what I did, I let myself down to the lower limb and then -dropped with a soft thud to the ground. - -“Without waiting a second I started back the way we had come. How I ran -and ran! I was nearly through the woods when I heard something running -behind me. I went faster and it went faster, too. Suddenly I tripped and -fell and I heard a friendly little whinny at my side. It was our pet -colt that had been running behind me. I put my arm around his neck for -a second until I got my breath. Then I climbed the fence and was on the -road. - -“I wasn’t quite so afraid here as I had been in the woods, but I never -stopped running till I got home. I was so worn out that I fell panting on -the kitchen floor, but I made them understand Isabel’s danger. Father and -the boys caught up their guns and went hurrying across the hill to her -aid. - -“They drove the wolves away and brought Isabel home in safety, and that -was the last pack of wolves ever seen around there. - -“Well, well, see what time it is! Now run along to bed and go right to -sleep without talking the least little bit, or I’m afraid Mother won’t -let you come to see me tomorrow evening. That would be a pity, for I’ve -got the best story for tomorrow evening about—well, you just wait and -see.” - - - - -THE YELLOW GOWN - - -The next evening when the children came to Grandma’s room Bobby brought -his new sweater—black with broad yellow stripes—to show her. - -“Yellow,” said Grandma admiringly. “I always did like yellow, it’s such a -cheerful color. The first really pretty dress I ever had was yellow. - -“It was just about this shade, maybe a mite deeper—more of an orange -color. It was worsted—a very fine piece of all-wool cashmere. Until then -I had never had anything but dark wool dresses—browns or blues made from -the older girls’ dresses—and I did love bright colors. - -“Sister Belle was to be married in the spring and all winter Mother and -Belle and Aggie had sewed on her new clothes. Nearly everything was ready -but the wedding gown, and it was to be a present from Father’s younger -sister, Aunt Louisa, who lived in Clayville. - -“Belle was delighted, because she said Aunt Louisa would be sure to pick -something new and stylish. - -“My big brother, Stanley, went to Clayville one cold, snowy day in -February, and Aunt Louisa sent the dress goods out by him. I remember we -were at supper when he came. I had the toothache and was holding a bag of -hot salt to my face and trying to eat at the same time. - -“Mother ran to take Stanley’s bundles and help him off with his -great-coat, and Aggie set a place at the table for him. But before he sat -down he tossed a package to Belle. ‘From Aunt Louisa,’ he said. - -“Belle gave a cry of delight and tore the package open. Then suddenly the -happy look faded from her face. She pushed the package aside and, laying -her head right down on the table among the dishes, she burst into tears. - -“Aunt Louisa had sent Belle a yellow wedding dress! - -“When Mother held it up for us to see, I thought it was the most -beautiful color I had ever seen and wondered why Belle cried. I soon -learned. - -“Belle had light brown hair and freckles, and yellow was not becoming to -her. To prove it, she held the goods up to her face. - -“‘It does make your hair look dead and sort of colorless,’ Aggie agreed. - -“‘And your freckles stand out as if they were starting to meet a fellow,’ -Charlie put in. - -“At this Belle began to cry again, and Father said that she did not have -to wear a yellow dress to be married in if she didn’t want to. She should -have a white dress. But this didn’t seem to comfort Belle a bit, for she -declared that she wouldn’t hurt Aunt Louisa’s feelings by not wearing the -yellow. - -“My tooth got worse, and for the next few days I could think of nothing -else. Mother poulticed my jaw and put medicine in my tooth, but nothing -helped it. I cried and cried and couldn’t sleep at night, and Mother -couldn’t sleep. At last she told Father that he would have to take me to -Clayville to have the tooth pulled. There was fine sledding, and early -the next morning Father and I set out. The last thing Mother said to -Father, as she put a hot brick to my feet and wrapped me, head and all, -in a thick comfort, was, ‘As soon as the tooth is out, John, take her -over to Louisa’s till you get ready to start home.’ - -“The roads were smooth as glass, Father was a fast driver, and it didn’t -seem long till we got to town. My tooth was soon out—it hardly hurt at -all—and then Father took me to Aunt Louisa’s. We all liked Aunt Louisa. -She was very fond of children and had none of her own. - -[Illustration: _The roads were smooth as glass, Father was a fast driver_] - -“After dinner we sat by the sitting-room fire and Aunt Louisa cut paper -dolls out of stiff writing paper for me and made pink tissue paper -dresses for them. The dresses were pasted on. I could not take them off -and put them on as Alice and Pink do theirs. - -“As she worked, Aunt Louisa asked me about everything at home and about -Belle’s clothes and the wedding. - -“‘Has she got her wedding dress made yet?’ she asked. - -“‘No, ma’am’, I replied, ‘she says she can’t bear to cut into it. She -hates the very sight of it.’ - -“‘Well, I declare!’ exclaimed Aunt Louisa in surprise. - -“‘It doesn’t become her,’ I explained carefully. ‘She says it makes her -look a sickly green.’ And then I went on to tell Aunt Louisa everything -they had all said, and ended up with, ‘Belle says she won’t hold John to -his promise to marry her until he has seen her in that yellow dress.’ - -“‘What does she wear it for if she doesn’t like it?’ asked Aunt Louisa -tartly. - -“‘Father said she didn’t have to wear it if she didn’t want to, that if -she wanted to be married in white, he’d get her a white dress. But Belle -said she wouldn’t hurt your feelings by not wearing it for anything in -the world.’ - -“Suddenly Aunt Louisa began to laugh. She threw her head back and laughed -and laughed and laughed. I didn’t know what to make of her. - -“‘I think it’s a beautiful color,’ I said consolingly. - -“‘And you could wear it, too, with your dark hair and eyes and fair skin. -What was I thinking about to send a color like that to poor Belle? I’ll -tell you!’ she cried, jumping up and letting my paper dolls fall to the -floor. ‘I’ll buy another dress for Belle, and you shall have the yellow -one, Sarah.’ - -“She left me in the kitchen with Mettie, the hired girl, while she went -over town. Mettie was baking cookies, and she let me dust the sugar on -and put the raisins in the middle and I had a real nice time. - -“The second dress was white cashmere with bands of pearl trimming and -wide silk lace for the neck and wrists. - -“When Aunt Louisa kissed me good-by, she whispered in my ear, ‘Tell Belle -the trimming is because she was so thoughtful about hurting my feelings -and I want her to look her best on her wedding day. And, Sarah, tell your -mother to make up the yellow for you with a high shirred waist and low -round neck. That is the newest style for children. And be sure to tell -her I said not to dare put it in the dye pot.’ - -“As soon as we got home I gave the new dress to Belle. Mother was -astonished, and Belle looked ready to cry again, till Father told them -Aunt Louisa wasn’t offended at all. Then Mother was pleased, and Belle -was simply wild about the new dress. - -“‘Take the yellow and welcome to it, Sarah,’ she said to me when I had -told her Aunt Louisa wanted me to have it. - -“‘I’ll have to color it,’ Mother said, ‘She couldn’t wear that ridiculous -shade.’ - -“‘No, no, Mother, please don’t!’ I cried. ‘Aunt Louisa said not to dye -it. She said it would become me the way it is.’ - -“‘Tush, tush!’ said Mother severely, ‘You are too little to talk of -things becoming you.’ But she didn’t dye it, and a few weeks later at -sister Belle’s wedding I wore the yellow dress made just the way Aunt -Louisa said to make it. - -“And now, ‘To bed, to bed, says sleepy head,’ and we’ll have another -story some other night.” - - - - -A WAR STORY - - -“Well, well,” said Grandma one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink came -to her room for their usual bedtime story, “I don’t know what to tell you -about tonight.” - -“Tell us a war story,” suggested Bobby eagerly. - -“Maybe I might tell you a war story,” agreed Grandma, “a war story of a -time long ago.” And she picked up her knitting and began slowly: - -“When the Civil War broke out I was a very little girl. Of course there -had been lots of talk of war, but the first thing I remember about it -was when we heard that Fort Sumter had been fired on. It was a bright, -sunshiny morning in the spring. I was helping Father rake the dead leaves -off the garden when I saw a man coming up the road on horseback. I told -Father, and he dropped his rake and went over to the fence. In those days -it wasn’t as it is now. News traveled slowly—no telephones, no trains, -no buggies. And this young man, who had been to Clayville to get his -marriage license, brought us the news that Fort Sumter had been fired on. - -“Father went straight into the house to tell Mother, and after a while he -and my big brother, Joe, saddled their horses and rode away. I thought -they were going right off to war and started to cry, and then I laughed -instead when our big Dominique rooster flew up on the hen-house roof, -flapped his wings, and crowed and crowed. A great many men and boys rode -by our house that day on their way to Clayville, and when Father and Joe -came back next day Joe had volunteered and been accepted and he stayed at -home only long enough to pack his clothes and say good-by to us. - -“There wasn’t much sleep in our house that night, and I lay in my -trundle-bed, beside Father’s and Mother’s bed, and listened to them -talking, talking, until I thought it must surely be morning. I went to -sleep and wakened again and they were still talking. Finally I could hear -Father’s regular breathing and knew that he had gone to sleep at last. In -a little bit Mother slipped out of bed and went into the hall. I thought -she was going for a drink and followed her, but she went into Stanley’s -room, which had been Joe’s room, too, until that night. - -“Mother bent over Stanley and spoke his name softly and he wakened and -started up in bed. - -“‘What is it, Mother?’ he whispered, frightened. - -“‘Stanley,’ Mother said slowly, ‘I want you to promise me that you won’t -go to war without my consent.’ - -“Stanley laughed out loud in relief. - -“‘Gee, Mother, you gave me a scare!’ he said. ‘I thought some one was -sick or something. The war’ll be over long before I’m old enough to go.’ -He was going on sixteen then. - -“‘It won’t do any harm to promise then,’ Mother persisted, and Stanley -promised. - -“I crept back to bed and pulled the covers up over my head. - -“But Stanley was mistaken about the war being over soon. The war didn’t -stop. It went on and on. Two years and more passed, and Stanley was -eighteen. Boys of that age were being accepted for service, but Stanley -never said a word about volunteering. - -“Shortly after his eighteenth birthday there came a change in him. He -was not like himself at all. He had always been a lively boy, full of -fun and mischief, but now he was very quiet. He never mentioned the war -any more, and often dashed out of the room when every one was talking -excitedly about the latest news from the battlefield. He avoided the -soldiers home on furlough, didn’t seem to care to read Joe’s letters, and -as more and more of his friends enlisted he became gloomy and downhearted. - -“We could all see as time went on that Father was disappointed in -Stanley. He was always saying how much better it was for a young man to -enlist than to wait for the draft. The very word ‘draft’ had for Father a -disgraceful sound. - -“I think Mother must have thought it was Stanley’s promise to her that -was worrying him, for one day she came out to the barn where Stanley was -shelling corn and I was picking out the biggest grains to play ‘Fox and -Geese’ with. Mother told Stanley she released him from his promise, but -he didn’t seem glad at all. He only said, ‘Don’t you worry, Mother, I’m -not going to war.’ - -“‘I was troubled about Joe that night,’ Mother said. ‘I thought I -couldn’t bear for you to go, too. But you are older now and you must do -what you think best.’ - -[Illustration: _One day two recruiting officers came out to Nebo Cross -Roads_] - -“As Mother went out of the barn there were tears in her eyes and I knew -in that moment that she would rather have Stanley go to war than have him -afraid to go. - -“They were forming a new company in Clayville, and one day two recruiting -officers came out to Nebo Cross Roads. Father let Truman take Charlie -and me over to see them. It was raining, and I can see those two men yet -standing there in the rain. One had a flute and the other had a drum. -They played reveille and taps and guard mount and ‘The Star-Spangled -Banner’ and a new song we had never heard before, ‘Tenting on the Old -Camp Ground.’ And how that music stirred the folks! They had to use two -wagons to haul the recruits into Clayville that night. - -“That evening when I was hunting eggs in the barn I found Stanley lying -face down in the hay. He was crying! I could hardly believe my eyes. I -went a little nearer and I saw for sure that his shoulders were shaking -with sobs. But even while I watched him he got to his feet and began -rubbing his right arm. I often saw Stanley working with his arm. He would -rub it and swing it backward and forward and strike out with his fist -as if he were going to hit some one a blow. He didn’t mind me watching -him, and I never told anyone about it. He had broken that arm the winter -before, and I had often seen him working with it after he had stopped -wearing it in a sling. - -“I wondered to myself why, if Father and Mother thought Stanley was -afraid to fight, they did not ask him and find out. He knew why he didn’t -enlist—he could tell them. At last I decided if they wouldn’t do it -themselves I’d do it for them. So the next time I was alone with Stanley, -I said, ‘Stanley, are you afraid to go to war?’ - -“‘Afraid!’ he cried angrily, ‘Who said I was afraid?’ Then his tone -changed. ‘They don’t want me. They won’t have me. It’s this arm,’ and he -held his right arm out and looked at it in a disgusted sort of way. ‘They -claim it’s stiff, but I could shoot if they would only give me a chance. -I’ve tried three times to get in, but there’s no use worrying Mother -about it since I can’t go. But my arm is getting better. It’s not nearly -as stiff as it was. I’ll get in yet.’ Then he looked at me scornfully and -said, ‘Afraid! Afraid nothing!’ - -“I ran as fast as ever I could to find Father and Mother and tell them. -Mother hugged me and laughed and cried at the same time and said she -always knew it, and Father made me tell over to him three times, word for -word, every single thing Stanley had said. - -“‘He must never know,’ Mother said. ‘He must never suspect for a minute -that we thought he didn’t want to go, the poor dear boy, keeping his -trouble to himself for fear of worrying us.’ And she told me to get -Charlie and catch a couple of chickens to fry for supper. Then I knew she -was happy again, for whenever Mother was happy or specially pleased with -one of us she always had something extra good to eat. - -“Pass the apples, Alice, please, and tomorrow night if you’re real good -and don’t get kept in at school I’ll tell you—well, you just be real good -and you’ll see what I’ll tell you about.” - - - - -EASTER - - -It was the night before Easter. Grandma had told Bobby and Alice and Pink -of the first Easter, and had explained about the egg being the symbol of -life because it contains everything necessary for the awakening of new -life. - -“When I was a little girl,” she said, “we had lots of chickens and of -course we had lots of eggs. We got so many eggs that we could not use -them all—not even if Mother made custards and omelets and angel cake -every day. - -“Father or the boys would take the eggs we did not need to the store and -trade them for sugar or coffee or pepper or rice. But for quite a while -before Easter they did not take any eggs to the store. - -“It was a custom for the children to hide all the eggs that were laid -for a couple of weeks before Easter. Father and Mother had done it when -they were little, and all the boys and girls who went to our school did -it, too. We would bring them in Easter morning and count them. Each -of us might keep the eggs we found to sell, and Father always gave a -fifty-cent piece to the one who had the most eggs. Even the big boys and -Aggie and Belle hid eggs, for money was scarce and sometimes the egg -money amounted to a good deal. We were allowed to keep all the eggs we -found, no matter to whom they belonged and how we hunted. - -“We searched in the hen house, the barn, the haymow, in old barrels and -boxes, in fence corners, and even in the wood-box behind the kitchen -stove. One spring a brown leghorn hen slipped into the kitchen every -other day and laid in the wood-box. You never could tell where a hen -might lay, so we looked every place we could think of. - -“It was an early spring. The trees were bursting into leaf, the grass -was green, the beautiful yellow Easter flowers in the front yard were in -bloom. Best of all, the hens had never been known to lay so many eggs -before. - -“It seemed that every one of us wanted something that the egg money -would buy. Truman was going away to school, and he wanted books. Belle -was going to be married, and she wanted all the money she could get for -pretty clothes. Stanley wanted a new saddle for his courting colt. When -the boys turned eighteen, Father gave each one of them a colt to tame and -break and have for his own, and they were called the courting colts. I -wanted the egg money for a lovely wax doll like one I had seen in a store -in Clayville, and if Charlie got it he meant to spend it for a gun. Aggie -wanted to buy a pair of long lace mitts to wear to Belle’s wedding. So we -all hunted and hunted, each one thinking of what he would buy with the -money. - -“Once for three days I didn’t have an egg. Then I found a great basketful -that was so heavy I could hardly carry it to a new hiding place, and the -next day it was gone. So it went on till Easter. - -“Charlie and I were up bright and early on Easter morning—not as early -as on Christmas, of course. As we all brought in our eggs Father counted -them. The kitchen floor was covered with baskets and buckets and boxes -of eggs. You never saw so many eggs. Charlie had the most, and he was as -happy as happy could be. - -“While Mother and the girls finished getting breakfast, Charlie and I -hunted for the colored eggs. Under beds, behind doors, in the cupboards, -all over the house we hunted. - -“‘Here they are!’ shouted Charlie from the spare chamber. And there they -were behind the bureau—red eggs, blue eggs, green eggs, big sugar eggs, -and eggs with pretty pictures pasted on them and tied with gay ribbons. -And there were white eggs that looked just like common hen’s eggs, but -when you broke a tiny bit of the shell and put your tongue to it, my, oh -my! but that maple sugar was delicious! - -“After breakfast there was a rush to get the work done and get ready for -meeting. Dear knows how many people would come home to dinner with us. -Mother always asked everyone home to dinner. - -“We were nearly ready. Mother had picked the lovely, yellow Easter -flowers and was wrapping the stems in wet paper to keep them from wilting -till we got to the church—she meant to put them in a vase on the pulpit -stand—when Father came in and said that the widow Spear’s new house -had burned down in the night. There was something the matter with the -chimney, no one knew just what. - -“Mr. Abraham Harvey had told Father. The Spear family had taken refuge -in a little old house that they had lived in before they built the new -house. But of course they had nothing to keep house with, and Mr. Harvey -was going around in a big wagon collecting things. There were some pieces -of old furniture in the wagon, and several bundles of bedclothes and a -box of dishes. - -“Father gave flour and meat and potatoes and a ham. Mother emptied the -shelves of our Easter pies and took the chicken in the pot right off the -stove, besides giving bread and a crock of apple butter. - -“Then she wrapped up a pair of blankets she had woven herself and sent -Charlie and Truman to carry out some chairs and a bedstead that were up -in the meathouse loft. Belle and Aggie were sorting out some old clothes -to send, and I wanted to do something, too. - -“As I was going through the kitchen on an errand for Mother, I noticed -the eggs. Such a lot of them—nearly fifty dozen, and they brought ten -cents a dozen. Just then Charlie passed the door carrying a chair, and I -called to him. - -“‘Charlie,’ I said, ‘would you give your egg money if I gave mine?’ - -“‘No,’ he said at once, ‘I won’t give my egg money. Not on your life, I -won’t! Father and Mother’ll give enough,’ and he went out. - -“I didn’t say any more about the egg money. I didn’t think it would be -fair to Charlie, since he was the one who had the most eggs. I went -upstairs to Mother’s room and took my gold breastpin out of the fat -pincushion on her bureau. - -“‘Here is my breastpin, Mother,’ I said. ‘Send it to Millie. Everything -she’ll get will be so plain and ugly.’ - -“Aggie and Belle laughed. - -“‘A breastpin,’ said Aggie, ‘when very likely she has no dress!’ - -“‘It’s all right, Sarah,’ said Mother, and she went to her bureau drawer -and took out a fine linen handkerchief and laid it on the bed beside the -breastpin. When she came to get them, Aggie had given a carved back comb -and Belle a pretty lace collar. - -“Mr. Harvey was starting his horses and Father had come inside the gate -when Charlie ran around the house. - -“‘Give them my egg money, Father!’ he called and ran out of sight again. -Then all the rest of us said we would give our egg money, too, and it -made a lot—over five dollars. - -“‘I’m proud of you,’ Mother said when she had hunted Charlie up and was -tying his necktie. ‘I’m proud of every one of my children.’ - -“We were a little late to meeting, and when we got home Belle had dinner -ready—ham meat and cream gravy and mashed potatoes and hot biscuits. -Mother brought out a plate of fruit cake that she kept in a big stone jar -for special occasions—the longer she kept it the better it got—and a dish -of pickled peaches for dessert.” - -“Mm! mm! Wish I’d been there,” sighed Bobby. - -“And next time,” Grandma went on, “I think—yes, I’m pretty sure—that I’ll -tell you how the maple sugar got in the Easter eggs.” - - - - -AT A SUGAR CAMP - - -“Grandma,” said Alice the next evening, “you said you’d tell us how the -sugar got in the Easter egg.” - -“And so I will,” answered Grandma. “I’ll tell you about that this very -evening. Where’s my knitting? I can talk so much better when I knit. -There now, are you all ready?” - -Bobby and Alice and Pink drew their stools closer and Grandma began: - -“On my father’s farm, about half a mile from our house, was a grove of -maple trees. We always called them sugar trees. In the spring, you know, -the sweet juice or sap comes up from the roots into the trees, and it is -from this sap that maple sirup and sugar are made. In the spring Father -and the boys would tap our sugar trees. They would take elder branches -and make spouts by removing the pithy centers. Then they would bore holes -in the trees and put the spouts in the holes and place buckets underneath -to catch the sap. These buckets would have to be emptied several times a -day into the big brass kettle, where it was boiled down into sirup and -sugar. - -“Truman tended to the sap buckets and kept a supply of firewood on hand, -and Stanley watched the boiling of the sap. He knew just when it was -thick enough and sweet enough to take off for sirup and how much longer -to cook it for sugar. One of the girls was always there to help, and -Father or Mother would oversee it all. - -“There was a one-roomed log cabin with a great fireplace in the maple -grove. It had been built years and years before by some early settler -and was never occupied except during sugar-making time. The girls would -go up the week before and clean it out, and Mother would send dishes and -bedclothes for the two rough beds built against the wall. The ones making -and tending the sirup would camp up there. - -“Mother would send butter and bread and pies, and the girls would boil -meat or beans in a black iron pot that hung over the fire. In the -evenings they would have lots of fun sitting in front of the fire, -telling stories and popping corn. Sister Aggie could make the best -popcorn balls that were put together with maple sirup. They would often -have visitors, too, neighboring boys and girls who would come in to stay -until bedtime. And there would be songs and games. - -“And they would make the sugar eggs for Easter. Before sugar time came we -would blow the contents out of eggs by making little holes in each end. -Then we would dry the shells and put them away. When they were taking -off the maple sugar, Mother or Belle or Aggie would fill the egg shells -and set them aside for the sugar to cool and harden. They would fill -goose-egg shells with the maple sugar, too, and when the sugar hardened -they would pick the shell off, and by and by the girls would paste pretty -pictures of birds or flowers on them and tie them with gay-colored -ribbons for Easter. - -“Neither Charlie nor I had ever been allowed to stay all night at the -sugar camp, and when Mother said we could stay one night with Stanley and -Truman and Belle we were wild with joy. - -“Truman had shot and cleaned three squirrels that morning, and Belle -cooked them in the big black pot with a piece of fat pork until the -water boiled off and they sizzled and browned in the bottom of the pot. -We had little flat corn cakes baked on the hearth and maple sirup, and, -my, but that supper tasted good to me! - -“I dried the dishes for Belle, and we had just settled down for the -evening when one of the Strang boys came in. He didn’t know we children -were there, and he had come up to see if Stanley and Truman and Belle -would go home with him to a little frolic. His sister Esther had been -married a few days before and had come home that afternoon, and they were -going to have a serenade for them. Belle and the boys wanted Charlie and -me to go down to the house so they could go, but we wouldn’t do it. We -declared we were not afraid to stay by ourselves and told them to go on. -Finally they did. - -“Charlie and I didn’t mind being left alone at all. We thought it was -great fun. For a while we played we were pioneers. Then Charlie got -tired of that and wanted to play Indian, so we played Indian for a long -time. But we had been out all day in the cold, and after a while we got -sleepy and decided to go to bed. I went to the window to see if Belle and -the boys were coming. There was a moon, and I could see the trees with -their spouts and the buckets under them. I looked closely. At one of the -buckets was a black shadow. I looked and looked at it and just then it -moved a little. - -“‘Charlie,’ I cried excitedly, ‘Brierly’s old black dog is out there -drinking up our sap!’ - -“Charlie gave one hurried glance out the window, then he picked up a -stick of firewood and opened the door. - -“‘I bet I give that dog a good scare,’ he said, and rushed out the door -and made straight for the black shadow. He raised the stick and brought -it down ker-plunk on the back of what we thought was Brierly’s dog. But -it wasn’t Brierly’s dog at all, nor anybody’s dog. It was a bear! I don’t -know which was the most surprised, Charlie or the bear. Charlie darted -back to the cabin, and when he reached the door he threw his stick with -all his might and hit the bear on the nose. The nose is the bear’s -tenderest point, you know. Charlie must have hurt him, for he gave a -growl, backed away from the sap bucket, and scampered up the nearest -tree. Maybe he meant to wait a while and come back for more sap, I don’t -know. Anyway, up the tree he stayed while Charlie and I watched him -through the window. - -[Illustration: _Up the tree the bear stayed while Charlie and I watched -him_] - -“‘If we could only keep him up the tree till the boys come home from -Strangs’ one of them could get a gun and kill him,’ said Charlie, ‘and -we’d get the money for his pelt.’ - -“‘Father says wolves won’t come near a fire,’ I remarked, and that gave -Charlie an idea. He would build a fire and keep the bear treed until the -boys came. - -“At first I wouldn’t agree to help him. I was too afraid. But Charlie -coaxed and threatened and was getting ready to do it himself. So I helped -him carry out the first burning log from the fireplace in the cabin. -After that my part was to watch the bear and warn Charlie if he moved -while Charlie built up the fire. Once as the fire grew warmer and the -smoke got thicker and thicker the bear snorted and moved to a limb higher -up. - -“Charlie kept a roaring fire going, and it wasn’t long until Belle and -the boys came rushing up all out of breath from running. They were nearly -scared to death because they had seen the smoke and thought the cabin was -on fire. - -“At first they wouldn’t believe we had a bear treed. Truman said, -‘Whoever heard of a bear climbing a tree like that?’ But Stanley said -nobody knew what a bear might do, and Charlie said that there was the -bear all right, they could see for themselves. - -“Truman went home and got his gun and shot the bear. It turned out to be -a young bear. Father sold the pelt and divided the money between Charlie -and me. - -“Now, let me see, what shall I tell you about tomorrow night? Oh, I know! -I’ve thought of something, but I won’t tell. No, indeed, not a word till -tomorrow night.” - - - - -THE NEW CHURCH ORGAN - - -Grandma had been to church Sunday morning and heard for the first time -the wonderful new pipe organ, and in the evening she was talking about -it—how beautiful the music was, how solemn, how sacred. - -“And when I think,” she said, “of the opposition there was to the first -little organ we had in our church and of the trouble we had getting -it—well, well, times certainly have changed. - -“It was like this. Some of our people were bitterly opposed to organ -music in church and right up till the last minute did everything they -could to keep us from getting an organ. This made it very hard to raise -money for the organ, but after a long time we got enough—all but about -forty dollars. It was decided to have a box social to raise this. - -“At a box social each girl or woman took a box containing enough supper -for two people. Then the boxes were auctioned off, and the men and boys -bought them and ate supper with the girl whose box they got. - -“Aggie and Belle trimmed their boxes with colored tissue paper and -flowers and ribbon, but Mother just wrapped hers in plain white tissue -paper and fastened a bunch of pinks out of the garden on top so Father -would know it when it was put up to be sold. Father was going to buy -Mother’s box, and I was going to eat with them. Charlie had money to buy -a box for himself, and he said he meant to buy Aunt Livvy Orbison’s box -because she always had so much to eat. - -“Every one in the family was going, and there was a great rush and bustle -to get ready. Mother cut Charlie’s hair and oiled it and curled mine. She -scrubbed us till we shone, and at last, dressed in our best clothes, we -started. - -“Father and Mother and Belle and Aggie and I went in the surrey. All -the boys walked over the hill, except Joe, who had gone to Clayville on -business for Father that morning and was to stop at the church on his way -home. - -“It was a lovely warm evening, and there was a large crowd at the church -when we got there, though it was early. The girls took their boxes in and -then came right out again. Every one was having a splendid time, talking -and laughing and visiting around. - -“I was with Father. After a while I got tired hearing the men talk about -the crops and the price of wool and the election, and I went to hunt -Mother. I looked all around and I couldn’t find her. I thought maybe she -had gone into the church, so I went in there to look for her, but there -was no one in the church at all. The boxes had been piled on the pulpit -and covered with a sheet so that no one could see them. Just as I was -going out the door I noticed that the sheet was lying on the floor and -the boxes were nowhere to be seen. I went on out and presently I found -sister Belle. She was talking to John and Isabel Strang and Will Orbison. - -“I tugged at Belle’s dress and pulled her to one side. - -“‘What did they do with the boxes?’ I asked her. - -“‘Why, they put them in the church, and after a while they will sell -them,’ she said. ‘You run and find Mother now, like a good girl.’ - -“‘But the boxes aren’t on the pulpit,’ I whispered. ‘I was in the church -hunting Mother, and the boxes are all gone and the sheet is lying on the -floor.’ - -“Belle told the others, and they all went hurrying into the church, I -following after. The boxes were gone, sure enough. The pulpit windows, -which faced a strip of woods, were open. The boys said the boxes could -have been taken out that way as the crowd was in front of the church. -There was no place in the church to hide them. There was a loft, but it -was entered through a hole in the ceiling and there was no ladder. Belle -placed two chairs with their seats touching and covered them with the -sheet so that no one could tell the boxes were not there. - -“‘It looks as if some of the people who don’t want the organ have spoiled -this box supper,’ said John Strang, ‘and they will keep us from having -our organ for a while, too.’ - -“‘But that isn’t the worst of it,’ put in Isabel. ‘It’ll cause no end of -trouble and hard feelings.’ - -“‘It may have been some of the boys who did it for a joke,’ said Belle. -‘Let us raise the money anyway and get ahead of them.’ - -“‘But how,’ Isabel asked anxiously, ‘with no boxes?’ - -“Then they thought out their plan. It was that John and Will were to -go out and explain quietly to the boys in favor of the organ what had -happened and get them to give the money they meant to spend on their -boxes to John. Brother Joe had bought a new pair of shoes in town. They -would put his shoe box up for sale just as if all the rest of the boxes -were still under the sheet. Will was to bid against John and run the box -up to the amount they had collected. - -“Isabel stayed in the church to see that no one disturbed the sheet, and -John and Will and Belle went outside to carry out their plan. I found -Mother, and pretty soon we went into the church. The lamps had been -lit, and I thought how nice it looked. The girls had come up the day -before and swept the floor and dusted the benches and shined the tin -reflectors on the lamps, and put great bunches of flowers and ferns over -the doors and windows and covered the two big round stoves with boughs of -evergreen. There was a short program first, and then Stanley, who was to -auction off the boxes, stepped to the front of the pulpit and held up a -plain white box tied with stout string. - -“‘How much am I offered for this box?’ he said. - -“The bidding started at twenty-five cents. At first there were lots of -bids, but finally every one dropped out but John and Will. There wasn’t a -sound in the church as the bidding went higher and higher—thirty dollars -for that plain, white box, thirty-five dollars, forty dollars, forty-one -dollars. Will stopped bidding and the box went to John for forty-one -dollars. - -“Some one called out, ‘Open the box!’ and that started things. ‘Open the -box!’ they shouted. ‘Open it!’ ‘Let’s see what’s in it!’ ‘Open, open, -open!’ - -“When they quieted down a little, Stanley explained about the boxes -disappearing and everything. Then he untied the string, took the lid off -the box, and held up a pair of men’s shoes number ten. Then that crowd -went wild. They clapped and shouted and yelled. Stanley said he thought -the boxes had been taken for a joke and suggested that they be returned. - -[Illustration: _Stanley held up a pair of men’s shoes_] - -“‘We have enough money for the organ,’ he said. ‘Now let us have our -suppers and some fun.’ - -“One of the boys on the side opposing the organ got up and said that the -boxes had been taken for a joke and would immediately be returned. And -you couldn’t guess where those boxes were hidden! Right in the big round -stoves there in the church! Of course everybody laughed again and laughed -and laughed. Such a good-humored crowd you never saw. - -“They handed out the boxes first to the people who had paid in their -money, and sold the others. There weren’t enough boxes to go around, but -each had plenty in it for three or four people. Every one divided, and -there was not a person in the church who did not get something to eat. -People who had been in favor of the organ ate out of the same boxes with -those who had been against it and forgot that they had ever disagreed. -And when the organ came and sister Aggie played it that first Sunday, -why, it sounded sweeter to me than that beautiful big organ in your -church did this morning. - -“And now, ‘’night, ’night,’ everybody, and next time I think—yes. I’m -pretty sure—next time we’ll have something about my school.” - - - - -SCHOOL DAYS - - -“All my brothers and sisters had liked to go to school,” Grandma began -the next evening, “and in the sitting room, after supper, Father would -hear their lessons while Mother knitted or sewed or darned. Father had -read books and papers aloud to us as long as I could remember, and he -always told us how important education was. So as soon as I got to be six -years old I was anxious to start to school. - -“I was small for my age, and as we lived two miles from the schoolhouse -and the snow in winter was often two or three feet deep, Mother did not -want me to go until I was seven or eight years old. She said she and -Father could teach me at home for a couple of years yet, but I coaxed and -coaxed to go. At last Mother said I could go as long as the weather was -good. - -“So on the very first day—it was along toward the last of October—I -started down the road with a brand new primer under my arm and a lunch -basket of my very own and shiny new shoes. Mother stood at the front -gate to watch me out of sight and wave when I came to the turn in the -road. - -“Our schoolhouse wasn’t like yours. It was just a little frame building -painted red. There were no globes or books or maps or pictures to make -learning interesting. Just rough, scarred benches, a water bucket and a -dipper on a shelf in one corner, and a big round stove in the center of -the room, and of course the teacher’s desk and chair on the platform up -in front. - -“The teacher was usually a man, but that winter it was a woman—Miss Amma -Morton. Miss Amma was a tall, bony woman with snapping, black eyes that -saw everything, and thin gray hair combed straight back from her face. -She wore a brown alpaca dress with a very full gathered skirt and black -and white calico aprons and a little black shoulder shawl fastened with a -gold brooch. - -“She lived with a married sister who had a very large family. In those -days all the stockings and socks were knitted at home, and Miss Amma did -the knitting for her sister’s family. She did it in school. She would sit -at the stove or at her desk and knit and knit on long gray stockings or -on red mittens. She would knit all day while she heard our lessons. The -only time she couldn’t knit was when she set our copies. We had no copy -books, and the teacher had to write the copies out for us. - -[Illustration: _Miss Amma would knit all day while she heard our lessons_] - -“I liked to go to school. It was fun to peep into my lunch basket at -recess to see what Mother had put in and maybe slip out a piece of pie or -cake to eat. I liked to make playhouses on the big flat rocks with Annie -Brierly and the other little girls, and hunt soft, green moss to furnish -them with, and smooth pebbles down at the run. I loved to learn my A -B C’s and listen to the older children recite, and at noon and recess -to play ‘Prisoners’ Base’ and ‘Copenhagen.’ But school wasn’t always so -pleasant. - -“One day not long after I started there was a heavy wind and rain storm. -We couldn’t recite our lessons, the rain made so much noise on the roof. -Through the windows we could see the trees swaying this way and that in -the wind. - -“At afternoon recess Annie and I ran out to see if our playhouses had -been spoiled by the rain. When we came back the girls were standing -around in little excited groups. They told us that the roof had blown off -Bowser’s house—they lived about half a mile down the road—and that most -of the boys had gone to see it. - -“‘Did Charlie go?’ I asked eagerly. - -“‘I reckon he did,’ one of the girls answered. ‘He was with the other -boys and they went that way. I wouldn’t be in their boots for anything. -They won’t be back before books, and Teacher’ll whip them if they’re -late.’ - -“I drew Annie away. ‘I’m going after Charlie,’ I told her. ‘I’m going to -take the short cut across the hill and catch up to him and bring him -back.’ - -“Annie said she would go with me, and we started. The ground was wet and -it was hard walking. We slipped at every step. After I thought about it -a little, I was not at all sure that Charlie would thank me for coming. -Maybe he’d sooner take a whipping than miss seeing a house without a -roof. Boys are so different from girls that way. - -“We got clear to Bowser’s without seeing a sign of a single boy, and the -roof wasn’t off at all—just a little corner of it. Mr. Bowser was nailing -it up as fast as ever he could. He said none of the boys had been there, -so we started back. - -“That was the longest walk I ever took. I thought we’d never get to the -schoolhouse. My feet were wet and my legs ached and I was so tired I -could hardly move. When we got to the top of the hill and looked down at -the schoolhouse, there was no one in sight. Recess was over! We reached -the door at last and stood trembling outside, afraid to open it and go in -and afraid not to. Annie had been to school the winter before and was -not so scared as I was. She took my hand reassuringly. - -“‘Don’t let on you’re frightened,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe Miss Amma hasn’t -missed us and we can slip into our seats without being seen.’ - -“Annie opened the door just as easy, and we slid in without a sound. But -alas! alas! Miss Amma was hearing the advanced arithmetic class and she -stood facing the door, so the second we stepped in she saw us. - -“She stopped explaining a problem long enough to order Annie and me to -stand in opposite corners up on the platform where everybody could see us. - -“No one had had to stand in the corner since I had started to school, so -instead of facing the corner as I should have done I stood with my face -toward the school. I looked to see if Charlie was in his place. When -he saw me looking at him, he began making motions. I thought he meant -for me to stand tight in the corner, so I pushed as close as I could to -the wall. All over the room pupils were smiling at me and pointing and -shaking their heads. I wondered what they meant. I looked across at -Annie. She was laughing and she made a motion, too. Then I thought of -what she had said—not to let on I was frightened. Maybe I looked scared. -I looked at Annie again. She stuck her head into the corner, looked at -me, frowned, put her head in the corner again. What did she mean? It was -too funny the way they were all acting. Then I laughed, too, right out -loud, before I knew it. I laughed and laughed. I couldn’t stop. - -“Teacher gave me a long, severe look. - -“‘Turn around and face the corner, Sarah,’ she said, ‘and you may remain -after school.’ - -“Then I knew what Charlie and Annie and the others had been trying to -tell me. I stood there in the corner until the scholars had all gone home -and Miss Amma had swept the floor and cleaned the blackboard and emptied -the water bucket. - -“Finally she called me, and I went over to her desk. When she asked -me why I had run off at recess and then disturbed the whole school by -laughing, I told her all about it, and she said she would forgive me that -time and helped me on with my cape and hood. - -“Charlie was waiting for me down the road a piece. He hadn’t even thought -of going to see Bowser’s house, but had been down in the meadow watching -the big boys dig out a woodchuck. - -“And, now, an apple all around and good night.” - - - - -A BIRTHDAY PARTY - - -“Mm! Isn’t it beautiful?” exclaimed Grandma as she stood with Bobby and -Alice and Pink admiring the table decorated for Pink’s birthday party. -Everything was pink and white. The lovely white-frosted cake had pink -candles in pink rose-holders—seven, one for each year and one to grow on. -There were pink candies and pink flowers and pink caps for the little -girls and boys to wear. - -“‘And the ice cream is to be pink,’ Alice explained, ‘pink ice cream -shaped like animals—dogs and bunnies and kittens.’ - -“My, but isn’t that fine!” said Grandma. “Now my first party wasn’t a bit -like this. Maybe tonight if you are not too tired I’ll tell you about my -party.” - -And that night after they had told Grandma about Pink’s party she told -them about hers. - -“We didn’t have many parties when I was little,” Grandma began, “and we -never had regular little girls’ parties. Everyone, big and little, came, -and they were generally surprise parties and the guests would bring the -refreshments with them. One evening going home from school, the girls -were wishing that some one would get up a surprise party, when suddenly -Annie Brierly said, ‘Why don’t we get up a party for Sarah, girls? Friday -is her birthday. Do you think your Mother would care, Sarah?’ - -“‘We’d both help her,’ Callie Orbison put in before I could answer. ‘You -don’t need to do much getting ready for a surprise party. We could have -it Friday night, and Saturday we’d both come over and help clean up the -house.’ - -“‘Not a soul but Callie and me would know you knew anything about it,’ -urged Annie, ‘and we could have just loads of fun.’ - -“I promised to think about it, and the more I thought about it the -better I liked the idea of having a party of my very own. It didn’t take -much persuasion the next day to make me consent. Annie and Callie were -delighted and immediately fell to making plans, but they agreed that -nothing should be said to Mother until Thursday evening, the date set for -the party being Friday night. - -“The days that followed were full of mingled pleasure and pain for me. I -was happy at the idea of having a real party, but it didn’t seem fair to -deceive Mother. Once I thought of telling her all about it just as I told -her about everything else. But I was afraid she would say I was too young -to have a party, and I had never been to a party in my life. Sister Aggie -was visiting Aunt Louisa in Clayville, and Mother had no one to help her -except for what I could do mornings and evenings. But I would be at home -all day Saturday, and Annie and Callie had said that they would help. - -“Thursday morning Annie told me that she had baked a cake and put my -initials on top in little red candies, and Callie said her mother was -going to bake an election cake with spices and raisins in it. All day -Thursday I kept thinking about the party. It wasn’t off my mind a -minute. I couldn’t study for thinking about it, and I missed a word in -spelling—the first word I’d missed that term—and had to go to the foot of -the class. - -“But by the time we had started home I had made up my mind to one thing, -that if I could not have a party with everything open and above board I -did not want one at all. And so I told the girls that I had changed my -mind and did not want them to have a surprise party for me. They coaxed -and argued and teased, but I was firm. I was sorry that Annie had baked -a cake and I hated to disappoint them, but I did not want a party. The -girls were cross with me, and I felt miserable when Annie turned in her -gate without saying good-by. - -“Aggie had come home from Clayville that afternoon, and she was so busy -telling Mother the news and describing the latest fashions, and showing -the things she had bought, that no one noticed me much. Not a word was -said all evening about my birthday being so near. Even Charlie didn’t -tease me about what he would do, such as ducking me in the rain barrel, -as he always did, and I thought everyone had forgotten all about my -birthday. - -“But Friday morning just before I started to school Aggie gave me a plain -little handkerchief that she had hemstitched before she went away, and -then I knew for sure that she had not brought me anything from Clayville. -And when Mother gave me a pair of common home-knit stockings, I thought -I should cry right out before everybody instead of waiting until I got -started to school. - -“Annie and Callie were in a good humor again and as pleasant as could -be, but I felt so unhappy that day that I didn’t notice that the girls -at school seemed unusually happy and excited. When I finally did notice -it, I was afraid that Annie and Callie had gone ahead with plans for the -party. I accused them of this, but they denied it. - -“‘No, no, we didn’t do another thing about the party,’ they declared. But -they looked at each other and laughed when they said it, and I didn’t -believe them. - -“‘You did,’ I said, ‘you know you did.’ - -“‘Cross my heart and hope to die if we did,’ Callie insisted. - -“‘Here’s some of the cake that I baked for your party that we didn’t -have,’ said Annie. ‘Now will you believe us? I brought you girls each a -piece, but it was a sin to cut that cake—it was such a beautiful cake.’ -And she handed us each a slice of delicious, yellow sponge cake decorated -with red candies. - -“Mother had given me an errand to do at the store on my way home, so it -was later than usual when, hungry and tired, I opened the kitchen door. -Mother met me and took my bundles and books. - -[Illustration: _Out from the hall rushed Annie and Callie and seven other -little girls_] - -“‘Take your wraps off here, Sarah,’ she said. ‘Aggie has company in the -sitting room.’ I didn’t hear anyone talking, but I took off my coat. -Then Aggie called me and I went into the sitting room, but I stopped in -amazement just inside the door. - -“In the center of the room was a table set with Mother’s best linen and -china and silver, and while I gazed at it, out from the hall rushed Annie -and Callie and seven other little girls all near my own age dressed up in -their Sunday frocks and each one thrusting some sort of package toward -me. - -“I couldn’t say a word—I just burst into tears. I went upstairs with -Mother to wash my face and put on my best dress. She told me Aggie had -written invitations on cards she had bought in Clayville, and Charlie had -carried them to the girls that morning. Then I told Mother all about the -party we had planned to have, and she said not to think any more about it -but that she was glad I had told her. - -“We played games—‘Pussy wants a corner’ and ‘Button, button, who’s got -the button’ and ‘Hide the thimble’—and asked riddles and had a good time. - -“Then we had supper. There were cold roast chicken, tiny hot biscuits and -peach preserves, three kinds of cake, and hot chocolate that Aggie had -learned to make in Clayville and none of us had ever tasted before. - -“Mother and Aggie had given me those presents in the morning just to fool -me. Aggie had brought me a lovely story book, and Mother had a string of -pretty pink beads for me. Charlie gave me a little basket he had whittled -out of a peach seed, and from Father I got a silver dollar. - -“And now good night, pleasant dreams.” - - - - -THE LOCUSTS - - -“Grandma,” said Bobby one evening, “did you ever see a locust—a -seventeen-year locust? And why are they called seventeen-year locusts?” - -“Oh, yes, I’ve seen locusts and heard them, too,” answered Grandma, -taking up her knitting. “They are called seventeen-year locusts because -they come every seventeen years. They lay their eggs in a tree. These -eggs hatch tiny worms, called larvae, which fall to the ground and stay -there for seventeen years changing slowly until they have turned into -locusts. They live only about thirty days, but they often do a great deal -of damage in this time. One year when I was a little girl all our fruit -was eaten by the locusts and many of the trees were killed. They ate the -garden stuff, the potato tops, and even the flowers, so it must have been -somewhat as it was in Pharaoh’s time. - -“You remember Pharaoh was the king of Egypt who refused to let the -children of Israel go. For this God sent the plagues on Pharaoh and the -people of Egypt. One of these plagues was the locusts. God caused a -strong east wind to blow all day and all night, and this wind brought the -locusts. They were every place—all over the ground, in Pharaoh’s house, -and in the houses of his people. They ate all the vegetables and fruits, -even the leaves on the trees, so there was nothing green left in all the -land. The noise they made must have been awful. When Pharaoh repented, -the Lord sent a strong west wind which blew the locusts away, and they -were drowned in the Red Sea. Ever since that time people have thought the -locusts say ‘Pharaoh.’ - -“I believe I’ll tell you tonight about the first time I ever heard -a locust. Mother wondered one day at dinner whether there were any -blackberries ripe yet. She said she wished she had enough for a few pies. -So that afternoon I took a pail and started for the blackberry field. I -didn’t tell anyone where I was going, for I wanted to surprise Mother. -I was afraid that if she knew she mightn’t let me go alone, for she was -timid about snakes. Sure enough, I saw a snake nearly the first thing, -but it was a harmless little garter snake and scuttled away into the -bushes as soon as it heard me. - -“There were lots and lots of red berries, but only a few ripe ones here -and there. I wandered on and on, thinking every minute I should come to -a patch of ripe berries where I could fill my pail in a few minutes. It -wasn’t much fun blackberrying all by myself. I scratched my hands and -face and tore my dress on the briars and wished many times that I was -back home, but I kept on picking until my pail was full. - -“I did not realize how far I had gone nor how long I had been out until I -noticed that the sun was going down. Then I started to hurry home as fast -as I could. But I was tired and my bucket grew heavier with every step, -so I often sat down to rest. I rested a long time under a chestnut tree, -and then after I had walked miles, it seemed to me, I found myself back -under this same tree. I knew it was the same tree because Charlie had cut -my initials on it the summer before. I had been going around in a circle! -I started out again. I looked to the right and to the left and straight -ahead, but I couldn’t find the path. - -“I was lost—lost in that great blackberry patch over a mile from home. -Night was coming on, and no one knew where I had gone. I wondered where -I should sleep if no one found me before it got dark, and what I should -eat. Of course I could climb a tree, but I might go to sleep and fall out -of it. I shouldn’t starve, for I could eat blackberries, but the very -thought of eating any more blackberries made me feel sick. - -“I hurried this way and that, trying to find my way out and growing more -frightened every minute. - -“Then suddenly I heard some one calling to me. - -“‘Sa—rah! Sa—rah!’ I heard as plain as plain could be, and I answered -them. I screamed at the top of my voice, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’ But the -voices—there seemed to be a great many of them—only kept on saying over -and over again, ‘Sa—rah! Sa—rah!’ - -“I ran, stumbling and falling through the bushes, still holding to my -precious pail of berries, but I didn’t seem to get any nearer to the -folks who were calling me. All the neighbors must be out helping hunt for -me, I thought to myself. That was queer, too, for it wasn’t really dark -and Mother was used to having me play for hours at a time down by the -run or on the hill under the oak trees. - -“Presently I came to an open space. There was a group of trees at the far -edge, and there under those trees, to my great surprise, stood Mother’s -little Jersey cow. I ran toward her, and when she saw me she gave a weak -‘moo.’ But when she tried to move I saw that she was caught fast by the -horns in a wild grapevine that grew around the tree. I tried to free her, -but I couldn’t. The wild grapevine is very tough and strong, and Jersey -was securely fastened by it. I petted her and talked to her and forgot to -be afraid any more. Then I happened to think that if she had been there -very long she must be thirsty. She was not giving any milk and had been -turned out to graze in the pasture field that joined the berry patch and -had probably come through a bad place in the fence. I remembered having -passed a spring a little way back, and I emptied my berries carefully in -a pile on the ground and ran back and filled my bucket with water. But I -couldn’t reach Jersey’s mouth, and though she tried frantically to get -at the water she couldn’t get her head down to it. I dragged two pieces -of old log over and built up a platform. Then I climbed up on it with my -bucket of water, and my, how glad Jersey was to get that cool drink! - -“Then I sat down on a log to wait for some one to come. To keep from -getting lonely I began to say over my memory verses for the next Sunday. -I was committing the Twenty-third Psalm and I had just reached the line -beginning, ‘He restoreth my soul,’ when I heard them calling again. - -“‘Sa—rah! Sa—rah!’ they said just as before. I jumped up and cried out as -loud as I could, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’ I was determined to make them -hear me this time, and I said it over and over until I was hoarse, and -the more I answered the louder the voices seemed to call. - -“Then to my joy came a voice I knew. ‘Where are you and what are you -doing here?’ it said, and crashing through the bushes came my big brother -Stanley. I rushed crying into his arms, and the funny part was that -Stanley did not know I was lost. He was on his way home from work on the -upper place and had come down to see if the berries were ripe so he could -tell Mother. He had heard me calling and had come to find me. - -[Illustration: _How glad Jersey was to get that cool drink!_] - -“With his pocket knife he cut the vines that held Jersey, and we drove -her slowly back to the pasture field after he had helped me pick up the -berries. - -“When Stanley and I got home Mother was just starting Charlie out to look -for me. She was pleased to get the berries and glad I had found Jersey. -Father said Jersey might have starved before he would have missed her, -but Mother made a rule that I was never again to go farther away than the -oak trees or the run without asking her. - -“‘Who was calling me?’ I asked. ‘Some one was calling me. They still are. -Listen!’ and there it was again. - -“‘Sa—rah! Sa—rah!’ - -“They all looked puzzled. Then Mother laughed. - -“‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I know what she means. Why, that isn’t anyone calling -you, dear. That’s the locusts and they say, ‘Pha—raoh! Pha—raoh!’ But it -does sound like ‘Sa—rah,’ doesn’t it? And I am very glad you thought they -said ‘Sa—rah’ and answered them or Stanley wouldn’t have found you and -you might have been up in the berry patch all night.’ - -“There, that was a long story, wasn’t it? Hurry to bed now, for you know, - - “Early to bed and early to rise, - Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” - - - - -ONE FOURTH OF JULY - - -Grandma had promised the children a Fourth of July story, and Bobby and -Alice and Pink drew up their stools and waited eagerly for her to begin. - -“Father was going to take us to Clayville to the Fourth of July -celebration,” Grandma began. “We were all going except Mother and Nanny -Dodds, who was helping us over hay harvest. I had been to Clayville once -before. - -“‘But that time it was on just a common everyday day,’ as I told Nanny. -‘This will be different.’ - -“We were to start early—early in the morning—for Clayville was twelve -miles away and we did not want to miss a single thing. - -“First there would be a parade with two brass bands, then ‘speaking’ -on the courthouse steps, and after that an ox roast. In the afternoon -there were to be horse races and games. Father promised that we should -have supper at the hotel and stay for the fireworks in the evening. I -had never seen even a firecracker, and I looked forward to seeing the -skyrockets most of all. - -“I was to wear a new light calico dress with a little blue flower in it -and a blue sash and my ruffled white sunbonnet that was kept for Sundays. -I talked so much about going that Mother and my sisters and every one -else except Nanny grew dreadfully tired listening to me and begged me to -talk of something else. - -“Nanny was twenty and bashful and as homely as could be, but I loved her -very much. When she made cookies she put a raisin in the center of some -of them, and others she sprinkled with sugar. And she made gingerbread -men with currant eyes and baked saucer pies and let me scrape the cake -bowl. She sewed for my doll and bound up my hurt fingers tenderly and -told the nicest stories. There was no end to the things Nanny did for me, -but I liked the stories best of all. - -“The day before the Fourth, when I sat on the edge of the kitchen table -watching Nanny beat eggs for the sponge cake and talking about what I -should see the next day, Nanny said in a wistful voice, ‘I’ve never been -to Clayville. I always thought I’d like to go, but I never had a chance.’ - -[Illustration: _“I’ve never been to Clayville,” said Nanny, wistfully_] - -“This set me thinking. Soon I slid off the table and went in search of -Mother. I found her at the spring-house churning. - -“‘Mother,’ I said, ‘let’s take Nanny with us tomorrow.’ - -“‘I’m afraid there isn’t room,’ Mother answered regretfully. ‘There are -already five of you, and the surrey is old and not strong.’ - -“‘Nanny doesn’t weigh much,’ I argued. - -“‘I know, dear, but Father is afraid to load the surrey any heavier for -fear you’d break down and not get to town at all. I have told Nanny she -may go home to see her mother tomorrow.’ - -“All the rest of the morning I sat under the apple tree in the side yard, -thinking. Once when Charlie came through the yard with a jug to fill with -water for the men in the hayfield I called him over. Maybe he might offer -to let Nanny go in his place. To be sure, I hadn’t much hope of this, but -still it was worth trying. - -“‘Charlie,’ I said, ‘I think Nanny would like to go to the Fourth of July -celebration.’ - -“‘Sure, who wouldn’t?’ he replied easily. ‘I want to go myself,’ and he -went on to the well. - -“I tried sister Belle next. I found her picking chickens in the orchard -and offered to help. Then presently I suggested to her that she could -go to Clayville with the Strangs’, since their surrey would not be -crowded as ours would, and then Nanny could go with us. She only laughed -scornfully and made me finish picking the chicken I had started. - -“I went sadly back to the apple tree. - -“‘Nanny wants to go,’ I thought to myself, ‘and I want to go, too, but if -I stay at home Nanny could go in my place. It would be a sacrifice,’ I -sighed deeply. ‘Preacher Hill says a sacrifice is giving up something you -want yourself. I want to go more than I ever wanted anything, but I have -lots of things Nanny doesn’t have. I have curly hair and Nanny’s hair -is straight. I can read and Nanny can’t. I’ve seen the train and had my -dinner at a hotel. I’ve traveled and Nanny’s never been farther from home -than Mt. Zion Church.’ - -“That night after I had said my prayers I put my arms around my Mother’s -neck and whispered, ‘Mother, I want Nanny to go in my place tomorrow.’ - -“‘Why, dear!’ Mother started to protest. But after looking earnestly into -my face she said, ‘Do you really want to stay at home and let Nanny go in -your place? You must be very, very sure, you know.’ - -“‘I’m sure, Mother,’ I declared solemnly. ‘Yes, I’m sure I want her to -go.’ - -“‘Well, sleep on it, and if you feel the same in the morning you shall -stay with Mother and Nanny may go.’ - -“I wakened at daylight to find Mother standing beside my bed. - -“‘Are you awake, Sarah?’ she asked. ‘They are all up but you.’ - -“I sat up in bed dazed. I could hear the girls rushing around in their -room. From the kitchen came the rattle of dishes and out in the barn the -boys were whistling. Suddenly I remembered. It was the Fourth of July! - -“‘I haven’t changed my mind, Mother,’ I said yawning sleepily. - -“Mother bent down and kissed me before going to tell Nanny. At first -Nanny would not hear of it and left off getting breakfast to come and -tell me so. I pretended to be too sleepy to talk, so Nanny, urged by -Mother, finally went away to get ready, and Mother went down to finish -getting the breakfast. - -“But I wasn’t a bit sleepy a little later when I jumped out of bed to -watch them start. - -“Father and Aggie sat on the front seat of the surrey, and Belle, Nanny, -and Charlie on the back seat, while Joe, Stanley, and Truman rode -horseback. They all looked very fine and grand to me dressed in their -best clothes, and I choked back a sob as they drove down the road and out -of sight. - -“All morning I helped Mother. I did lots of things the girls wouldn’t -let me do when they were doing the work. I dried the dishes and fed the -chickens and dusted the sitting room and scrubbed the walks. - -“Then Mother and I had our lunch out under the apple tree in the side -yard—some of everything the girls had put in their lunch basket—fried -chicken and sponge cake and green-apple pie. My, but it tasted good! In -the afternoon Mother made my doll a new dress, and we went together to -hunt the little turkeys and get the cows. - -“It was awfully late when the folks got back, but I sat up in bed to see -them. Every one of them had brought me something. Spread out on the bed -were a flag and a bag of peanuts, a pewter tea set from Father, a sticky -popcorn ball, and a sack of peppermint lozenges, but the nicest of all -was when Nanny gave me a hug and whispered, ‘I had the grandest time of -my life, Sarah, and I reckon it’ll take me a month to tell you about all -the things I saw.’ - -“Now, let me think! What in the world will I tell you about tomorrow -night? Oh, I know, but I won’t tell.” - - - - -THE BEE TREE - - -There had been honey for supper, and afterward, before the cozy fire in -her room, Grandma was telling Bobby and Alice and Pink about how the bees -live in little wooden houses called hives and make the honey from a fluid -taken from the heart of the flowers. - -“But I knew of some bees once that did not live in a hive but in a hollow -tree.” Grandma reached for her work basket and drew out her knitting. -“While I put the thumb in Bobby’s mitten I’ll tell you about those bees.” - -“When I was a little girl,” she began, “not many people kept bees and we -could not buy honey at the store, so honey was considered a great treat. -The first beehive I ever saw belonged to Mr. Brierly. The Brierly’s lived -on the next farm to us, but between them and us, in a little house on -Mr. Brierly’s place, lived a family named Henlen. They were very lazy -and hunted and fished and worked just enough to get what money they must -have. Mr. Brierly had given them a swarm of bees and helped them make a -hive for it, and the Brierlys and the Henlens were the only people in our -neighborhood who kept bees. - -[Illustration: _Early in the summer one of Mr. Brierly’s hives swarmed_] - -“Then early in the summer one of Mr. Brierly’s hives swarmed. That is, -a swarm of bees left the old hive and wanted to set up in a hive of its -own. Usually when a young swarm left the old hive Mr. Brierly gave them -a new hive and they settled down contentedly and went to making honey. -But this swarm flew away and lighted in a hollow tree on the edge of our -woods. - -“Mr. Brierly did not find them for several days. Then he told Father he -would just leave them where they were, if Father did not care, and when -he took the honey he would divide with us. Father told him he was welcome -to leave the bees as long as he wanted to and to keep the honey. But Mr. -Brierly said Father must take half of the honey or he would not leave the -bees. So Father agreed and Mr. Brierly left the bees. - -“Every morning when Charlie and I took the cows to pasture we would skip -across the field to take a long look at the bee tree. We would watch -the bees as they flew in and out the hole in the side of the tree and -wondered how much honey they had made and talked about how good it would -taste on hot biscuits. - -“So all summer the bees worked away, and one day in the fall Mr. Brierly -sent Father word that he would be over that week to take the honey. A -few mornings later when I came in sight of the bee tree I stopped in -amazement. The bee tree was gone! Instead of standing straight and tall -like a soldier on guard, it lay flat on the ground. Chips of wood were -scattered all around. The bee tree had been cut down. - -“I started for home as fast as I could go to tell Father. He wasn’t at -the barn, and I went to the house. Back of the house, under a sugar tree, -the girls were washing and Charlie was carrying water for them. As I came -up Aggie was scolding because one of the washtubs was missing. When I -told them about the bee tree they were as excited as I was. Charlie ran -to the wheat field where Father was ploughing to tell him, and we girls -went in to find Mother. - -“Belle declared that whoever stole the honey must have taken the tub to -carry it away in. And since the honey was on our land and we knew it was -ready to take away and the tub was ours, it would look to Mr. Brierly as -if we had had something to do with it. Aggie laughed at her and said, -‘The very idea of anyone thinking we would steal!’ But Mother looked -serious. - -“Father came right to the house, got on a horse, and rode over to Mr. -Brierly’s. Mr. Brierly came back with him, and they examined the fallen -bee tree carefully. It had been chopped down. Mr. Brierly said he -thought we would have heard the blows down at the house. Father replied -coldly that we had heard nothing and knew nothing about it until I had -taken the cows to pasture, and wouldn’t have known then if I had not run -across to look at the bees. He told him about our tub being gone, too. -Aggie said it wasn’t at all necessary to tell that, but Belle said Father -was too honest to keep anything back. - -“Father imagined that Mr. Brierly thought we knew something about the -disappearance of the honey. Of course Father resented this, so the -Brierlys and we ceased to be friendly. Mrs. Brierly and Mother had always -helped each other to quilt and make apple butter and had exchanged -recipes and loaned patterns back and forth, but all this stopped now. - -“School started, and Tom and Annie Brierly did not wait for Charlie and -me as they had always done. If they had not gone to school before we came -along, they waited until we had passed by before they started. - -“Charlie and I worried a great deal about the coldness between the two -families and the unhappiness it was causing. We were always making plans -to discover who took the honey and so clear things up. - -“One day when Charlie was eating his dinner at school he noticed that -Flora May Henlen had something on her bread that looked like honey. He -told me to watch her, and the next day at noon I took my dinner and sat -down near Flora May to eat it. Sure enough, it was honey she had on her -bread. But then I remembered that they had bees and she had a right to -have honey. Still I watched Flora May for several days, and she always -had honey on her bread. - -“‘Did your bees make lots of honey this year, Flora May?’ I asked her one -day. - -“‘Oh, yes,’ she answered, ‘every few days the boys bring in a pan of -honey.’ - -“That evening Charlie made an excuse to stop a while with one of the -Henlen boys, and in the orchard back of the house he saw their bee hive -lying on the ground among some rubbish and rotting leaves. - -“We told our discovery at home, and my brother Truman said the Henlens -had had no bees at all for months. They had been starved or frozen out -the winter before. - -“The next morning Father stopped Asa and Longford Henlen as they were -passing our house on the way home from mill and told them he knew they -had taken the honey. At first they denied all knowledge of the honey, but -when they found that in some way Father had found out about it they were -scared and admitted that they had chopped down the tree and, finding more -honey than they had expected, had taken our tub to carry it away in. - -“Mr. Brierly and Father decided that if the boys would work out the pay -for the honey and promise not to steal any more they would not tell -anyone. - -“Mr. Brierly apologized to Father, and Mrs. Brierly and Mother kissed the -next time they met, and Tom and Annie began waiting for Charlie and me -again, so that everything was all right once more. - -“Get the apples, Bobby, please, and tomorrow night, if you say your -prayers and go right to sleep tonight, I’ll tell you about—well, it’s an -awfully good story I have for tomorrow night.” - - - - -BRAIN AGAINST BRAWN - - -Bobby was feeling his muscle and telling his sisters how strong he wanted -to be, and Grandma, hearing him, said, “Of course it’s nice to be strong, -Bobby, but strength won’t get anyone very far unless it is combined with -brains. I knew a delicate looking boy once who got ahead of half a dozen -big strong fellows, not because he was strong, but because he had brains -and used them. - -“It was long, long ago—the winter my brother Truman taught our home -school. Mother didn’t want Truman to take the school, for, though he was -eighteen years old, he was a slender, little fellow and his blue eyes and -light hair made him look even younger than he really was. But Father said -for him to go ahead and see what he could do. - -“There were several bad boys in school. The year before they had run the -teacher out before the term was half over, and we had no more school that -winter. When they heard that Truman was going to teach, they made all -sorts of boasts about what they meant to do. - -“Truman got along all right the first few weeks until the older boys, who -had been working at a sawmill, started in. Nearly all of these boys were -bigger than Truman, and Bud McGill, the leader, was a year older. He had -broken up several schools and bragged that he would run Truman out in -short order. - -“From the day he started he did everything he could to make trouble. -Because he had started to school late in the term he did not get the seat -he wanted. One morning he came early and took this seat and refused to -give it up when Truman asked him to. Truman couldn’t force him to give -it up, because Bud was so much larger and stronger. All day long Bud sat -there in the corner seat talking and laughing and throwing paper wads at -girls—disturbing all the rest of us so we could not study. At dismissing -time Truman told him to take his books with him and not come back to -school until he could behave himself, but Bud walked out as bold as you -please without a single book. - -“I don’t know just how it would have come out if Bud’s father had not -heard about the trouble. But he did, and he told Bud he would have to -give up the seat unless he got the teacher’s permission to keep it. - -“Bud said he’d get Truman’s permission all right. - -“The next morning I went to school early with Truman because Charlie was -sick and couldn’t go. As soon as we came in sight of the schoolhouse and -saw a thick column of smoke rising from the chimney we knew something had -happened, for Truman always built the fire himself. - -“When we got within hearing distance, Bud McGill opened the door a tiny -bit and called out to Truman, ‘Have I your say-so to keep the seat in the -corner?’ - -“‘No, you haven’t,’ Truman said shortly, and Bud slammed the door in his -face and bolted it. Bud’s plan was to keep Truman out of the schoolhouse -until he agreed to Bud’s taking the seat he wanted. Then Truman could -come in and take up books as usual, but if he did this he would be -admitting that Bud was the real authority in the school and the other -pupils would cease to respect him. - -“As the children came to school Bud opened the door and let them in. They -offered to let me in, too, but I wouldn’t go. Truman wanted me to go -back home, but I wouldn’t do that either. Several of the boys stopped to -talk to Truman and offered to help him. Bud’s crowd saw the boys talking -to Truman and thought they were going to combine and try to enter the -schoolhouse by force. Bud dared them to come ahead. He went so far as to -say that if the teacher got in he would do whatever he said. But Truman -urged the boys who were eager to help him to go on in and not make any -trouble. He said it was his problem and he would have to settle it alone -as best he could. So they went in, and Truman and I were left alone. - -“Truman brought some kindling from the coal house and built a fire, and -we stood around it to keep warm. - -“‘I’ve got to get ahead of them some way,’ Truman said, as much to -himself as to me. ‘I’ll have to beat them or I’m done for. And if I give -up the school, that means no spring term at the academy. I’ve either got -to outwit Bud and his crowd or give up the school.’ Just then a strong -wind blew the smoke in our eyes and started them to smarting. This gave -Truman an idea. - -“‘I might smoke them out,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘If I could only get to -the roof, I could stuff this old coat down the chimney. You wait here, -Sarah, while I look around for a ladder.’ - -“He strolled to the back of the building where there were no windows, -got down on his hands and knees, and crawled under the house to look for -a ladder that had been there. But the ladder was gone. He examined the -walls of the schoolhouse, but they were smoothly weather-boarded and gave -no foothold. - -“He got an armful of kindling to build up the fire, and presently, though -it wasn’t noon, we opened our lunch basket and ate our dinner. A cold -wind had risen and the fire was getting low. Whatever Truman did must be -done quickly, for the short winter afternoon would soon be over. - -“I shivered and edged nearer to the fire. - -“‘I wish I had Belle’s new cape,’ I said. ‘It would keep me good and -warm. Did you see Belle’s new dolman and hat that she got while she was -at Clayville yesterday, Truman?’ I asked idly, just for something to say. - -“He didn’t answer me at once. Then, ‘Has anyone else seen them?’ he asked -quietly. ‘I mean anyone else except our own folks.’ - -“‘No, not a soul,’ I said. ‘No one knows she even went to town.’ - -“Truman stared at me blankly. ‘I wonder if I could do it,’ he murmured. - -“‘Why I’m sure you could,’ I said, not in the least knowing what he was -talking about, but eager to encourage him in any way I could. - -“‘I’ll try it!’ he cried. ‘You go in, Sarah, and tell them I’ll be back -in an hour.’ With that he started down the road, and I went in and gave -them his message. Some of the boys hooted and laughed and said they might -as well go home, but finally decided to wait. - -“Less than an hour from the time Truman left some of the scholars -impatiently watching the road for his return were surprised to see a -lady approaching on horseback from the opposite direction. She got off -her horse in front of the schoolhouse and looked helplessly around. Bud -McGill dashed out and tied her horse to the fence. The girls said she -must be a stranger, for none of them had ever seen her before. - -[Illustration: _“The teacher is out just now. Won’t you have a chair?” -said Bud_] - -“A plaid dolman of the newest style, trimmed with fringe, fell nearly to -her knees, and she wore a wide black beaver hat with a thick veil and -glasses. She walked with mincing steps to the door, daintily holding up -her long black riding skirt. Just inside she turned to Bud. - -“‘Are you the teacher?’ she asked softly. - -“‘No, ma’am,’ Bud said politely, ‘the teacher is out just now. Won’t you -have a chair?’ - -“The lady sat down at the teacher’s desk and began to fumble with her -veil. One of the girls came forward and deftly removed the pins that held -it in place. The veil slipped off, and there sat Truman dressed in sister -Belle’s new clothes! There were shouts and shouts of laughter in which -even Bud was forced to join. He came forward and offered Truman his hand. - -“‘You beat,’ he said. He never made any more trouble and we had a good -school the rest of the winter. - -“See who gets to sleep first and we’ll have another story real, real -soon.” - - - - -A WISH THAT CAME TRUE - - -“Grandma,” said Alice one evening when she and Bobby and Pink had come -into Grandma’s room, “do you believe that if you look over your right -shoulder at the new moon and make a wish that it will come true?” - -“Naw,” jeered Bobby, “course not.” - -“Well, I don’t know,” Grandma answered thoughtfully. “A wish made -that way could come true. I made a wish once over a white horse and a -red-haired girl that came true.” - -“Tell us about it Grandma. Please tell us,” coaxed Alice. - -Grandma found her knitting and began. - -“The red-haired girl,” she said, “was Betty Bard, our preacher’s -granddaughter. She had lived at the parsonage with her grandparents for -nearly a year, and next to Annie Brierly she was my best friend. The -white horse belonged to old Mrs. Orbison, who with several other women -had come to help sister Belle quilt her ‘Rose of Sharon.’ - -“Betty and I were playing under the apple tree in the side yard. That -is, we were trying to play. We couldn’t find any game we liked. We -kept thinking that this might be our last afternoon together. You see, -conference was to meet the next week, and Betty didn’t seem to think her -grandfather would be sent back to preach on Redding circuit. I didn’t -think so either. Redding circuit was very hard to please, and though -Father never found fault with any of our preachers and always paid his -tithes, still I knew that Brother Bard was not popular. Betty said it was -because he did good by stealth and no one ever found it out. - -“‘If I move away,’ said Betty as we sat under the apple tree talking that -afternoon, ‘you may have my playhouse rock at school, Sarah, and all my -dahlia roots, and the black kitten. The kitten’s name is Bad Boy because -he jumps on the table when no one is looking. And you must be sure to dig -the dahlias up before frost.’ - -“Just then Mrs. Orbison’s voice floated out through the open sitting-room -window. - -“‘It all depends on the sermon he preaches tomorrow,’ she said. ‘If they -don’t like it, a letter goes to the Presiding Elder saying we will not -tolerate Brother Bard another year and that in case he is sent back -against our wishes we will not pay him anything.’ - -“I looked quickly at Betty to see if she had heard, and I knew by the -flush on her cheeks that she had. I put my arm through hers and we walked -slowly toward the front gate. It was then I made my wish. I looked at -Mrs. Orbison’s white horse turned out to graze in the orchard across the -road and at Betty’s red head, and I said to myself, ‘I wish for Betty not -to move away.’ Out loud I said to Betty, ‘Can’t you tell your grandpa to -preach a sermon they’ll like, Betty, so you won’t have to go away?’ - -“‘But how would he know what they’d like?’ she asked in a puzzled tone. - -“‘Oh, just something pleasant,’ I answered cheerfully, ‘something nice -and pleasant.’ - -“‘I’ll tell him what Mrs. Orbison said,’ she promised before she went -home, ‘and he can do what he thinks best.’ - -“We stopped at the parsonage the next morning to take Betty into the -surrey with us because her grandma seldom went to meeting, not being very -strong. I could hardly wait till Betty and I got around a corner of the -church to ourselves. - -“‘What did your grandpa say?’ I asked eagerly. - -“‘He said he’d do his duty as he saw it, and grandma said he stayed up -all night. She crept downstairs three times to beg him to come to bed.’ - -“This did not sound very encouraging, but when I heard the text I -breathed a sigh of relief. It was, ‘Now if Timotheus come, see that he -may be with you without fear, for he worketh the work of the Lord as I -also do.’ I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded like a safe text, -and I became so interested in watching a robin hopping on the window sill -that I did not notice what Preacher Bard was saying until I felt Betty -straighten up and clutch my hand. - -“I looked around to see what had happened, and I knew in a minute that -he had not preached a sermon to please them. Amazement, indignation, -surprise, showed plainly in the upturned faces. I won’t try to tell you -what was in that sermon, only this—that, in the hope of making things -easier for his successor, Reverend Bard had undertaken in a kindly way to -open the eyes of the Mt. Zion people to some of their faults. They had -found fault with all the preachers. Now he pointed out a few of their own -shortcomings, and they didn’t like it—no, indeed, not a bit. - -“When it was over, the congregation poured out of the church, filled the -little yard, and overflowed into the graveyard beyond. No one offered -to leave. They stood around in groups—whispering, shaking their heads -gravely, pressing their lips in grim lines. - -“As soon as the preacher left for his afternoon appointment the storm -broke. No one paid any attention to Betty as she stood at the horseblock -with me waiting for Father to come round with the surrey. Everybody -talked at once. - -“‘He doesn’t preach the straight gospel—he tells too many tales.’ - -“‘He doesn’t visit enough.’ - -“‘He favors pouring, when we’ve always stood for immersion.’ - -“These remarks and many others Betty and I heard as we waited there for -Father. Betty must have stood it just as long as she possibly could. Then -suddenly she jerked away from me and climbed to the horseblock. I can see -her now—her red hair flying in the breeze, her eyes shining, her cheeks -flushed. - -“‘My grandfather’s the best man in the world,’ she cried, and stamped her -foot angrily. ‘He’s the best man in the world, I tell you. I don’t care -what you say, he’s the best man in the world,’ and she crumpled down in a -little sobbing heap. - -[Illustration: _The congregation stood around in groups—whispering and -shaking their heads gravely_] - -“Father came up then and, putting an arm around Betty, he said, ‘Let us -pray,’ and everybody bowed his head and Father prayed. He prayed a long -time, and at the last there were lots of ‘Amens’ and ‘Praise the Lords’ -just as in big meeting. - -“The second Father finished, an old man stepped out in front and said in -a halting way that he would like every one to know that when his cow died -in the winter Preacher Bard had bought him another. That started things. -A young man said the preacher had sat up with him every other night for -six weeks when he had typhoid fever. A boy said the preacher had bought -him school books, and the Widow Spears said he had given her twenty -dollars when her house burned. An old lady told how he read one afternoon -a week to her husband who was blind, and so on and on and on. Everybody -wanted to tell something good about Preacher Bard. - -“Before the meeting broke up a big donation party was planned for Monday -night, and Mother got Mrs. Bard to let Betty come home with us so she -wouldn’t give it away. Monday was a busy day. While the women baked and -cooked for the party, the men raised money to put a new roof on the -parsonage, to buy a suit of clothes for Brother Bard, a black silk dress -for Mrs. Bard, so stiff it would stand alone, and a blue delaine for -Betty. - -“How we surprised the Bards that night when we all went in, and what a -good time we had! But the best part was when Deacon Orbison, who had -been opposed to the preacher from the first, got up on a chair and made a -speech. He said it seemed to him Redding circuit could not afford to lose -a man like Reverend Bard, that his salary and benevolences had been made -up in full, and that a letter would be sent the Presiding Elder asking -that he be returned for another year. He was returned, and Betty and I -sat together at school that winter, so you see I got my wish. - -“Well, well, if it isn’t bedtime for three little children I know. Pass -the apples, Bobby, please, and next time I’ll tell you—well, I just don’t -know what I shall tell you next time, but I’ll have something for you.” - - - - -JOE’S INFARE - - -“I think tonight I’ll tell you about my brother Joe’s infare,” said -Grandma one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink had come to her room -for their usual good-night story. “But first,” she went on, before the -children had time to ask any questions, “I’d better tell you what an -infare was. It was a sort of wedding reception which took place at the -bridegroom’s home, usually the day after the wedding. It was the faring -or going of the bride into her husband’s home and was celebrated with -great rejoicing and a big feast. - -“Joe had married Sally Garvin, who lived four miles from us by the road -but only two miles through the fields. They had been married the day -before, and we were to have the infare. - -“Mother and the girls and Nanny Dodds had baked and cooked for a solid -week. And before that they had cleaned the house from top to bottom, -and we had mowed and raked and swept the big front yard and the orchard -across the road and the pasture lot by the house. Now the great day had -arrived. - -“Stanley had gone in our surrey to drive the bridal couple home, and -Truman and the girls had ridden horseback to meet them. Charlie had -brought Hunter, Stanley’s colt, down to the barn lot so he could go with -them. But Mother was afraid to have him ride the colt, not knowing that -he practiced riding him every day in the pasture field. - -“From my lookout on the rail of the front portico I saw the first of the -guests come over the top of two-mile hill. There was a number of young -men and girls on horseback, followed by our surrey with Stanley driving. -On the back seat I knew the bride and groom sat. - -“I waited for nothing more. I jumped down and rushed off to the kitchen -to tell Mother. Mother gave Nanny some instructions about the dinner, -slipped off the big gingham apron that covered her gray silk dress, -patted her hair before the mirror in the hall, and, taking Father’s arm, -went down the path between the rows of bachelor’s buttons, foxglove, -Canterbury bells, and ribbon grass to welcome her first daughter-in-law. - -“When Sally and Joe had left Sally’s home, a number of friends and -relatives had started with them. These had been added to all along the -way by other friends, so that there was quite a crowd of folks when they -reached our house, besides lots of people who had already come. - -“As soon as Mother and Father had greeted Sally, Belle and Aggie hurried -her upstairs to the spare chamber to put on her wedding dress. Sally was -little, with pink cheeks, and brown curls which she wore caught at the -top of her head and hanging down her back very much as the little girls -wear their hair now, only the young ladies of that day wore a high-backed -comb instead of a ribbon. She wore a new gray alpaca trimmed in narrow -silk fluting, very pretty, but nothing like what the wedding dress would -be. The wedding dress had been made in Clayville, and Belle and Aggie and -everybody else were eager to see it. - -“Joe brought up the telescope which held Sally’s things and went back -downstairs. The girls were going to help Sally dress, and I kept as much -out of sight as possible so I could see and yet not be seen. - -“‘Open it up, Aggie, please,’ said Sally, pointing to the telescope, ‘and -lay my dress on the bed. I do hope it’s not wrinkled.’ - -“Aggie lifted the telescope from the floor to a chair. - -“‘My goodness, but it’s heavy!’ she cried. ‘What in the world is in it, -Sally?’ - -“Sally turned from the mirror. - -“‘Heavy?’ she said surprised. ‘Why, there’s hardly anything in it. I -packed it myself. I wanted to be sure my dress wouldn’t be wrinkled, so I -just put in the dress and a few other things to do until tomorrow.’ - -“Aggie rapidly unbuckled the straps and lifted up the lid. Sally gave a -smothered cry and caught Belle’s arm. - -“‘Somebody has made a mistake,’ she gasped. ‘It is the wrong telescope!’ -and she threw herself across the bed and burst into tears. - -“The telescope was packed tight full with towels, pillow slips, -tablecloths, and sheets and was to have been brought over the next day -with the rest of Sally’s things. In the excitement of leaving, some -one had carried it down and placed it in the surrey instead of the one -containing the wedding dress. - -“‘You look awfully sweet in this little gray dress, Sally,’ Aggie tried -to console her. But it was no use, for Sally knew quite well that -waiting downstairs were girls in dresses that looked much more bridelike -than the gray alpaca. To be outshone at one’s own infare—well, it was no -wonder she cried! - -“Belle suggested that Stanley or Truman go back for the wedding dress, -but Sally objected to this. She said people would laugh at her and never -forget that she had gone to her infare and left her wedding dress at home. - -“Suddenly a thought came to me. Hunter was still in the barn lot. Charlie -could ride him, and he went like a streak. It was only two miles through -the fields to Sally’s home. I never stopped to think that Mother would -be frightened if she knew Charlie was on Hunter, or that Father would -probably forbid it, or that Charlie might ruin his new Sunday suit. I -slipped out of the room and went in search of Charlie. I found him out -front pitching horseshoes, and in no time at all he was off to Sally’s -home without a soul knowing about it. Then I went upstairs to tell the -girls what I had done. - -“They were not very hopeful. It didn’t seem possible that Sally could -stay upstairs till Charlie got back with the dress, but she said she -would wait a little while anyway. She got up and bathed her face, and -Belle and Aggie went down to entertain the guests. Belle started several -games, such as ‘Strip-the-Willow’ and ‘Copenhagen,’ and Aggie played the -piano. - -“I was everywhere—in the kitchen begging Nanny to hold the dinner back -as long as she could (I had let her into the secret), on the hill behind -the house watching for Charlie, and in the spare chamber trying to cheer -Sally up, for at the end of an hour there was no sign of Charlie. - -“What could have happened? He had said he could make it in less than an -hour. He had been gone an hour and twenty minutes! People were wondering -why Sally did not appear. They had lost interest in the games and were -dropping out and sauntering toward the house. Aggie had played everything -she knew over and over. Belle had run up to tell Sally she would have -to put on the gray dress and come right down, but Sally had coaxed for -five minutes more. Belle went back and started the folks singing ‘The -Star-Spangled Banner.’ The five minutes were up and Sally was putting on -the gray alpaca dress when Charlie came. - -“The people who had begun to wonder what was keeping the bride forgot -about it when Sally came down and stood with Joe to receive their good -wishes and congratulations. Her dress was heavy cream-colored silk with -tiny pink rosebuds scattered all over it, and the full skirt was ruffled -clear to the waist. The round neck and elbow sleeves were finished with -filmy white ruching, and she wore white satin slippers. With her pink -cheeks and shiny brown curls I thought she was the very prettiest bride -any one ever saw. - -“When they had gone into the dining room, where Annie Brierly and some -other little girls were waving peach switches over the tables to keep the -flies and bees away and Sally was saying who should sit at the bride’s -table, Charlie told me what had kept him. He had found the Garvins’ house -locked up and had had to climb in a window to get the telescope. The dog -had seen him as he had gotten in and wouldn’t let him come out until -Charlie had fed him and made friends with him. - -“Then some one called us and said that Sally wanted Charlie and me to -sit at the bride’s table. No one could have been more surprised than -we were, for we hadn’t expected to eat till the third table at the very -soonest, and here we were invited to sit at the bride’s table and have -our pick of the choicest food! - -“There! I hear Mother calling. Good night, good night, good night.” - - - - -PUMPKIN SEED - - -“Well, well,” said Grandma one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink -asked for a story. “I wonder if I can think of anything tonight.” She -found her knitting and went on in a puzzled tone. “I thought of something -today to tell you about. Let me see, what was it? Oh, I remember now. It -was the pumpkin pie at dinner that set me thinking about the pumpkin seed -that Father gave brother Charlie and me to plant.” - -“It was in the spring. The fish were biting fine, and one afternoon -Charlie and I were all ready to go down to the deep hole under the -willows to fish. Charlie had cut new poles and hunted up hooks and lines, -and I had packed a lunch, for you do get awfully hungry sitting on the -creek bank all afternoon. We were out behind the barn digging bait when -Father came around the corner and saw us. - -“‘I’ve just been looking for you children,’ he said. ‘I want you to take -these pumpkin seeds down to the cornfield in the bottom and plant them.’ -Then, seeing our fishing tackle, he added, ‘It won’t take long, and when -you finish you may go fishing.’ - -“Of course Charlie and I were disappointed. We hadn’t been fishing that -year yet. It had been a late spring, with lots of rain, and on the bright -days there had been so many things that we could do around the house and -garden that we couldn’t be spared to go fishing. And now, with everything -all ready, to give it up even for an hour or two was a trial. - -“We started for the cornfield, Charlie carrying the poles and the can of -bait and I the lunch and the paper sack of pumpkin seed. The pumpkins we -were to plant were to be used to feed the stock—cow pumpkins they were -called, and they were big and coarse-grained and not good for pies. - -“Well, Charlie and I started down at the lower end of the field and we -planted a few seeds. But there was such a lot of the seed and the field -was so big and the lure of the creek with the shade under the willows -and the fish biting was so great that we could think of nothing else. We -stopped to examine our bait to see if the worms were still living. When -we went back to work Charlie wondered what was the use of planting so -many old pumpkins, anyhow, when Father had already planted as many as -usual in the upper cornfield. - -“‘We might plant a whole lot of seed at once,’ he said, ‘but still it -would take us a long time.’ - -“‘I know what to do!’ I cried, ‘Let’s hide the sack of seed in this old -stump and come back tomorrow and plant them.’ After a few half-hearted -protests from Charlie, this was what we did. We buried the sack of seed -in an old, rotten stump, covered it deep with the soft, rich loam, and -away we went to the creek to fish. - -“Charlie baited both our hooks with the fishworms, and we would spit on -our bait each time for luck. The charm must have worked, for when it -was time to go home we had caught a nice lot of sunfish, tobacco boxes, -silversides, and suckers. Truman cleaned them for us, and Mother dipped -them in corn meal and fried them a golden brown. We had them for supper, -and every one said how good they were and no one thought to ask us -anything about the pumpkin seeds. - -“I thought about them that night after I had gone to bed and wished that -we had stayed and planted them as Father had told us to. But then Charlie -and I would go down first thing in the morning, dig the sack out of the -stump, plant the seeds, and everything would be all right. - -“But it began to rain in the night, and it rained all the next day. The -day after, it was too wet, and the day after that Charlie was busy. Then -it rained again, and after a while I forgot all about the pumpkin seeds. -It was several weeks before I thought of them again. You couldn’t guess -what made me think of them then, so I will tell you. - -“When we went to meeting on Sundays, Charlie and I always tried to -remember the text of the sermon to say when we got home, for Mother was -almost sure to ask us what it was. One Sunday I was saying it over and -over to myself so that I could remember it, when suddenly the meaning -of it came to me and I was surprised to find that it had something to -do with me. The text was ‘Be sure your sin will find you out,’ and in a -flash I knew it meant that if you did anything wrong you couldn’t keep -people from knowing about it. Then I thought of the buried pumpkin seed -which Charlie and I had meant to go back and plant. - -“Father had never said a word about the pumpkins not coming up, though he -must surely have noticed it long before this. Perhaps he thought the seed -had been bad, but still it was queer he had never mentioned it. - -“That night I couldn’t sleep for thinking how wrong it had been for -Charlie and me to deceive Father about the pumpkin seed. Even the fact -that we had meant to go back and plant them didn’t make me feel any less -guilty. When I did fall asleep, I dreamed that the room was full of -pumpkins with ugly grinning faces like jack-o’-lanterns. They laughed -and mocked at me and pressed closer and closer until I wakened with a -frightened cry, and when Mother asked me what had scared me I couldn’t -tell her. - -“In the morning I talked it over with Charlie. We agreed to go to Father -immediately and tell him that we had not planted the pumpkin seeds. - -[Illustration: _I dreamed the room was full of pumpkins with ugly -grinning faces_] - -“But Father had gone to Clayville on business for a couple of days. -When he came back, before we had a chance to see him alone he told us -at dinner before all the others that the pumpkin crop in the bottom -cornfield was to be Charlie’s and mine. He said that we could keep as -many as we wanted to for jack-o’-lanterns on Hallowe’en and he would pay -us ten cents apiece for all the rest. Think of that! Ten cents apiece -for all the pumpkins we raised, and we knew that there wouldn’t be any -pumpkins! I looked across the table at Charlie, and his face was very -red. I couldn’t say a word, but when Father left the table we both -followed him and told him all about the pumpkin seeds, and how the text -had started us thinking, and everything. Father listened without a word -till we had finished. Then much to our surprise he said, ‘I’ve known for -a good while what you did with the pumpkin seed. When I saw the number -of fish you caught that afternoon, I wondered how you had planted the -pumpkin seed so quickly. I had told Mother they were to belong to you -two to do with as you pleased, but I did not intend to tell you until -later. Then when I found out that you had not planted the seeds I waited -for you to come to me. I believe you have learned a lesson from this -experience which you will not forget. Come along with me. I want to show -you something.’ - -“Wonderingly, without a word, we followed Father to the cornfield and -straight to where the old rotten stump in the lower end of the field had -been. But when we got there we could not see the stump, for coming out of -it and all over it and completely covering it, were myriads of pumpkin -vines—not big strong vines like the ones that grew in the fields, but -thin, sickly vines crowding each other for space. - -“The soil in the stump had been so rich and light that, though the sack -of seeds had been deeply covered, when soaked with rain the seeds had -sprouted and forced their way through the sack and up to the light and -air. The vines told Father where the pumpkin seeds were as plainly as if -they could have spoken. - -“And now, good night, my dears, and don’t forget to say your prayers, and -I’ll try to think up a good story for next time.” - - - - -A SCHOOL FOR SISTER BELLE - - -“It was during the third year of the war that sister Belle got her -certificate to teach. Our school had been closed for a year, first -because there were no teachers, all the young men having enlisted, and -secondly because there was no money to pay a teacher. The few schools in -the county had been given out before Belle got her certificate. She was -awfully disappointed, for she wanted to go to the academy in the spring -and she didn’t think Father could spare the money to send her, times -being so hard. - -“But since she couldn’t get a school she would make the best of it. She -would help Aggie and Truman and Charlie and me at home, and she promised -to teach the Brierly children, too. Then the Orbisons wanted to come, -and to save Mother the fuss and dirt so many children would make in the -house, Belle said she would hold school in the schoolhouse and let any -one attend who wanted to. - -“‘It will give me experience, anyway,’ she said, ‘and dear knows the -children need some one to teach them!’ - -“‘Why don’t you let them pay you?’ Aggie suggested. ‘A dollar apiece a -month for each pupil wouldn’t be a bit too much.’ - -“But Belle said some of them couldn’t pay and they were the ones who -needed schooling the most. And the ones who could pay probably wouldn’t, -because the county should pay for a teacher. - -“So one Saturday in October, armed with brooms and buckets, window cloths -and scrubbing brushes and a can of soft soap, we set out to clean the -schoolhouse. We scrubbed the floor and the desks and polished the stove -and cleaned the windows, and on the next Monday, the date set for the -opening of all the schools in the district, sister Belle took her place -at the teacher’s old desk. - -“It wasn’t a very different opening from the one she had planned and -looked forward to so eagerly. The only difference was that there would be -no payment for Belle at the end of the term. - -“The last pupil to start in was Joe Slater. He was a tall, strong boy -of seventeen, but was not considered very bright. He was a fine hand -to work, though, and from ploughing time in the spring until the corn -husking was over in the fall, he was always busy. During the winter -months he did odd jobs and went to school, but he had never got beyond -the first-reader class. Because he had nothing to do he had always been -more or less troublesome in school, and the very first day he came he -threw paper wads and whispered and teased the younger children. - -“Belle found that he knew the first reader ‘by heart.’ More to encourage -Joe than for any other reason, she promoted him to the second reader. It -was hard to tell whether pupil or teacher was the most astonished to find -that Joe was actually learning to read. Belle helped him before and after -school, and Joe became a model pupil and refused to do any work that -would make him miss a day of school. He always came early in the morning -and had the fire going and wood enough in for all day by the time Belle -got there. - -“So Belle was surprised to find Joe’s seat empty one snowy morning in -December. His sister Nancy said he had gone to the railroad in a sled -to get some freight for Mr. Grove. They lived on Mr. Grove’s place, and -Joe could not well refuse to do this for him. Nancy did say, though, -that Joe had wanted to wait until Saturday, but Mr. Grove was afraid the -sledding snow would go off before that time. So Joe had started long -before daylight, hoping to get back to school in time for the afternoon -session. - -[Illustration: _On the steps a big man was stamping his feet and shaking -the snow from a fur-collared great-coat_] - -“About half-past eleven there was a loud knock on the door. It was -snowing and blowing, and we all turned around to look when Belle went -to open the door. On the steps a big man in a fur cap was stamping -his feet and shaking the snow from a fur-collared great-coat. Belle -said afterward that she knew him instantly—it was the new county -superintendent—but she couldn’t imagine why he had come. She had seen -him at institute in Clayville, but none of us children had ever seen him -before. - -“Belle soon found from his talk that he thought he was in the Cherry Flat -school. When she told him where he was and the peculiar circumstances of -our school, he was very much surprised. - -“‘Why, I can’t understand it at all,’ he said. ‘I was talking to the -station agent this morning, asking how to get to Cherry Flat school, and -a boy who was warming himself at the stove spoke up and offered to take -me there. He was on a sled and of course I jumped at the chance. He let -me out at the forks of the road, and here I am, three miles from the -Cherry Flat school, you say.’ - -“‘I bet it was Joe,’ Betty Bard whispered to me. - -“Now that the superintendent was there and couldn’t get away until the -storm let up, he made a speech. Then he listened to our recitations and -asked Belle a great many questions, such as how many pupils she had, -where they lived, and whether she received any pay at all for teaching. -She told him about her certificate and her failure to get a school, and -he wrote it all down in a little notebook. - -“The storm grew worse and worse. The wind whistled around the schoolhouse -and rattled the windows, and the falling snow looked like a thick white -blanket. - -“Belle asked us to share our dinners with the superintendent, and we did. -He sat on one of the desks and told us stories while he ate everything -we gave him—bread and apple butter, hard-boiled eggs, ham sandwiches, -pickles, doughnuts, mince and apple pies, and cup cakes. When he left we -were all good friends and we filled his pockets with apples. He said he -would eat them as he walked along to Cherry Flat school, but he didn’t -have to walk. Truman took him in our sled, and we all stood in the door -and waved until he was out of sight. - -“No one could get Joe to say a word about the superintendent’s visit, but -everybody thought he had brought him there on purpose, hoping in this way -to help Belle. He was a great deal smarter than people gave him credit -for, and Belle had helped him and he wanted to do something for her. - -“But if sister Belle nourished any secret hopes that the unexpected visit -would help her in any way, she gave them up as the weeks went by and she -heard nothing from the superintendent. - -“School went on just as usual, though. Christmas came, and Belle didn’t -have money for the usual treat. But we had lots of sorghum molasses, and -Mother let her have a taffy pulling in our kitchen and we had lots of fun. - -“Everybody got along well in their books and we were going to have last -day exercises, as we always did, with recitations and songs and games. -Belle staid late at the schoolhouse the evening before and reached home -just as Truman came in from the postoffice. He handed her a long, thin -envelope and she tore it open and read the letter it contained. Before -she got through she was dancing all around the kitchen, laughing and -crying at the same time, and Mother took the letter from her hand and -read it aloud. - -“I can’t remember how that letter read, but it was from the board of -education. They said they had decided to put our school back on the -pay roll and that they understood that Belle had taught it in a very -satisfactory manner since the opening of the term. She was to send her -record of attendance and they would forward the five salary vouchers of -thirty dollars each, which were due her. There was some more about its -being unusual, but that they felt she deserved it. It was no wonder Belle -was so happy, was it?” - - - - -ANDY’S MONUMENT - - -Bobby and Alice and Pink had been telling Grandma about the soldiers’ -monument that was to be placed in the courthouse yard. - -“It is to be made of granite,” said Bobby, “and the names of all the -soldiers from this county who died or were killed in the war will be cut -on one side of it.” - -“Well, well,” said Grandma thoughtfully, “that makes me think of a -monument I knew about long ago, but this monument wasn’t made of granite.” - -“Marble, may be,”suggested Alice. - -“No, not marble, either. You never heard of a monument like this. But, -there, I might as well tell you about it,” and Grandma polished her -spectacles, found her knitting, and began: - -“This monument was for a soldier, too. Andy Carson was his name. He was -a very young soldier, only fifteen years old, but large for his age, and -he ran away from home and enlisted. Three times he ran away and twice his -father brought him back, but the third time he let him go. - -“But poor Andy never wore a uniform or saw a battle. He died in camp two -weeks after he had enlisted and he was buried in our cemetery, with only -Father to read a chapter out of the Bible and say a prayer, because the -preacher was clear at the other end of the circuit. - -“Right away Mrs. Carson began to plan for a monument for Andy. At first -it was to be just an ordinary monument, but the more she thought about -it the grander she wanted it to be. Nothing could be too good for Andy. -He should have the biggest monument in the cemetery—a life-size figure. -But she couldn’t decide whether to have the figure draped in a robe with -a dove perched on the shoulder or to have it wearing a uniform and cap. -Mrs. Carson finally settled on the uniform, though she couldn’t give up -the idea of the dove, so there was to be a dove in one outstretched hand. - -“But the Carsons had no money and they didn’t like to work. If anyone -mentioned work to Mr. Carson, he would begin always to talk about the -misery in his back. When brother Charlie had a job he didn’t want to do, -he would bend over with his hand on his back, screw up his face as if he -were in great pain, and say, ‘Oh, that misery in my back!’ - -“Mother said Mrs. Carson had not been lazy as a girl, but that she had -grown discouraged from having so many to do for and nothing to do with. -Sometimes she came to visit Mother, because Mother was always nice to -everybody. She was very tall and thin, with a short waist, and she wore -the longest skirts I ever saw and a black slat sunbonnet. - -“There was a big family of children—a girl, Maggie, older than Andy, and -Willie, a boy a year younger, and four or five smaller children. The -older ones came to school part of the time, but none of them ever came to -church—partly because they had no proper clothes, I suppose. - -“They lived on a farm left them by Mrs. Carson’s father. The land was -all run down and worn out. It was covered with briars and broom sage -and a stubby growth of trees. Fences were down, and the buildings were -unpainted and old. - -“So, though the Carsons talked a great deal about Andy’s monument, no one -ever thought they would get one. But Mother said it was the first thing -Mrs. Carson had really wanted for years and years and people generally -got the things they wanted most if they were willing to work hard for -them. And it turned out that all the Carsons were willing to work hard -for Andy’s monument. It was astonishing the way they worked. - -“Mrs. Carson and the children started with the house and yard. They -cleaned the rubbish off the yard and raked and swept it and planted -flowers. They made the stove wood into a neat pile and swept up the chips -and patched the fence and whitewashed it. By this time Mr. Carson had the -fever, too. He started to clear off the land, all the family helping him. -All summer long they worked, early and late, cutting out the briars and -underbrush, burning broom sage, building fences, and by fall you wouldn’t -have known it for the same place. They worked for a number of other -people, too, and made a little money, besides taking seed corn and a pair -of little pigs and other things they needed in payment. - -“Well, it took a lot of money for a monument like Andy’s was to be, but -the Carsons worked and saved for it. It seemed as if they had set a -new standard for themselves and were trying hard to live up to Andy’s -monument. - -“They painted the house and repaired and whitewashed the outbuildings and -put a paling fence around the front yard. They got lace curtains and a -store carpet for their best room, and when Father got us a piano, Mrs. -Carson bought our organ for a trifle. They got new clothes and dishes and -tablecloths, and every Sunday they all came to meeting and asked folks -home with them to dinner just as anybody else did. - -“Dave Orbison was courting Maggie, and Willie was ready to go to the -academy. He wanted an education and came to our house every week to get -Truman to help him with his studies or to borrow books. If it hadn’t been -for the monument, people would have forgotten that the Carsons had ever -been considered lazy or shiftless. - -“But Mrs. Carson was always talking about the monument. She had never -had Andy’s funeral sermon preached, and she planned to have it preached -the Sunday after the monument was set up. - -“And at the end of three years they had enough money, but for some reason -they didn’t get the monument. Everybody wondered about it. Weeks went by, -and still no news of the monument. Willie often came to our house, but he -never mentioned it. Then one day Mrs. Carson came. She had a horse now, -and she looked longer and thinner than ever in her black calico riding -skirt. - -“Mother was fitting a dress on me—a red wool delaine for Sundays—but Mrs. -Carson dropped into a chair without even glancing at it. - -“‘Mrs. Purviance,’ she began immediately, ‘I want your honest opinion -about something. For over three years now we’ve been saving for Andy’s -monument, and until a few weeks ago I never had a thought but that that -was the right thing to do with the money. But one night I got to thinking -that here was Willie wanting an education, and Maggie getting ready to -be married and no money to help her set up housekeeping, and Lissy -longing for music lessons, and I couldn’t sleep for thinking. And, Mrs. -Purviance, I haven’t had a minute’s peace since. That’s why I haven’t -ordered the monument. I can’t make up my mind to it. It’ll be a long time -before we can help Willie much if we spend the monument money. It looks -as if he ought to have his chance. And of course the money won’t help -Andy any, but I had set my heart on a fine monument for him. I don’t know -what to do,” and she started to cry. - -[Illustration: _“Mrs. Carson,” said Mother, “you have given Andy a better -monument than you can ever set up in the cemetery”_] - -“‘Mrs. Carson,’ Mother said gently, and there were tears in her eyes, -too, ‘if you want to know what I really think, I’ll tell you. I think -that as far as honoring Andy is concerned you and your family have -already given him a much better monument than any you can ever set up in -the cemetery.’ - -“Mother ran a pin straight into me and I jumped, and Mother said she was -done with me for a while. I went out, and that was the last I heard of -the monument until the Sunday Andy’s funeral sermon was to be preached. - -“There had been so much talk about the monument and the long put-off -funeral sermon that there was an unusually large crowd at the church that -day. - -“And some of them were disappointed, for when the service was over and -we filed out, the Carsons first, past the flower-decked graves to the -corner where Andy was buried, there was Andy’s grave adorned with only a -plain little head stone. But grouped around it stood his family, and the -way that family had improved in the three years since Andy’s death—well, -as my mother said, that was a pretty fine monument for Andy, don’t you -think so? - -“And now don’t forget your ‘apple a day,’ and good night to everybody.” - - - - -MEMORY VERSES - - -Grandma had been reading aloud from Pink’s Sunday-school paper and when -she finished she said: - -“We didn’t have anything like this when I was a little girl. We didn’t -even have any Sunday school. The nearest thing to Sunday school was when -we recited our memory verses on meeting day. Every week we learned so -many verses from the Bible, and on meeting day the preacher heard us -recite them. - -“I remember one year—it was Reverend Bard’s second year—that in order -to get the children to take more interest in learning the verses, the -preacher offered a Testament to the one who could say the most verses by -a certain time. We were all eager to get the Testament, and we did study -harder than usual. - -“The contest was to take place on Sunday afternoon. There was to be -preaching in the morning, dinner on the grounds, and in the afternoon -a prayer meeting and the memory-verse contest. There would be a large -crowd, and anyone who wanted to could try for the Testament. Even the -smallest children would say what verses they knew. - -“Charlie was always hunting for the shortest verses, and he hadn’t -learned very many of any kind till toward the last. Then he learned five -or six a day and carried a Bible around in his pocket wherever he went -and studied every spare minute. - -“I had been getting my verses regularly every week and I had a good -memory. So I wasn’t much afraid of anyone beating me except Charlie or -Annie Brierly or maybe Betty Bard, the preacher’s granddaughter. Betty -knew a lot of verses, but at the last minute she was likely to get to -thinking of something else and forget them. - -“On Saturday Betty and Annie came to see me, and Betty said that Lissy -Carson was going to try for the Testament, too. The Carsons hadn’t been -coming to meeting very long, but Betty, when she had been there to call -with her grandfather a few days before, said Lissy knew fifty-one verses. - -“‘And I think she ought to have the Testament,’ announced Betty. -‘Grandfather said it would encourage the whole family. If you two girls -and Charlie and I let her say more verses than we do, she would get it.’ - -“‘But if we knew more verses and just let her get the Testament on -purpose,’ put in Annie, ‘it wouldn’t be right, would it?’ - -“‘But see how hard she’s trying,’ argued Betty. ‘The Carsons have nothing -but the big family Bible, and Lissy has to stand by the table and learn -her verses out of it. If she works so hard and doesn’t get anything, she -might think there’s no use in trying.’ - -“Annie looked stubborn. - -“‘My Father said he would give me a dollar if I get the Testament,’ she -said, ‘and I mean to try for it. You can do as you like, Betty, but I -will say all the verses I know.’ - -“‘I should hate to have Lissy get ahead of me,’ I explained, ‘when I’ve -always gone to meeting and she hasn’t and I am in the fifth reader and -she is only in the third. It would look as if she was so much smarter -than I am and Mother hates to have us thought a bit backward.’ - -“At these arguments Betty herself looked uncertain. - -“‘Well, maybe you’re right,’ she remarked. ‘I know it would disappoint -Grandfather if I only said a few verses, for he says I should be an -example to the other children.’ Then she saw Charlie picking up some -early apples in the orchard. ‘Let’s see what Charlie says,’ she cried, -and was off across the road with Annie and me following. - -“When we had explained the matter to Charlie, he looked at us scornfully. -‘I never saw such sillies,’ he said. ‘If you girls pull out, though, it -will make it that much easier for the rest of us. I’m for the Testament.’ -Then he pretended he was reading from a book he held in his hand, -‘Presented to Charles Purviance by his pastor for excellence—.’ Betty -started after him, and then Annie and I chased him, too, and we got to -playing ‘tag’ and forgot all about Lissy and the Testament. - -“Sunday was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny. From miles around -people came to attend the all-day service. There were many strangers. -With the Orbisons came Mr. Orbison’s sister and her granddaughter, a -little girl about my age named Mary Lou, who was visiting away from -California. Mary Lou wore a silk dress and lace mitts and a hat with -long velvet streamers and she carried a pink parasol. - -[Illustration: _Mary Lou wore a silk dress and lace mitts and carried a -pink parasol_] - -“Tables had been set up in the grove across from the church, and at noon, -after the morning sermon, dinner was served. There was fried chicken and -boiled ham and pickles and pie and cake and everything good you could -think of, and the people had all they could eat. - -“After dinner Mrs. Orbison brought Mary Lou over to where Annie and Betty -and I were sitting and left her to get acquainted, so she said. But Mary -Lou didn’t want to get acquainted with us. She just wanted to talk about -herself. She told us that she had three silk dresses and eleven dolls and -a string of red beads and a pony not much larger than a dog and ever so -many other things. - -“‘Don’t you have a silk dress for Sunday?’ she asked, looking at my blue -sprigged lawn, which until then I had thought very nice. - -“‘No,’ I replied. And I added crossly, ‘My mother says it’s not what -you’ve got that counts but what you are,’ though I’m free to confess I -didn’t get much consolation from this thought, then. - -“Pretty soon we went into the church, and after a prayer and some songs -the smaller children began to go up one by one to say their verses. -Brother Bard kept count and as they finished each verse he would call out -the number of it. - -“After a while he came to Lissy Carson, and every one was surprised when -she kept on until at last she had recited sixty-one verses, two more than -anyone else had given so far. - -“I looked at Betty, but she sat with downcast eyes and flushed cheeks. -Annie looked scared, and I couldn’t see Charlie. Then Betty was called -on and she said fifty-eight verses and quit. - -“‘Are you sure that is all, Betty?’ her grandfather said in a puzzled -tone. - -“‘Yes, sir,’ Betty replied and took her seat. - -“I came next and I had made up my mind by then that I wouldn’t keep Lissy -from getting the Testament, so I recited fifty-nine verses. I can still -see the amazement in Mother’s face when I sat down. - -“Annie Brierly gave fifty-nine and Charlie sixty, though of course, like -Betty and me, they each knew many more verses than that. Lissy would get -the Testament, and I was glad of it when I saw her sitting there so proud -and happy. Why didn’t Reverend Bard give it to her at once and be done -with it? Whatever was he waiting for? Then I saw. Mary Lou, the strange -little girl, was tripping up front in all her finery as self-possessed as -you please. - -“And what do you think? She said sixty-three verses and got the Testament! - -“Well, you can imagine how Annie and Betty and Charlie and I felt, though -Charlie wouldn’t talk about it even to me. He never admitted but what -he’d said all the verses he knew, though I knew better. Hadn’t I heard -him at home reciting chapter after chapter when he thought no one was -listening? - -“We girls went around behind the church to talk it over, and Annie cried -a little, and Betty stamped her foot and said she wasn’t an example any -more and she wished Mary Lou would tear her parasol and lose her mitts -and get caught in a rain and spoil her hat. And we all got to laughing -and forgot our disappointment. - -“And now it’s bedtime for three little children I know.” - - - - -THE COURTING OF POLLY ANN - - -One evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink came to Grandma’s room they -found her sitting before the fire rocking gently to and fro and looking -thoughtfully at something she held in her hand. When they had drawn up -their stools and sat down, she handed the object to them and they passed -it from one to the other, examining it eagerly. - -It was a button—a pearl button of a peculiar shape, fancifully carved. -The holes were filled with silk thread, attaching to the button a bit of -faded flannel as if it had been forcibly torn from a garment. - -“I found that button today,” Grandma began, “when I was looking for -something else, in a little box in the bottom of my trunk. I had -forgotten I had it. It came off my brother Stanley’s fancy waistcoat, and -the way of it was this: - -“Stanley had been away at school all year, and when he came home he had -some stylish new clothes—among other things a pair of lavender trousers -and a waistcoat to match and a ruffled shirt and some gay silk cravats. - -“Every Sunday he dressed up as fine as could be, and all the girls were -nice to him. But he didn’t pay any attention to any of them except Polly -Ann Nesbit, who was the prettiest girl in all the country round about. -Some people called Polly Ann’s hair red, but it wasn’t. It was a deep -rich auburn, and she had brown eyes and a fair creamy skin. Besides being -pretty she was sweet-tempered, though lively and gay. - -“Polly Ann had so many beaux that when she was sixteen every one thought -she would be married before the year was out, and her father—Polly Ann -was his only child—said that he wouldn’t give Polly Ann to any man. He -needn’t have worried, for Polly Ann was so hard to please that she was -still unwed at twenty when Stanley came home from school. By that time -her father was telling every one how much land he meant to give Polly Ann -when she married. - -“Stanley hadn’t been home very long until he, like all the other boys, -was crazy about Polly Ann, and she favored him more than any of the -others. Stanley went to see her every week and escorted her home from -parties and singings and took her to ride on Sunday afternoons in his -new top buggy. Father suspected he would be wanting to get married, and -told him he could have the wheat field on what we called the upper place, -to put in a winter crop for himself. - -“Then one night at a party at Orbison’s Stanley wore his new lavender -waistcoat. Polly Ann wagered the other girls that she could have a -button off the waistcoat for her button string, and they wagered her she -couldn’t. - -“That night when Stanley asked Polly Ann if he might see her home she -said he could if he would give her a button off his waistcoat. It must -have been hard for Stanley, for he knew he could never wear the waistcoat -again if he did as she asked and that he couldn’t go with Polly Ann any -more if he refused. He had no knife and he wouldn’t borrow one, so he -just wrenched a button off and gave it to Polly Ann. - -“When the girls went upstairs to put on their wraps, Polly Ann showed the -button to them and they had lots of fun about it. The next morning Aggie -told Stanley what Polly Ann had done and how every one was laughing at -him. - -“Stanley was at breakfast. There was no one in the kitchen but Stanley -and Aggie and me, and they didn’t pay any attention to me. I remember how -red Stanley’s face got when Aggie told him, and his chin, which had a -dimple, seemed suddenly to get square like Father’s. I thought to myself -that Polly Ann Nesbit had better look out, for, as Father often told us, -‘he who laughs last, laughs best.’ Stanley did get even with Polly Ann, -though not in the way we thought he would. - -“Before he went to work that morning he wrote her a letter and paid -Charlie a quarter for taking it to her. Charlie told me that Polly Ann -was in the front yard by herself when he gave her the letter and when she -read it she just laughed and laughed, but that she put it in her pocket -for safekeeping. - -“Stanley was as nice as ever to her when they met, but he didn’t go to -see her any more or take her buggy riding on Sunday afternoons. He took -Mother or me instead, and I thought it very nice. Stanley went right -ahead ploughing up his wheat field just as if nothing had happened, and -when he got through with that he began to fix up a little cottage where -brother Joe had lived for two years after he was married. - -[Illustration: _Polly Ann was in the front yard when Charlie gave her the -letter_] - -“He built a new kitchen, at the side instead of at the back where most -people built their kitchens, so his wife could see the road when she -was working, he said. And he added a front porch with railings and a -seat at each end and painted the house white and set out rose bushes and -honeysuckle vines and began to buy the furniture. - -“Of course it caused a great deal of talk, and every one wondered whom -Stanley was going to marry. The girls would laugh about Stanley’s house -and say they wouldn’t marry a man who wouldn’t let them furnish their own -house. And often they would tease Polly Ann, but she would only toss her -head and say nothing. - -“And all the time Stanley worked away, singing and whistling as happy -as could be. When any one questioned him, he would say he meant to keep -bachelor’s hall, or that he hadn’t decided what he would do, or that he -planned to marry the sweetest girl he knew. Belle and Aggie were wild to -know what girl he meant. They tried in every way to find out, but they -couldn’t. - -“Stanley often talked in his sleep, and they would listen to hear whether -he mentioned a girl’s name, but they could never understand what he said. -Some one told the girls to tie a string around Stanley’s great toe and -when he talked to pull the string gently and he would repeat clearly what -he had just said. - -“One night Belle and Aggie did this, but instead of a string they used -a piece of red yarn. When they were pulling it, it snapped in two, and -Stanley woke up and found the yarn on his toe and jumped out of bed and -chased the girls squealing and giggling into their room, and Father came -out to see what was the matter. - -“But finally the house was done, even to the last shining pan, and Mother -had given Stanley so many quilts and blankets and things that Charlie -grumbled and said there would be nothing left for the rest of us. - -“One afternoon I was up at the cottage with Stanley planting some of -Mother’s wonderful yellow chrysanthemums by the garden fence. Stanley -was building a lattice at the end of the porch for a climbing rose which -he had only just set out, when the front gate clicked and there, coming -up the path, was Polly Ann Nesbit. Her cheeks were rosy and she was -laughing. - -“‘I’ve brought it myself, Stanley,’ she cried gaily. ‘You said in your -letter to send you the button when I was ready to marry you, but I’ve -brought it instead. Do you—do you still want it?’ and she held out this -little button, the very one Stanley had pulled off his lavender waistcoat -to please her. - -“I looked at Stanley, so straight and tall and handsome though he was in -his everyday clothes, to see what he would do. - -“‘Do I want it?’ he cried starting toward her. ‘Why, Polly Ann, I’ve just -been longing for that button. I never wanted anything so much in my life. -I was only afraid you wouldn’t give it to me.’ He put his arms around her -and they went in to look at the house. When they had gone in, I saw this -little button lying on the path almost at my feet, and I picked it up and -skipped home to tell Mother and the girls that Stanley was going to marry -Polly Ann after all. - -“And now, ‘’night, ’night,’ and pleasant dreams.” - - - - -EARNING A VIOLIN - - -“And you don’t like to practice!” Grandma exclaimed in surprise when -Bobby told her why he did not like to take violin lessons. “But you’ll -have to practice, you know, or you will never learn to play. I knew a -boy once, who dearly liked to practice. I think I’ll tell you about him. -It was my brother Charlie. Charlie had wanted a violin ever since he was -just a little bit of a fellow and had first heard old Mr. Potter play on -his violin. - -“Mr. Potter was a traveling tailor who went around the country making and -mending men’s clothing. He carried his goods from place to place in pack -saddles, and he always brought his violin along. - -“In the evenings he would play, and we all loved to hear him. He played -beautifully. All Charlie and I had ever heard before were things like -‘Pop goes the Weasel,’ or ‘Turkey in the Straw.’ There was such a -difference between these tunes and what Mr. Potter played that the first -time Charlie heard him play—‘Annie Laurie,’ I think it was—he walked up -to him and said very solemnly, ‘I like a violin better than a fiddle,’ -and everybody laughed. - -“Years before, Mr. Potter had had a thriving trade, but when I knew him -he did not get much to do because store suits for men had become common. -Mother always found some work for him, though, and in his spare time he -gave violin lessons. - -“He was in our neighborhood several weeks each spring, and one winter -Charlie determined to have a violin and be ready to take lessons when he -came next time. - -“So right away he began to save money for a violin. But there wasn’t much -Charlie could do to earn money, and it looked as though he would never -get enough for a violin, let alone enough for an instruction book and -lessons. But he did get the violin, and this is how it came about. - -“It was one of the coldest winters anyone remembered in years. A deep -snow lay on the ground for weeks and weeks, and the roads were frozen -hard and as smooth as glass. - -“There was a sawmill about eight miles down the road from our house, and -every day we could see men passing on their way to the mill with logs. -Big iron hooks called ‘dogs’ would be driven into the logs and fastened -to a heavy chain which would be hitched to a single-tree, and the log -would be dragged over the smooth road by one horse. It was an easy way -to get logs to the mill, and every one was hurrying to haul as many as -possible before the thaw came. - -[Illustration: _“I like a violin better than a fiddle,” said Charlie to -Mr. Potter_] - -“Father had cut one big walnut log when he had been called to serve on -jury duty and had gone to Clayville to attend court. Before he went, -Charlie asked him what he would do with that one log and Father told -Charlie he could have it. Charlie could hardly believe his ears and he -asked Father whether he really meant that he could have the money for the -log if he could get it to the mill. Father said that was what he meant, -but afterward he told Mother he never dreamed Charlie would try to do it. - -“But from the first Charlie intended to move that walnut log to the mill. -He thought of nothing else. He made plan after plan. He found out from -the storekeeper that the man who owned the sawmill came to the store -Saturday afternoons to buy supplies for the next week. So when Charlie -and I went to the store for Mother on the next Saturday we sat by the -stove to warm ourselves and wait for the sawmill man. When he came, -Charlie asked him whether he would buy the walnut log. - -“‘Well, that depends,’ said the man, looking Charlie over good-naturedly. -‘I’m not anxious to lay in any more logs than we’ve bargained for. -We’re going to move Wednesday.’ Then when he saw the disappointment on -Charlie’s face he asked, ‘Pretty good log, is it?’ - -“‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said Charlie eagerly. ‘My father said when he cut it -that it was first grade—woods-grown, ten or twelve feet long.’ - -“‘Well, if that’s the case, I reckon I could use it,’ said the man. ‘Be -sure to have it in by Tuesday, though.’ - -“We went home by way of Mr. Brierly’s, and Charlie got permission to -borrow his logging chain and ‘dogs,’ as they were called. We stopped to -look at the log, and Charlie declared he could get it to the mill without -any trouble. He could have, too, if it hadn’t been for the thaw. - -“Sunday was the longest day Charlie ever put in. Sometimes he would get -discouraged and think he couldn’t do it at all. Then the next minute he -would be talking about the kind of violin he would get with the money the -log would bring. Father had come home for over Sunday and he would help -him get started, the older boys being away from home. - -“Sunday, after dinner, the weather turned slightly warmer, and by four -o’clock a gentle rain was falling. When Charlie got up long before -daylight Monday morning, Mother told him that it had rained hard all -night. He fed the horse and ate his breakfast, and Father helped him -drive the hooks or dogs into the log. Then Charlie was off. - -“He got the log as far as Sugar Creek without any trouble, and there -what a sight met his eyes! Sugar Creek was out of bank, and the shallow -stream, easily forded the year round, was like an angry, rushing little -river filled with cakes of ice. To ford it was clearly impossible till -the ice went out, and even then the current would be rapid and dangerous. -There was nothing to do but wait, and Charlie unhitched the horse and -came back home. It was still raining and thawing and it didn’t get any -better all that day. The next morning, though, the creek was clear of -ice, which was some advantage. - -“I went with Charlie and sat on the log, feeling very helpless while he -walked up and down the creek bank trying to think of some way to get the -log across. The current was so strong that, though the horse could swim -it, he could not swim and drag the heavy log along. - -“Charlie examined the foot-log carefully and found that it had not been -moved by the high water, being chained at each bank to a big tree. Then -he made his plan. He fastened some strong rope he had brought along to -the chain which went around the walnut log. Holding the other end of the -rope, he got on the horse and made him swim to the opposite bank. Then he -fastened the rope at that side to the single-tree and urged the horse up -the bank. - -“The horse tugged and pulled and finally the log moved slowly down into -the water. Now came the test of Charlie’s plan. If the foot-log proved -strong enough to withstand the jar it would get when the walnut log hit -it, everything would be all right; but if the foot-log gave way, Charlie -would have to cut the rope quickly to keep the horse from being drawn -back into the water, and the walnut log would float down stream and be -lost. - -“I almost held my breath when the walnut log, sucked rapidly down the -stream by the swift current, struck the foot-log. I shut my eyes tight -and did not open them until I heard Charlie shouting for joy. The -foot-log hadn’t budged! Because of the high water Charlie thought it -would be easy for the horse to pull the log out on the ground, but the -log stuck on something under the water. Charlie couldn’t raise the log -up, and he had to let it slide back into the water. It slid back several -times before it finally came out on the road. - -“It was nearly noon and Charlie was wet to the waist, so he went back -home to change his clothes and get a fresh horse. After dinner he started -out again. He got to the mill all right and sold the log, and when he -reached home late that night he had money enough for a violin. - -“When Father heard about it, he was so proud of him that he doubled -the money. So Charlie had more than enough for his lessons and his -instruction book, too.” - -“And did he really like to practice?” asked Bobby unbelievingly. - -“Yes, indeed, and he came to be a fine violinist and owned a violin that -cost a great deal of money, but he always kept that first one, too. - -“There! Mother’s calling you to bed.” - - - - -AT THE FAIR - - -“We’re going to the fair tomorrow, Grandma. It’s childrens’ day,” -announced Bobby one evening when he and Alice and Pink came to Grandma’s -room for their usual evening call and story. - -“Are you going, Grandma?” inquired Pink. - -“Why, I may go. I don’t know yet. Do you like to go to the fair?” - -“Yeh, boy!” interrupted Bobby eagerly. “And this year they’re going to -give a pony away. I wish I’d get that pony.” - -“That would be nice,” agreed Grandma. “I think I’ll tell you tonight -about the time we took our horse, Prince, to the fair at Clayville. I had -been to the fair several times before, and I always loved to go. To get -up early in the morning, and dress and eat breakfast and start before -daylight with a big basket of dinner tucked away in the back of the -surrey; to take the long pleasant drive through the cool of the morning -and at last go through the gates into the fair grounds and see all the -people and hear the noise of the sideshow barkers and the bands and -the balloon whistles and the lowing of cattle, uneasy because of their -strange quarters, was every bit of it a joy to me—usually. - -“But this particular year it wasn’t a pleasure to look forward to the -fair at all, even though there was to be a balloon ascension. For when we -went to the fair Father was going to take Prince along and sell him to a -horse dealer. Father had raised Prince, and we all loved him, especially -Charlie and I. He was nine years old, but he still looked like a colt. -His coat was brown and glossy, and he was as playful and active as he had -ever been. When he had been a colt, the older children had petted him and -fed him sugar. Charlie and I had taken it up when they left off, so that -he had always been used to children and loved them. - -“But Prince had a bad habit, and that was the reason he was to be sold. -He balked whenever a grown person rode or drove him. The only thing he -was any good for at all was carrying Charlie and me to the store for -Mother. He would take us both at once or one at a time wherever we wanted -to go and never balk once while we were on his back. Father said that if -Charlie and I had been older he would have kept Prince, but by the time -we would need a horse Prince would be too old to be of much use. If he -could even have been trusted to take Mother to church and back when the -roads were too rough to drive, Father would not have sold him. But he was -sure to stop some place or other, no matter how cold the day, and refuse -to budge until he got ready. So Father said he could not afford to keep -him any longer, and as none of our neighbors would want him he would sell -him to the horse dealer for what he could get. This wouldn’t be much, for -of course Father would tell the man that Prince balked. - -“So we went to the fair as usual, except that Prince went along and was -hitched with the other horses to the fence until Father should get ready -to see the horse dealer some time after dinner. - -“I went with Mother to Floral Hall, which was just a little, whitewashed -building, and looked at quilts and fancy work and cakes and pies and -pianos and stoves and pumpkins and potatoes until I got tired and -wandered on ahead of Mother—who was busily talking to some people she -knew—to the door, and there was Charlie waiting for us. - -“He had been out to see the cattle and poultry. He said our white-faced -steer and Mother’s bronze turkeys had taken blue ribbons and he wanted me -to come and see them. - -“As we passed our horses, Prince whinnied, and I suggested that we say -good-by to Prince again. So we went over to where he was hitched to the -fence. We petted him and fed him an apple that Charlie had in his pocket, -and then Charlie said we would take a last ride. So he got on first and -I climbed up behind him and put my arms around his waist and we were -off. For a while Prince trotted about on the grass, and then we came to -an opening that led into the race track. Before we realized what he was -doing, Prince had turned through this opening into the circular track. - -“Two men were standing at the entrance talking. One of them was an old -man. The other, a big man with a wide-rimmed felt hat and high-topped -boots, waved a riding whip at us and called out something that we did -not hear as we passed, but Prince kept right on. Charlie could have -turned him around, but he wouldn’t, though I begged him to. The trainers -were exercising their horses on the track, but Prince paid no attention -to anything, looking neither to right nor to left. We must have been -a queer sight—two children riding bareback on a big farm horse around -the race track. By the time we got to the grandstand quite a crowd had -gathered and they cheered us loudly as we passed. Charlie, not to be -outdone, waved his hat in return. - -[Illustration: _Prince turned through the opening that led to the race -track_] - -“When we got back to the gate we had come through, Charlie pulled -Prince’s mane and he turned out into the grass again. - -“The men were still talking, and the one who had called to us patted -Prince’s head and asked us if we had enjoyed our ride. Then, because it -looked so silly, we told him how we happened to be on Prince at a place -like that and how Father was going to sell him because he balked and -wouldn’t work and how sorry we were and afraid some one would buy Prince -from the horse dealer because he was so handsome and then beat him when -he found he balked. - -“The old gentleman seemed greatly interested and asked us Father’s name -and a great many questions about Prince. We told him how he would do -anything for us and was as safe as safe could be. Then we hitched Prince -to the fence and said good-by to him and went to dinner. My dress was all -wrinkled and my hair was mussed and my face burned from being in the sun, -and Mother was not at all pleased that Charlie and I had made ourselves -so conspicuous. - -“But we had lots of fun that afternoon watching the races and eating -peanuts and drinking pink lemonade. There was the balloon ascension, and -Father took us into some of the shows and bought us ice cream, molded -into cakes and wrapped in paper, which was called ‘hokie-pokie.’ - -“We had balloons and peanuts and canes to take home with us, and when we -got in the surrey to go home Prince was gone and no one mentioned him. -But when we were well out of town Father said, ‘Well, children, you may -rest easy about Prince. He has a good home where he will be well treated, -and it is largely due to Charlie and Sarah.’ And then he told us all -about it. - -“The man at the gate with the wide felt hat and high-topped boots was the -horse dealer, and the old man with him was hunting a horse that would be -safe for his little granddaughter, who had been sick and was not strong, -to ride and drive. When he saw Charlie and me on Prince and heard what we -said, he knew that Prince was the very horse he wanted. - -“So he had bought him from Father and paid a hundred dollars, when Father -had only expected to get fifty dollars at the most. He didn’t care a bit -because Prince balked, for no one would use him but the little girl and -he would be quite as much a pet as when we owned him. - -“‘And that extra fifty dollars shall go to Charlie and Sarah,’ said -Father, ‘for their very own.’ - -“The next time Father went to Clayville, sure enough, he put twenty-five -dollars in the bank for Charlie and twenty-five dollars for me, and he -gave us each a brand new bank book with our names on the backs. We never -saw Prince again, but the man who bought him took care of him and was -good to him until Prince died a few years later. - -“Now what shall I tell you tomorrow night? Oh, I know—a Hallowe’en -story!” - - - - -HALLOWE’EN - - -“Grandma, tomorrow night is Hallowe’en,” said Pink one evening when she -and Alice and Bobby had drawn their stools close to Grandma’s knee for -their usual good-night story. - -“Mother makes candy on Hallowe’en,” Alice added, “and we have nuts and -apples and false faces and witches on broomsticks and black cats and -everything.” - -“And last year we had a party,” said Pink. - -“And this year,” put in Bobby eagerly, “we’re going to have a great, big -pumpkin to make a jack-o’-lantern of. I know how to do it. Daddy told me, -and he’s going to help. You hollow out the insides of the pumpkin and cut -round holes for the eyes and make a nose and a mouth with teeth and put a -candle inside, and I’ll say he’ll look scary.” - -“Won’t he though!” exclaimed Grandma. “To meet a jack-o’-lantern like -that on a dark night would make a body shiver. I just know it would. -Brother Charlie and I used to save the biggest pumpkins for Hallowe’en. -In the summer we would pick out certain pumpkin vines in the cornfield -and take special care of them so that the pumpkins would grow extra large -for jack-o’-lanterns. We would keep the dirt loosened around the roots, -and when the weather was dry we would carry water from the creek to water -them. We would watch to keep the worms and bugs off the vines, and then -when the pumpkins began to get big we’d measure around them every few -days to see which was growing the fastest. Father said we did everything -but sleep with the pumpkins.” - -“Oh!” exclaimed Pink in surprise, “did you have Hallowe’en, too, Grandma?” - -“Yes, indeed,” answered Grandma, “but we generally called it Hallow Eve -in those days.” - -And she went on to tell them how the evening of October thirty-first has -for years and years in many different countries been celebrated as the -eve of All-hallows or All Saints’ Day and is called Halloweven or, as we -most often say, Hallowe’en, and how on this particular evening fairies, -witches, and imps are supposed to be especially active. - -“The young people in our neighborhood used to have parties,” said -Grandma, “and they would make taffy and play games and perform tricks -intended to reveal to them their future husbands and wives. - -“Sometimes these parties would be broken up by a crowd of rough boys who -had not been invited, for if there was a lot of fun on Hallowe’en there -was also a lot of mischief done. Nothing that could be moved was safe if -left outside. Gates were carried away, wheels removed from wagons, farm -machinery hidden, well buckets stolen, and roads barricaded with great -logs. Some people took this time to vent their spite on anyone they did -not like. - -“But these rough, mischievous boys had never bothered us, for between -the settlement where they lived and our farm was a strip of woods in -which an old woman known as Mother Girty had been buried years and years -before—in pioneer times, in fact. It was said she had been a witch, and -even when I was a little girl ignorant or superstitious folks did not -like to pass these woods by night. On Hallowe’en they were more afraid -than ever, since on this night witches are supposed to roam at will over -the country. - -“One year Mother said we could have a Hallowe’en party at our house. -Charlie and I gave our biggest pumpkins, and Truman made jack-o’-lanterns -out of them. Belle and Aggie decorated the sitting room with autumn -leaves and bunches of yellow chrysanthemums and draped orange-colored -cloth, which they had dyed by boiling old sheets in sassafras bark and -water, around the walls. For lights they had the jack-o’-lanterns and -just common lanterns with the orange cloth wrapped about the globes, -and they put out baskets of apples and nuts. In the cellar were rows of -pumpkin pies and pans of gingerbread for refreshment, when the guests -should get tired of playing games and pulling taffy. - -“When every one had come, Aggie made the taffy. But she didn’t cook the -first batch long enough and it wouldn’t harden. They tried to pull it, -but the way it stuck to their hands was awful, and such squealing and -laughing you never heard. It kept Charlie and me busy bringing water for -them to wash off the taffy. - -“The girls put another kettle of molasses on right away, and while the -taffy was being made Charlie and I slipped around the house to put a -tick-tack on Mother’s window. When we had got the tick-tack to working -and Mother and Father had both come to the window to see what it was, -though I reckon they both knew very well, we started back to the kitchen. - -“But we didn’t go in, for there, spread out on the porch to cool, were -pans and pans of taffy. Charlie said we had better take a pan for -ourselves for fear there mightn’t be enough to go around and we’d have to -do without. So he grabbed a pan quickly and we ran around to the front of -the house with it. We meant to go on the front portico, but just as we -turned the corner we heard a noise as if some one were opening the door. -So we crouched down close to the house for a little bit and then ran out -to the lilac bush by the front gate. - -“We sat down on the ground and began to work the cooler part of the taffy -around the edge of the pan toward the center, but we had no butter to put -on our hands to keep the taffy from sticking and I offered to go to the -kitchen to get some. We would then start pulling our taffy and quietly -slip into the house where everyone else would be pulling taffy and no one -would notice that we had not been there all the time. - -“I stood up. It was a pitch dark night, but as I started toward the house -I thought I could see something moving in the side yard under the apple -tree. I told Charlie. He saw it, too, as plainly as could be. It was -white and it moved about in the most terrible way. Oh, to be safe back -in the house! I clutched Charlie’s arm and trembled all over, I was so -afraid. It seemed to be coming toward us, and suddenly I couldn’t stand -it any longer and I screamed—the most awful, blood-curdling yells—and, -pulling Charlie with all my might, I ran for the house. - -“The kitchen was filled with frightened young people, for no one knew -what had happened. Just as we tumbled into one door three or four white -clad figures burst into the other door, and it was hard to tell which was -the worst scared. - -“‘Ghosts!’ sputtered Charlie, gasping for breath. ‘Ghosts under the apple -tree!’ Then everybody saw the joke and laughed. The ghosts turned out to -be some of the big boys who had wrapped themselves in sheets to frighten -the folks. The opening of the front door that Charlie and I had heard had -been Truman bringing out the sheets, but my yells had scared them and -they looked right sheepish and didn’t say anything when Isabel Strang -asked them whether they thought Mother Girty was after them. - -[Illustration: _I screamed the most awful blood-curdling yells_] - -“In the excitement and confusion, sister Belle, who was going down the -cellar stairs backward with a mirror in her hand, in which she was -supposed to see the face of the man she would marry, fell halfway down -the stairs, and John Strang picked her up and sure enough he was the man -she married later. - -“After that Charlie and I didn’t say much, for the pan of taffy was still -under the lilac bush by the front gate and we didn’t want to go into any -explanations about why we happened to be out there too. - -“Here, here, don’t forget your ‘apple a day.’ There now, good night, -dears.” - - - - -MEASLES - - -Bobby and Alice and Pink had the measles. First Bobby had taken it with a -headache and a sick stomach. Then Alice had got sick with what seemed to -be a cold, and at last Pink took it. She just wakened up one morning all -covered with tiny red spots, and of course she knew right away that she -had the measles, too. - -They had all been awfully sick, but now they were better, though they -still had to stay in a darkened room, which they didn’t like a bit. - -“It’s the worst part of the measles,” complained Bobby bitterly. “Just -like night all the time.” - -“Well, then,” said Grandma, who was making them a call, “let us pretend -that it is night and I will tell you a story about when I had the measles -a long, long time ago. - -“In those days measles was considered a necessary evil for children. That -is, people thought that all children must have it one time or another, -and the younger you were when you had it the less it would hurt you. All -our family had had the measles except Charlie and me. We had never had -the measles, and Mother was quite worried about it. She said she wouldn’t -expose us on purpose, but she did wish we’d get it before we got much -older and have it over with. There had been no measles epidemic in our -neighborhood for several years, and this is how one came about. - -“One Saturday, late in June, Father took Charlie and me to Clayville with -him. We were to visit with Aunt Louisa while he attended to his business. -He let us out at Aunt Louisa’s street and said when he got ready to go -home he would come after us. - -“Charlie and I started up the street, but neither of us had ever been -there alone and all the houses looked alike to us. We couldn’t decide -which was Aunt Louisa’s. - -“Finally we selected one that we were sure was hers and went around to -the side door and knocked. Instead of Aunt Louisa or Mettie, a little -girl opened the door and told us to come in. This was queer, because Aunt -Louisa had no children. But I supposed she had company and stepped into -a sitting room that was so dark I could hardly see a thing at first. We -sat very still for a while, and I wished that Aunt Louisa would come. In -the dim light I made out a bed in one corner, but I didn’t know there -was anyone in it until a boy, who had evidently been asleep, raised up -his head and looked at us in surprise. And we looked at him, too, for he -certainly was funny looking with his face all covered with little red -spots. - -“‘By, golly!’ he said. ‘What you doin’ in here?’ - -“I replied with dignity that we were waiting for Aunt Louisa. - -“‘She doesn’t live here,’ he said crossly, and lay down again. ‘She lives -in the next house. Must have been my little sister let you in. This is -our house and I got the measles.’ - -“Charlie and I got out as quickly as we could and hurried to Aunt -Louisa’s, but we decided that we would not tell her or anyone else we had -had such a glorious, accidental chance for the measles. - -“‘We mightn’t take the measles after all,’ Charlie pointed out, ‘and then -Mother would be disappointed.’ - -“‘I hope we don’t take them on the way home,’ I said anxiously. I didn’t -know then that it takes the measles germ nine days to mature and that we -were in little danger of taking it before that time. - -“The next day, being tired from my trip to town, I imagined I was sick -and I was sure I was taking the measles. Charlie examined my face -carefully, though, and said he couldn’t see any red spots. In a day or -two Charlie thought he was taking the disease, but there were no red -spots on his face, either. - -“‘And if they’re in you Mother says they’ve got to come out,’ I told him -wisely. ‘So as long as it doesn’t show on the outside we haven’t got it.’ - -“A week passed, and after several more false alarms we came to the -conclusion that we were not going to take the measles after all. - -“Sunday the Presiding Elder was to be at our church and there were to -be two sermons, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a -basket dinner in between. Mother and the girls were very busy cooking and -baking, or maybe some of them would have seen that Charlie and I were -not well on Saturday. I ached all over, my head most of all, and Charlie -said he felt sick from his head to his toes. We slipped out to the barn -and crawled up in the hay loft and lay down on the hay. Nanny Dodds -almost found us there when she came out to hunt some eggs for an extra -cake—Mother had already baked three cakes, but she said she had better -bake four to make sure there’d be plenty. - -“Charlie and I had been eating green apples. Mother always allowed us to -eat green apples if we put salt on them. But we had been in the orchard -and the salt was at the house, so we hadn’t bothered to wait, but had -eaten the apples without salt. We thought it was the green apples that -were making us sick. As we didn’t want to be dosed with castor oil and -maybe have to stay home from preaching next day, we didn’t tell a soul we -felt sick. - -“Anyway, we were both better by Sunday morning, for who wouldn’t have -been better with a new white dress to wear and a leghorn hat with a -wreath of daisies around the crown? - -“But in church even my new clothes couldn’t help me. The sermon seemed -very, very long, the air was hot and close, and I felt terribly sick. I -wanted more than anything else in the world to take off my hat and lay my -head in Mother’s gray silk lap, but of course I was much too big to do -that. I looked across to the men’s side where Charlie sat beside Father, -and there he was all slumped down in his seat, holding his head in his -hands. - -“Neither of us ate much dinner, but there were so many people eating with -us that Mother didn’t notice. And right after dinner we went down to the -surrey and climbed in, Charlie on the front seat, I on the back. - -“We covered ourselves, heads and all, with the lap robes, and there we -lay and slept the live-long afternoon, until Father came to hitch the -horses up to go home. - -“‘These youngsters must be all tired out,’ Father said when Mother and -Aggie and Belle came out to get in the surrey. I raised my head up, but I -was so dizzy I lay right down again, but not before Mother had seen me. - -“‘Let me see in your throat, Sarah,’ she demanded, and then to Father she -said solemnly, ‘I knew it! The second I saw her I knew it. Sarah has the -measles.’ Father thought surely she must be mistaken, but she examined -Charlie, and would you believe it? He had the measles, too. - -[Illustration: _I looked across to Charlie and he was holding his head in -his hands_] - -“On the way home, with my head in Mother’s lap and Charlie leaning on -Belle, we told them all about going to the wrong house when we went to -see Aunt Louisa, and the boy who had the measles, and everything. - -“‘Just exactly nine days ago today,’ Mother fairly groaned. - -“‘Aren’t you glad, Mother, that we surprised you with the measles?’ I -asked, puzzled, for she didn’t seem a bit glad that we had them, though -she had always talked as if she would be. - -“At this Father and Belle and Aggie and even Mother laughed. - -“‘If I don’t miss my guess,’ said Father, ‘you’ve surprised a good many -other people with the measles, too, and I bet a lot of them won’t be very -glad.’ - -“Of course a lot of folks did take the measles from Charlie and me, but -the weather was warm and they all got along nicely, so there was no great -harm done. - -“Some of the folks wondered where in the world Charlie and I could have -caught the measles. But old Mrs. Orbison, who came to see us right away, -settled that by announcing, ‘I always say that things like that are in -the air. No one knows where they get them or how.’” - - - - -SOMETHING TO BE THANKFUL FOR - - -It was the evening before Thanksgiving. Grandma had told Bobby and Alice -and Pink about the first Thanksgiving, celebrated so long ago by the -Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony to show their gratitude because their lives -had been spared in spite of many hardships and because their crops had -been plentiful enough to support them through the coming winter. - -And she had told them how that now, on recommendation of the President, -the last Thursday of November is set apart by proclamation of the -governors of the different states as an annual Thanksgiving Day. - -“Thanksgiving at our house was a wonderful time,” Grandma said -thoughtfully. “Next to Christmas, it was the best day of all the year, I -think. And it always began weeks before the real Thanksgiving Day—when -Mother made the mincemeat and the plum pudding and the fruit cakes. - -“All day Mother and the girls would work, crumbing bread for the -puddings, washing currants, slicing citron, beating eggs, measuring -sugar and spices, chopping suet and meat in the big wooden chopping bowl, -and seeding raisins. I helped seed the raisins. I liked to seed raisins -until I got all I wanted to eat. Then after that I didn’t like the sticky -things a bit. - -“When everything was all mixed and ready, the pudding would be packed in -muslin bags and the cake put in pans lined with writing paper and they -would be steamed for hours and hours. When they were done and cool they -would be put away, beside the big stone jar of mincemeat, to ripen for -Thanksgiving. - -“Father said that Thanksgiving came at just the right time of the year. -All the fall work was done by then, the corn husked, lots of wood cut, -and the butchering was over. The meathouse was filled with hams and -sausage and side meat, and there was always a jar of pickled pigs’ feet. -The apples had been picked and the potatoes dug and both buried out in -the garden alongside the cabbage and beets. The nuts had been gathered -in, and the popcorn was ready to pop. The finest pumpkin had been set -aside for the pies, and the biggest, proudest, young turkey gobbler was -fattened for the Thanksgiving dinner. - -“And then, on Thanksgiving morning, what delicious smells came out of -our kitchen! You know what they were! You’ve all smelled the very same -kind of smells coming out of your kitchen, I know you have. Mm! mm! and -the dinner! And every one of the family at home to enjoy it and lots of -company, too. - -“But we didn’t think of just things to eat, either. Father said folks -were likely to do that. We seldom had services at our church on -Thanksgiving because the minister was usually off in another part of the -circuit holding a meeting. But at the breakfast table, after Father had -asked the blessing, to preserve and foster, as he said, the real spirit -of the day, each one of us would tell something we had to be thankful for. - -“And one Thanksgiving morning Charlie said he couldn’t think of anything -to be thankful for except, of course, Father and Mother and good health -and Sport, but nothing special, he said. I knew what was the matter with -Charlie. He had asked Truman to lend him his gun to take along when he -went to look at his traps. Truman had refused because he had just cleaned -it, and Father had said Charlie could carry a gun when he was twelve -years old and not before. - -“Afterward when I went with him to his traps he told me he was tired -being thankful for ordinary things like those everybody else had. He -wanted something different, such as a silver watch, or a Wild West pony, -or a magic lantern. - -“He said he could be the thankfulest boy on Sugar Creek if he had any of -those things, and he thought Thanksgiving ought to come after Christmas -anyhow—then a fellow would have more to be thankful for. - -“We were down at the hole under the willows where we fished in summer and -the boys set traps for muskrats in winter. It was getting colder, and I -told Charlie I thought I’d go on to the house instead of going with him -to the cabin in the sugar grove where he and Truman were keeping their -skins that winter. The cabin was convenient to the traps, and Truman had -put a good lock on the door and he and Charlie each had a key. I wanted -to go to the house to play with brother Joe’s baby and see whether -anyone else had come and to find out how the dinner was coming on. So -Charlie told me to go ahead and he would come as soon as he skinned a -couple of muskrats he had caught in his traps. - -“There were so many of us and so much confusion that I did not notice -until dinner was nearly over that Charlie was not there. When I called -Mother’s attention to it, she said he was probably around somewhere and -would eat presently. It took a long time to serve dinner that day, and -afterward a sled load of neighboring young folks came in and there were -games and music and a general good time. No one missed Charlie but me, -and I didn’t miss him all the time, either. - -“But about four o’clock in the afternoon Mother came out to the kitchen -where some of the girls were popping corn and asked anxiously if anyone -had seen Charlie. Belle said he hadn’t come in for any dinner. - -“‘I can’t imagine where he is,’ Mother said. ‘He never did a thing like -this before. He may have met the Orbison boys and gone home with them, -but I can’t understand it at all. It isn’t like Charlie.’ - -“Just then Truman came up from the cellar with a big basket of apples we -had polished the previous day. - -“‘What about Charlie?’ he asked. ‘Where is he? What’s the trouble?’ - -“Mother explained that Charlie had gone to his traps early that morning -and hadn’t been at the house since, nor been seen by any one since he had -started for the cabin with two muskrats to skin. - -“Truman just stared at Mother. - -“‘You say Charlie went to the cabin this morning?’ he repeated slowly as -if he couldn’t believe it. ‘Well, then, by jingoes, Mother, that’s where -he is right now!’ And he went on to tell how when he was coming from -feeding the stock on the upper place he had noticed that the door of the -cabin was shut, but the lock was not snapped. He supposed Charlie had -forgotten to tend to it as he had one other night, and so he had snapped -it shut and come along home. Charlie had evidently been busy and had not -heard the lock click. - -“‘Oh, the poor boy!’ cried Mother. ‘Go see about him at once, Truman.’ -And she began putting things in the oven to heat. - -“And, sure enough, that was where they found Charlie—he had been locked -up in the cabin all day. When he found he was locked in, he had tried to -pry the windows open, but they were securely nailed down. He had shouted -himself hoarse and had even attempted to climb up the chimney and get out -that way. - -“A little later, when he was thoroughly warmed and had had a good wash -and sat at the kitchen table eating his dinner, with Mother piling up -good things on his plate and Charlie eating as if he were afraid some one -would snatch it away before he got enough, Father came out of the sitting -room and stood looking down at him. - -“‘Well, son,’ he said, ‘have you thought of anything special to be -thankful for yet?’ - -“‘Yes, sir,’ Charlie answered, grinning. ‘I’m thankful for something to -eat and a fire.’ - -“Well, well, if it isn’t bedtime already!” - - - - -TAKING A DARE - - -The next evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink came to Grandma’s room, -she was astonished to behold an ugly black-and-blue lump on Bobby’s -forehead, right over his eye. - -“Why, what’s this?” Grandma asked, laying down her knitting and examining -the bruise. “Wait till I get the arnica, and then you can tell me all -about it.” - -And while she bathed Bobby’s swollen forehead with the arnica, Bobby -told her how another boy had dared him to hang by his toes from the -scaffolding of a half-finished house and how his feet had slipped and he -had had a fall. - -“He said I was afraid to try,” said Bobby, “but I showed him!” - -“And you got hurt into the bargain,” remarked Grandma, taking up her -knitting again. “Don’t you know, my dear, that it is sometimes braver to -take a dare than not? There is a time to say ‘no,’ and the boy or girl -who doesn’t know when to say ‘no’ is often foolhardy rather than brave. -I didn’t always know that, though, and I’ll tell you how I learned it. -When I was little I played so much with brother Charlie that in many ways -I was like a boy. One of Charlie’s codes was that he would never take a -dare, and so of course it became my code, too. - -“One Friday night Betty Bard came home from school with me to stay until -Saturday afternoon. It was in the fall, and the nuts were ripe. On the -meathouse floor, spread out to dry, were chestnuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, -hickory nuts, and butternuts. Betty’s grandfather was our preacher. There -were no nuts of any kind on the ground belonging to the parsonage, so we -had been giving Betty some of our nuts. She had already gotten hickory -nuts and chestnuts, and this evening we had gathered a bag of walnuts and -we were out in the wood lot shelling them. - -“We each had a flat stone to lay the nut on and another stone to hit it -with. We wore old leather gloves to protect our hands, for the walnut -juice makes an ugly brown stain. We would lay a nut on the flat stone, -hit it hard with the other stone, and the green outer covering or shell -would come off easily, leaving the walnut, which would then have to be -dried. - -“Not far from us Charlie sat cracking walnuts, left over from the year -before, for the chickens. He would crack a nut and throw it to the -chickens and they would pick the meat out with their beaks. Mother said -walnut meats were good for the chickens and made the hens lay, and we -often had to crack walnuts for the chickens. But this evening Charlie -did not want to do it. He wanted to go on the hill to look at some traps -he had set for rabbits, and he offered to give me his new slate pencil -if I would crack the walnuts. Any other time I should have jumped at -the chance of getting a new slate pencil so easily. But this evening, I -wanted to help Betty shell her nuts so we would have time the next day to -play and go down to the persimmon tree. - -“‘Very well,’ declared Charlie. He said that if I wouldn’t help him, -he wouldn’t go with us to the persimmon tree. And without him to shake -the tree, how would we get the persimmons? We had an especially fine -persimmon tree that my great-grandfather had planted, and Betty and -I wanted to get the fruit that was in the top branches. Charlie had -promised to climb the tree for us, but now he said he wouldn’t do it -unless I would finish cracking the walnuts. - -“‘All right, you needn’t,’ I replied. ‘We don’t want you. I’ll climb -the tree myself. But really I did not think for a moment I would do any -such thing, for, of all the trees around, grandfather’s persimmon, as we -called it, was the hardest to climb. - -“Charlie laughed mockingly. - -“‘I dare you!’ he cried. ‘I double dare you!’ - -“I jumped up, and so did Betty, and we threw our gloves to the ground and -started for the persimmon tree. - -“‘Are you sure you can do it?’ whispered Betty. - -“I had my doubts myself by this time, for, though I could go all over -the gnarled old apple tree in the side yard and climb the cherry trees -and the peach trees and any reasonably high tree, to climb to the top of -grandfather’s persimmon was a different undertaking. - -“Charlie saw us talking and thought I was weakening. - -“‘If you can’t do it, Sarah,’ he said, ‘of course I’ll let you off.’ - -“‘I can do it all right,’ I answered grimly, but I wished with all my -heart I hadn’t said I would do it in the first place. - -“The lower limbs of the persimmon were so high from the ground that for a -while it looked as if I shouldn’t even get into the tree at all. Charlie -offered to boost me, but I scorned his help. When finally, with the aid -of a fence rail and by ‘cooning,’ I reached the lowest branch, my hands -were scratched and swollen and hurting dreadfully. But after that it -wasn’t as hard. As I went up, slowly and carefully, Betty and Charlie, -under the tree, watched me. - -“‘Be careful, Sarah,’ Betty cautioned every little bit. ‘Do be careful.’ - -“‘Higher, higher!’ Charlie kept calling. - -“At last I reached the top and looked down, and then the most dreadful -thing happened: I got awfully sick—sick and dizzy. I closed my eyes -tight and held to the trunk of the tree and felt as if I should fall any -minute. If I should fall to the ground and be killed, then every one -would say it was Charlie’s fault. And it wouldn’t be at all, for I should -have known better than to try to climb the old tree. I thought about -the new blue delaine dress which I had never worn—they could bury me -in that. And then I tried to say my prayers, but I was so dizzy, oh, so -dizzy, that I couldn’t remember a single word of them. - -[Illustration: _I tried to say my prayers but I was so dizzy that I -couldn’t remember a single word of them_] - -“I told Charlie and Betty I was dizzy and that I was afraid I’d fall. - -“At first they thought I was fooling, but they soon saw I was in earnest. - -“‘Hold on tight!’ Betty screamed. ‘Keep your eyes shut. Don’t be afraid, -Sarah, we’ll save you.’ - -“Charlie ran around as if he were crazy, crying and shouting, ‘It’s my -fault, it’s all my fault! Hold on tight, Sarah. I’ll bring Stanley. He’ll -get you down. Hold on!’ - -“‘No, no!’ cried Betty when Charlie started off at a run. ‘Come back, -Charlie. We mustn’t leave her that way, she might fall. You’ll have to -tie her in the tree.’ - -“Betty had on a new pinafore made out of strong gingham. She took it off -and with Charlie’s knife they slit it into strips from neck to hem and -knotted them together and Charlie climbed the tree and tied the gingham -around my waist and to the trunk of the tree so that I couldn’t fall out. - -“Then Charlie ran to the house for help, and it didn’t take Father and -Stanley long to get there. Stanley carried me down to the lower branches -and handed me to Father, and in a little while I felt all right again. - -“I thought Father would think I was brave, but he didn’t at all. He was -cross because Charlie had urged me to do such a foolish thing and because -I hadn’t had courage to say I was afraid. He said we would have to take -our own money to buy gingham for another apron for Betty. We did, and -Aggie made it, and it was prettier than the one she had torn up, for -Aggie worked a cross-stitch pattern in red around the hem. - -“For a long time I could not bear to go near grandfather’s persimmon -tree, and I have never forgotten the lesson I learned that day.” - - - - -DOGS - - -Bobby wanted a dog. He never remembered having wanted anything so -much in all his life before. If he had his choice, he would prefer a -mahogany-colored bull terrier, he told Grandma, but would gladly take any -kind of a dog—even a common yellow dog. - -“It’s a shame you can’t have a dog,” said Grandma sympathetically. Every -boy should have a dog, I say. We always had dogs—collies and hounds and -ordinary dogs, and once we had a wonderful fox terrier. He belonged to -brother Charlie, who loved dogs as much as any one I ever knew, though -I had some claim on him, too. The way we got Sport, that was his name, -well—you might like to hear about that. - -“Mother was going to the city to visit Uncle John, and Charlie and I were -going along. Neither of us had ever been on the steam cars before, and we -were all excited about it. We talked of nothing else for days. I hardly -noticed my new buttoned shoes or my velvet bonnet. Mother was excited, -too, at the last. She wore a brown dress with a great many buttons up -the front and a bonnet with a plume. I thought she looked beautiful, and -I think Father did, too, for when he had put us in the train at Clayville -it seemed as if he couldn’t leave us. He took us into the train and found -us seats, and told Mother over and over where she was to change cars and -what to do if Uncle John shouldn’t be there to meet us, and gave her so -many directions that Mother got nervous. - -“‘Yes, yes, dear, I know. Do go now or the train will start before you -get out.’ - -“Father laughed and got off. Then he came rushing back all out of breath -just as the train was starting because, after all he had forgotten to -give Mother the tickets. - -“With a ringing of bells and a puffing of the engine we were off, -and Charlie and I settled down to a day of solid enjoyment. We had a -nice lunch that the girls had packed—chicken and pickles and election -cake, with apples and cookies to eat between times. Everything seemed -wonderful! The fine red plush seats, the conductor in his blue uniform -and brass buttons, the rushing at such a swift pace through the -country—it was like fairyland to me. - -“But I got car-sick, and then pretty soon Charlie got a cinder in his -eye. Poor Mother had her hands full. She made a pillow for me with the -wraps and I lay down, but I didn’t get any better. A lady across the -aisle handed Mother a piece of stiff writing paper and told her to pin it -inside my dress. Mother did, but it only scratched my chest and didn’t -help me. Mother got a flaxseed out of her bag and put it in Charlie’s -eye. It worked the cinder out, but his eye was red and swollen, and we -were all glad when we came to the city. Uncle John was waiting for us, -and we got on a horse car and rode to within a short distance of his home. - -“The next morning we felt fine and started out to explore with -our cousins, Lily and Tom. The street was lined on each side with -horse-chestnut trees, and children were picking up the glossy, brown nuts -in baskets. But Charlie and I didn’t think much of picking up nuts we -couldn’t eat. Charlie didn’t like the city at all. The houses were too -tall and dark to suit him and the back yards too little and the grass not -meant to be trodden on. A fellow couldn’t whistle or make a bit of noise -without annoying some one, and there were no dogs, except an occasional -fat pug or a curly poodle. - -“Lily and Tom took us to the park at the end of the street for a walk. -Charlie said it wasn’t as big as our cow pasture, and Tom said he knew it -was and that anyhow we had no seats in our cow pasture. Just then a horse -car went along, and after that Charlie wouldn’t do anything but sit on -a bench and watch the horse cars come and go. He had found one thing he -liked in the city, though he said that if he owned the cars he would have -nice, sleek, well-fed horses like Father’s instead of such skinny ones. - -“Sometimes Lily and I would play in the park with our dolls. One -afternoon, a couple of days before we were to start for home, I was -sitting on the bench beside Charlie when what should come running around -the corner but a dirty, little, white dog with black spots! Not that we -could see the black spots then. He was too dirty for that, all covered -with mud and blood. His tongue was hanging out, and he ran as if he were -exhausted, in a zigzag line, blindly. He was limping, too. - -“I think Charlie would have run right out and picked the poor dog up, -but he saw us almost as soon as we saw him. And when Charlie gave a low -whistle, he ran over and crawled under the bench we were sitting on. He -was hardly out of sight when around the same corner came a crowd of boys -and men, waving sticks and clubs, and led by a policeman, brandishing a -revolver, all of them yelling, ‘Mad dog! Mad dog! Mad dog!’ - -“There was some shrubbery behind the bench, but still if they came over -they would be sure to see the dog. I was so frightened that I hardly -breathed while they poked with their sticks around the low bushes that -grew in clumps here and there. The fact that we sat so quietly saved the -dog’s life, for they thought we had not even seen the dog. They went -hurrying on and were soon all out of sight—or we thought they were. But -it happened that a boy had fallen behind and turned back home just in -time to see Charlie get poor Sport out from under the bench. - -“He gave the alarm, and Charlie and I, with the dog wrapped in Charlie’s -coat, had hardly reached the kitchen and explained things to Tom, who -was making a kite in the back yard, when we could hear shouting down the -street. - -[Illustration: _Charlie and I with the dog reached the kitchen_] - -“We looked around for a hiding place. There was none. Then Tom thought -of the attic. He and Charlie and the dog would hide in the attic. Up -the back stairs they rushed and on up to the attic. I slipped into the -sitting room where Lily was practicing and picked up a book just as there -came a loud knocking at the front door. - -“Aunt Mary went to the door, and she was very indignant and cross when a -policeman asked her to give up a mad dog. Whoever heard of such a thing? -A mad dog, indeed! She had no dog at all, nor ever had had a dog, she -said. He was welcome to come in if he wanted to and look for himself. But -Aunt Mary was so sincere that the officer apologized for troubling her -and went away, taking the crowd with him. - -“When the boys came down from the attic and brought the dog, Mother and -Aunt Mary were frightened and didn’t know what to do with him. But Tom -found a big box and they put him in that until Uncle John came home. - -“‘Is he really mad, John?’ asked Aunt Mary anxiously as Uncle John -examined the little dog. - -“‘No more mad than I am,’ Uncle John answered, and he declared that he -was a valuable little dog, too, but that if he were turned over to the -police he would be shot. He didn’t know what to do with him, as they had -no room for a dog. - -“Charlie begged so hard to take the dog home with us, and he was so -pretty and cute after he had had a bath and a rest, licking our hands and -wagging his stubby tail, that Mother finally consented. Charlie named him -Sport because he said that name suited him. - -“And going home Charlie and I rode most of the time in the baggage car -with Sport, and we were so busy taking care of him that we were not sick -a bit and didn’t get any cinders in our eyes.” - - - - -THE LAST INDIAN - - -“Last summer,” began Alice one evening when the children came to -Grandma’s room, “when we were in the country we went to the valley where -the last Indians in this county were seen—the last wild Indians, I mean.” - -“Were there any wild Indians around when you were a little girl, -Grandma?” asked Bobby eagerly. - -“Well, no,” said Grandma thoughtfully. “But my Father remembered -very well when bands of Indians went through the country on hunting -expeditions. They were thought to be of the Delaware tribe, but were -called Cornplanter Indians, probably because they cultivated large fields -of corn as well as hunted and fished for their living. It was customary, -during the winter, for bands of these Indians to hunt deer and other game -in the forests. They would follow the chase for weeks at a time. Father -said that as each deer was killed it was carefully dressed and hung high -in some near-by tree, beyond the reach of wolves and dogs. At the close -of the hunting season the carcasses were gathered together and taken to -the Indian camp. - -“But though the Indians were gone when I was a little girl, there were -many things left to remind us of them. Old trees, blazed to mark Indian -trails, still stood, and arrowheads and darts were often ploughed up in -the fields. My brothers had quite a collection of them, and they also had -a tomahawk that looked very much like a hatchet. - -“And there was one Indian left, too. I almost forgot about him—old John -Cornplanter. He was supposed to have belonged to the Cornplanter Indians, -but no one knew much about him. He lived alone on an unsurveyed piece of -land and was seldom seen except when he brought his skins to sell or came -to the store for occasional supplies. He lived as his forbears had lived, -by hunting and fishing, and, like them, he had a cornfield. - -“He made few friends because he was gruff and short of speech and surly -in manner. He had a quick temper which flared up at the least thing, and -some of the men and boys teased him on purpose to make him angry. Father -said it wasn’t right. - -“One day when Father and my brother Stanley were coming through our woods -they heard a noise like that of some one groaning. Hunting around, they -presently found the Indian, John Cornplanter, helpless and unconscious, -with what turned out to be a broken leg. They carried him into the cabin -in the sugar grove and Stanley went for the doctor. The doctor set his -leg. For a time they thought he would die, for he had been exposed to -the weather for hours before Father found him. But he got better, though -slowly, and for weeks he lay on one of the bunks in the cabin, and Father -took care of him and Mother sent him things he liked to eat. - -“At first I was afraid to go near the cabin, but after a while I got -brave enough to venture in with Father. Then it wasn’t long till Charlie -and I were visiting Cornplanter every day, carrying him food and cool -drinks. - -“When he got better, he wove pretty baskets and carved things out of wood -and made Charlie a bow and arrow. After he got well and went home, he -often came back to see us, bringing presents of fish or game, or maybe -a basket of wild strawberries or early greens. Charlie and I liked to -walk back with him through the woods as far as the edge of our farm, and -sometimes he would build a fire and we would have a meal of some kind of -game, cornbread baked on a stone heated in the fire, and wild honey. - -“He taught Charlie new ways to set traps and cure skins, and he showed me -where the first trailing arbutus was to be found, hiding, fragrant and -pink, under the brown leaves. He knew where the mistletoe grew and where -the cardinal built her nest, and he could mimic any kind of a bird or -animal. - -“But no one knew John as we did. As he grew older his manner became -gruffer and his temper shorter. People were afraid of him, and there was -some talk of making him leave the country. - -“In the winter he would go for miles and miles hunting and trapping, -for even then game was not so plentiful as it had been. One winter -Cornplanter brought a deer he had shot and dressed to Orbison’s woods -and hung it in a tree, just as his people before him had done, until he -should be ready to take it the rest of the way home. - -“That night there was a light fall of snow. The next morning some boys on -their way to school spied the deer hanging in the tree and, thinking to -tease John, they moved the deer to the very top of the tree and fastened -it there. Then they went on to school, not thinking but that the Indian -would immediately discover the deer. - -“But Cornplanter was old and his sight was poor. When he came along a -little later, he saw only that the deer was not where he had left it, -and, thinking that it had been stolen, he set out to follow the tracks -the boys had made in the snow. - -“Mr. Carson, on his way to the store, saw John stalking along, head down, -in the direction of the schoolhouse, but thought nothing of it. When he -got to the store he would not have mentioned the fact had he not found -the men there gravely shaking their heads over the joke the boys had -played on John Cornplanter. It wasn’t safe to joke with John, they said. -Bud McGill, who had helped move the deer, had gone around to the store -and told about it. So when Mr. Carson said he had seen John going in the -direction of the schoolhouse, they were all greatly disturbed. Several -men started immediately for the schoolhouse. No telling what John might -do! - -[Illustration: _Mr. Carson saw John going in the direction of the -schoolhouse_] - -“In the meantime John had arrived at the schoolhouse and opening the door -without knocking, stepped inside, closed the door, and leaned against it. -He was a forbidding figure, dressed in furs from head to foot, a gun at -his side, a dark frown on his face. He looked at the teacher. - -“‘Where deer?’ he demanded. ‘Where deer?’ - -“He thought his deer had been stolen. He had followed the tracks to the -schoolhouse and now he wanted the deer. - -“We all knew what the boys had done. We looked at each other, waiting for -some one to speak. - -“John Cornplanter waited, too, his back to the door. - -“I thought about Charlie, at home sick. If he had been there, he might -have straightened things out. I was the only other person who knew John -Cornplanter well and did not fear him. I went over to him and explained -as well as I could about the deer just being moved and not stolen, and -that the boys were only in fun and meant no harm. When I finished, it was -so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Cornplanter did not like to -be teased. Would he think it a joke on himself that he had not seen the -deer, or would he be furious? - -“Suddenly he smiled, and the teacher with a sigh of relief announced -morning intermission. - -“A few minutes later when a group of anxious men came in sight of the -schoolhouse they stopped to listen in amazement to a series of unusual -sounds—a bull frog croaking hoarsely, an owl calling to its mate, a -cardinal singing sweetly, the long-drawn-out wail of the whip-poor-will, -the joyful note of the lark, the sharp barking of a squirrel. - -“And what they saw surprised them even more, for there was the Indian, -surrounded by children, as he mimicked for their amusement one after -another of the animals and birds he knew so well. - -“It’s bedtime now, so run along and we’ll have another story soon.” - - - - -A PRESENT FOR MOTHER - - -“Goody, goody!” sang Pink, dancing into Grandma’s room one evening, “It’s -only four weeks till Christmas.” - -“And I’m saving all my allowance for Christmas presents,” Bobby -announced. “I’m going to get Mother an umbrella—hers is slit and it has a -long handle—or a sparkly comb for her hair or some silk stockings.” - -“Why!” exclaimed Grandma in surprise. “How did a little boy ever think of -such nice, appropriate things?” - -“Oh, Mother always makes a list,” Alice explained carefully. “She puts -down all the things she’d like to have, and we pick from that. You -see, the first year we bought our own presents to give, Bobby got her -an iron-handle at the five-and-ten-cent store and she always uses an -electric iron, and I gave her a book that she already had, so after that -she made us a list. But Bobby won’t have money enough for any of the -things he named,” she said, with scorn for her brother’s idea of prices. -“I know very well he won’t.” - -“Well, you might all three go together,” Grandma suggested, “just as -brother Charlie and I did once for a present we got for our mother. Her -birthday came in November, and we wanted to give her something nice—a -real store present—so we put our money together. Of course there was -nothing at our store, but twice a year, in the spring and again in the -fall, Mr. Simon, the peddler, came straight from the city, and it was -from him that we planned to buy Mother’s present. - -“Mr. Simon was no common peddler, no, indeed. He was little and round and -fat and bald-headed—not handsome at all, but one of those people whose -looks you never think about after you know them. He always staid over -night with us, and because Father would take no money for keeping him he -left tucked away some place a little present that Mother said more than -paid his bill. - -“We all liked to see Mr. Simon come. He brought Father the latest news -from the city and told Mother and the girls about the newest fashions and -customs. I remember when he told Mother how some people were putting wire -screens over their windows to keep the flies out, and how she laughed -and said, ‘The very idea of shutting out the fresh air like that!’ - -“He would tell stories to us children and recite poetry, and when he -opened up his packs in the evening, how we all crowded around! - -“He didn’t show everything at all the houses, but he did at ours—fine -Irish linens, velvets and satins, beads and brooches and wonderful shawls. - -“It was a shawl that Charlie and I meant to buy for Mother—a soft, -creamy, silk shoulder shawl. Aunt Louisa had just such a shawl, and when -Mr. Simon was showing his things that spring we decided on that shawl the -minute we saw it. We coaxed Mother to try it on, and she threw it around -her shoulders to please us. It was so soft and lovely and the creamy tint -was so becoming to Mother that we would have bought it immediately, but, -alas! when we slipped out to count our money we didn’t have enough—not -nearly enough. - -“‘But we don’t need it till fall,’ said Charlie. ‘Let’s get Mr. Simon -to keep it for us till he comes next time, and then we’ll have enough -money.’ - -[Illustration: _Mother threw the shawl around her shoulders to please -us_] - -“When we went back to the sitting room the shawl had been put away in its -flat little box. At the first opportunity we asked Mr. Simon if he would -save it for us, and he said he would. - -“‘It won’t be too much trouble, carrying it around so long?’ I asked as -an after-thought. - -“‘Not a bit of trouble,’ he answered cheerfully. ‘’Tis no heavier than -one of your own black curls.’ - -“But the next day we forgot all about the shawl, for Mother had lost her -best brooch. It was a cameo with a carved gold border set around with -pearls. It had been Father’s wedding present to Mother, and she always -wore it even with her everyday print dresses. That brooch looked as well -on a common gown as it did on a fine silk. Mother said it was like some -people, they were so fine and wonderful that they were at home in any -company. - -“Mother missed the brooch that night when she went to take it off. She -had gone back downstairs and searched carefully all over the sitting-room -floor, but she hadn’t found it. She didn’t mention losing it until after -Mr. Simon had gone. Then we hunted all over the house and the yard and -the garden, and Charlie kept on hunting when everyone else had given up. -He climbed the trees and looked in all the bird nests around, because he -had heard that sometimes, when birds are building, they carry valuable -things to their nests. And he searched in every other unlikely place you -could think of, but he didn’t find the brooch. - -“We were very busy that summer, for besides our regular work we had to -earn enough money to pay for Mother’s shawl. I weeded in the garden -for five cents a day, and Charlie picked potato bugs, and we sold -blackberries and did all sorts of things. When it was time for Mr. Simon -to come again we had our reward, for safely hidden away under a loose -board in the attic floor, was enough money to pay for Mother’s present. - -“But by this time we had changed our minds about what we wanted to give -her—instead of the shawl we thought we would give her a brooch. We met -Mr. Simon at the gate and asked him anxiously if he had saved the shawl, -for we were afraid that maybe he wouldn’t like our not taking it in the -spring. - -“‘Indeed, I did,’ he answered. ‘I haven’t so much as opened that box -since I was here before.’ - -“Then Charlie and I told him that if he could sell the shawl to someone -else we would like to buy instead a brooch for Mother. He said he could -sell the shawl, but why buy our mother a brooch when she already had one -so much finer than anything he had to offer? We told him about Mother’s -brooch being lost, and he was awfully sorry. We selected a new brooch, -and Mother was pleased with it and fastened it into her collar right away. - -“The next morning I came into the sitting room, after seeing Mr. Simon -off, to find Father and Mother talking seriously together. - -“‘I can’t understand it,’ Father was saying. And I saw that Mother held -in one hand the cream-colored shawl that Charlie and I had meant to buy -for her. - -“‘Oh, is that what Mr. Simon left this time?’ cried Belle, coming in just -behind me. ‘Who gets it, Mother, Aggie or me? I think I ought to have -it because I am going to be married, but Aggie will say it’s her turn -because I got the lace collar last time.’ - -“But Mother did not answer, and we saw with surprise that in her other -hand she held her brooch—not her new brooch, but the one that had been -lost. - -“‘It was in the box with the shawl,’ she said quietly, and looked at -Father. How had the brooch come into Mr. Simon’s possession, they were -wondering, and why had he returned it in this mysterious way? Had he -found it the night Mother lost it and had he now repented of having kept -it? - -“‘You had the shawl around your shoulders the night you lost the brooch, -Mother,’ Belle said. ‘Maybe the brooch got fastened in it then.’ - -“‘That would be perfectly possible,’ said Father gravely, ‘but how many -times do you think Simon has showed that shawl in the last six months?’ - -“Then I found my voice. - -“‘Oh, not once, Father!’ I cried. ‘He never even opened the box since -he was here last time. He said so himself.’ And I told them how he had -been saving the shawl all that time for Charlie and me. Mother laughed -happily and said we were dear children, and Father picked up the county -paper with an air of relief. - -“Next time I think, yes, I know that next time we shall have a Christmas -story.” - - - - -A CHRISTMAS BARRING OUT - - - ’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house - Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. - -Bobby and Alice and Pink had hung their stockings by the living-room -mantle and, though it was very, very early, they decided to go to bed. -They always wanted to go to bed early on Christmas Eve. Morning seemed to -come so much more quickly when they went to bed early. They wouldn’t even -wait for a story. They would just say good night to Grandma and go right -to bed. - -“Why!” exclaimed Grandma in surprise, when they had explained their -intentions to her, “you mustn’t go to bed so soon. You’d be awake in the -morning before daylight! Come in and visit with me a while and I’ll see -if I can’t think up a story to tell you, the same as on other nights.” - -So they went in and sat down on their stools in front of the fire. -Grandma put on her spectacles, but, instead of her knitting, she took -up her Bible. The children were very still while she read the story of -the first Christmas—how in a stable in Bethlehem the baby Christ was -born, and how an angel appeared to the shepherds, who were watching their -flocks, and told them about the Savior’s birth, and then a host of angels -came and praised God, saying, “Glory be to God on high, and on earth -peace, good will toward men,” just as we sing today on Christmas. - -“I think,” said Grandma, “that I will tell you tonight about a Christmas -treat at our school. When I was a little girl we had a custom, handed -down from pioneer times, called ‘barring out.’ A few days before -Christmas the teacher would arrive to find the schoolhouse door securely -fastened. Before he was admitted he would have to sign a paper promising -to ‘treat’ his pupils. - -“In those days we didn’t have much ‘store’ candy, and we looked forward -for weeks to the Christmas treat we got at school. You wouldn’t think -much of it today—six sticks of red and white striped candy apiece, -wintergreen and sassafras and clove and maybe one of horehound. My, -but it tasted good to us! We didn’t eat it all up at once, either. No, -indeed! - -“But one year we didn’t know whether to look for a treat or not. The -teacher, a Mr. Hazen, was from Clayville, and he had been heard to say -that he did not believe in ‘barring out’ or in being forced to treat his -pupils. Nevertheless we all came early to school one morning and locked -him out. - -“While we all cried ‘Treat! Treat!’ at the tops of our voices, William -Orbison opened the window a tiny bit and thrust out the paper they had -prepared for the teacher to sign, but he refused to touch it. - -“This was not alarming, as most all of the teachers stayed out for an -hour or two just for fun. We played games and had a good time. But by -time for morning intermission the older pupils had begun to get anxious. -Could it be possible that the teacher really did not mean to treat? At -noon he was still out, walking up and down the playground, clapping his -hands together, stamping his feet, and rubbing his ears to keep warm. -We were anxious in earnest now. The wood box was empty and the fire was -getting low. There was no water in the water bucket, and some of the -younger children were coaxing for drinks. - -“No teacher in our recollection had ever refused to treat. There was an -old rule that if the teacher persisted in refusing to treat he was to be -ducked in the nearest stream of water. We had heard of instances when -this had been done, but no one wanted to try it. The older pupils stood -around in frightened little groups, and some of the smaller children were -crying openly, when the teacher knocked loudly on the door and asked that -the paper be handed out to him. - -“But the paper had disappeared! We searched all over the room, but it -was nowhere to be found. Again the teacher knocked and asked rather -impatiently for the paper. - -“Then William Orbison sat down at his desk and hurriedly prepared another -paper and handed it out the window to the teacher. He looked at it in a -puzzled way for a little bit, smiled a queer smile, and without a word -signed the paper and handed it back to William. Then he was admitted and -took up books, but all afternoon he kept smiling to himself as if he knew -a joke on some one. We felt uneasy, though we didn’t know why. - -“After school that evening my brother Truman asked William Orbison to -let him see the paper the teacher had signed. When he read it, he gave -a long whistle of astonishment. And what do you think William had done? -In the fuss and excitement of writing out the second paper he had omitted -the word ‘treat.’ The teacher had promised nothing! That explained his -smiles. We were a disappointed lot of children, I can tell you. - -[Illustration: _The teacher looked at the paper in a puzzled way_] - -“We shouldn’t have any Christmas treat, for after the way the teacher had -talked about treating, no one thought he would treat if he could help it, -and here was a way out for him. The next day we were perfectly sure he -did not intend to treat, for when William Orbison left out a word in his -reading lesson the teacher said, ‘Watch yourself, William. Leaving out -words is getting to be quite a habit with you.’ - -“Other years we could hardly wait till the day before Christmas. We wore -our best clothes, and right after dinner we would speak pieces, have -spelling and ciphering matches, sing songs, have our treat, and play -games the rest of the afternoon. Lots of the older brothers and sisters -would come to visit, and they would play with us and the teacher would -play, too, and we would have lots of fun. - -“But this year I should rather have stayed at home and watched the -Christmas preparations at our house, for there wouldn’t be much fun at -school without any treat. - -“It was a cold, windy morning, and Father took us to school in the sled. -We had lessons in the morning as usual, and in the afternoon recitations -and songs and a little play that the teacher had helped us get up. Truman -gave ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy,’ and did it very well, too. And Charlie had a -piece, but he forgot all but the first verse. We were so interested that -we didn’t think about the treat, and you can imagine how surprised we -were when the teacher, instead of dismissing us, said that we would now -have an unexpected but very welcome visitor. The door opened, and in came -old Santa Claus with a white beard and a red coat and on his back the -biggest bag! You should have seen our eyes pop! Of course it wasn’t the -really, truly Santa Claus who comes in the night and fills the stockings. -Oh, no, this was just a pretend Santa. - -“He put his bag down on the teacher’s platform, and after he had made a -little speech he opened it up. - -“And what do you suppose was in that bag? Candy! Cream candy and -chocolate drops and clear candy, red and yellow, shaped like animals and -horns and baskets, such candy as we had never seen before. A sack for -each pupil. - -“As we went up, one by one, the smallest first, to get our treat, Santa -asked each one of us to recite something for him. The smaller children -knew verses out of their readers, and some of us recited the pieces we -had said earlier in the afternoon. But how we all laughed when Longford -Henlen, who was the tallest boy in school, couldn’t think of anything to -say but, - - “I had a little dog, his name was Jack, - Put him in the barn, he jumped through a crack. - -“And now to bed, to bed, and go right to sleep. I’ve heard that if Santa -Claus comes and finds children awake he goes away and comes back later. -That is, he means to come back later, but he has been known to get so -busy he forgot to come back at all. So say your prayers and go to sleep.” - - - - -A VOCABULARY - - -(This vocabulary contains only words of unusual difficulty in spelling, -pronunciation, and meaning.) - -Transcriber’s Note: To make the most of this pronunciation guide, you’ll -need a font that supports the characters used to indicate the different -sounds. U+1DF5 COMBINING UP TACK ABOVE (᷵) is probably the least commonly -supported character: if you can’t see this, find and install a font that -can display it, and you should be covered for everything else as well. - - -KEY TO PRONUNCIATION - - ā _as in_ āle - a᷵ _as in_ senʹa᷵te - ă _as in_ ăm - ă _as in_ fiʹnăl - ȧ _as in_ ȧsk - ä _as in_ ärm - â _as in_ câre - ē _as in_ ēve - e᷵ _as in_ e᷵vent - ĕ _as in_ ĕnd - ẽ _as in_ hẽr - ī _as in_ īce - ĭ _as in_ ĭll - ō _as in_ ōld - o᷵ _as in_ o᷵bey - ô _as in_ ôrb - ŏ _as in_ ŏdd - ŏ _as in_ cŏn-nectʹ - o͞o _as in_ fo͞od - o͝o _as in_ fo͝ot - ū _as in_ ūse - ŭ _as in_ ŭp - u᷵ _as in_ u᷵nite - û _as in_ ûrn - -_alpaca_ (ăl păkʹ_ȧ_). A kind of cloth made from the hair of the alpaca, -an animal of the sheep family. - -_arbutus_ (ärʹbū tŭs). A plant having small, sweet-smelling pink and -white blossoms; known also as the Mayflower, and ground laurel. - -_ascension_ (_ă_ sĕnʹsh_ŭ_n). Rising in the air, as a balloon. - -_auction_ (ôkʹsh_ŭ_n). A public sale, where each article is sold to the -one offering the most money for it. - -_barricaded_ (bărʹĭ kādʹĕd). Filled with materials making it difficult -for one to pass. - -_beaux_ (bōz). Men paying special attention to certain young women. - -_Bethlehem_ (bĕthʹle᷵ hĕm). The village where Christ was born. - -_brooch_ (brōch). An ornamental clasp; a breastpin. - -_calico_ (kălʹĭ kō). A kind of cotton cloth. - -_cameo_ (kămʹe᷵ ō). A gem containing a carving, usually in the shape of a -head. - -_Canterbury_ (kănʹtẽr bĕr ĭ) _bell_. A plant having lovely bell-shaped -blossoms. - -_carcasses_ (kärʹk_ȧ_s ĕz). Dear bodies. - -_cardinal_ (kārʹdĭ n_ă_l). A small red bird. - -_cashmere_ (kăshʹmēr). A cloth made of fine woolen material. - -_chiffonier_ (shĭfʹo᷵ nērʹ). A high chest of drawers, with mirror. - -_ciphering_ (sīʹfẽr ĭng). Doing arithmetic examples. - -_circuit_ (sûrʹkĭt). When a minister was pastor of several churches at -the same time, the circuit was his regular journeying around the whole -number. - -_code_ (kōd). A system of rules governing one’s own conduct. - -_colony_ (kŏlʹo᷵ nĭ). A company of people going to a new place to make -their home. - -_conference_ (kŏnʹfẽr _ĕ_ns). A meeting for the purpose of deciding some -question. - -_conspicuous_ (k_ŏ_n spĭkʹū _ŭ_s). In plain sight. - -_Copenhagen_ (kōʹp_ĕ_n hāʹg_ĕ_n). A children’s game. - -_cravat_ (kr_ȧ_ vătʹ). A man’s necktie. - -_cretonne_ (kre᷵ tŏnʹ). A strong cotton cloth, prettily colored. - -_crocheted_ (kro᷵ shādʹ). Made out of thread woven together by means of a -hook. - -_dahlia_ (dälʹy_ȧ_). A plant with showy blossoms. - -_delaine_ (de᷵ lānʹ). A kind of light woolen cloth. - -_Delaware_ (dĕlʹ_ȧ_ wâr). Name of an early tribe of Indians; name of a -state of the United States. - -_dolman_ (dŏlʹm_ă_n). A woman’s cloak with cape-like pieces instead of -sleeves. - -_Dominique_ (dŏmʹĭ nēkʹ). A variety of fowl something like the Plymouth -Rock. - -_Egypt_ (ēʹjĭpt). A country in Africa. - -_election_ (e᷵ lĕkʹsh_ŭ_n). The choosing of one to hold some public -office. - -_embarrassed_ (ĕm bărʹr_ă_st). Ashamed; mortified. - -_epidemic_ (ĕpʹĭ dĕmʹĭk). Spreading to many people in a community, as a -disease. - -_fluting_ (flo͞otʹĭng). Ruffles so made as to have a wavy appearance. - -_furlough_ (fûrʹlō). A soldier’s vacation from the army. - -_gnarled_ (närld). Twisted or rugged. - -_gnawed_ (nôd). Bitten apart, little by little with effort. - -_gospel_ (gŏsʹp_ĕ_l). The story of the life of Christ. - -_husking_ (hŭskʹĭng). Taking the husks from ears of corn. - -_immersion_ (ĭ mûrʹsh_ŭ_n). Baptism by dipping the person into the water -all over. - -_infare_ (ĭnʹfâr). A party given by the husband’s family as a welcome to -the new wife. - -_institute_ (ĭnʹstĭ tūt). A meeting of school teachers. - -_Israel_ (ĭzʹra᷵ ĕl). Ancient kingdom of Palestine, the scene of the -stories of the Bible. - -_larvae_ (lärʹvē). The tiny worms hatched from insect eggs. - -_leghorn_ (lĕgʹhôrn). A variety of fowl that gets its name from Leghorn, -a city in Italy. - -_loam_ (lōm). Clayey earth or soil. - -_lozenge_ (lŏzʹĕnj). A kind of candy. - -_mahogany_ (m_ȧ_ hŏgʹ_ȧ_ nĭ). A tree having a reddish brown wood. - -_mature_ (m_ȧ_ tūrʹ). To become ripe. - -_mincemeat_ (mĭnsʹmētʹ). A mixture of meat, apples, raisins, etc., to be -used as a pie filling. - -_mistletoe_ (mĭsʹ ʹl tō). A vine having waxy white berries. - -_muskrat_ (mŭskʹrătʹ). A small fur-bearing animal living in holes in the -banks of streams or lakes. - -_myriads_ (mĭrʹĭ _ă_dz). Large numbers. - -_parsonage_ (pär ʹs’na᷵j). The house occupied by the minister of a church. - -_persimmon_ (pẽr sĭmʹ_ŭ_n). A plum-like fruit. - -_Pharaoh_ (fāʹrō). The name of the kings of Egypt in the long-ago time. - -_pioneer_ (pīʹo᷵ nērʹ). One who goes first to make a home in an unsettled -country. - -_pippin_ (pĭpʹĭn). A general name for apple. Here means “something extra -good.” - -_pithy_ (pĭthʹĭ). Soft and spongy. - -_plagues_ (plāgz). Great troubles. - -_plaid_ (plăd). Woven in the form of squares. - -_Plymouth_ (plĭmʹ_ŭ_th). The town settled by the Pilgrims. - -_portico_ (pōrʹtĭ kō). A porch or piazza. - -_preserve_ (pre᷵ zûrvʹ). To make to last. - -_proclamation_ (prŏkʹl_ȧ_ māʹsh_ŭ_n). A public announcement. - -_Psalm_ (säm). One of the verses from the Book of Psalms in the Bible. - -_quilting_ (kwĭltʹĭng). A meeting of women for the purpose of making a -bedquilt. - -_recollection_ (rĕkʹ_ŏ_ lĕkʹsh_ŭ_n). That which is called to mind; a -memory. - -_recommendation_ (rĕkʹ_ŏ_ mĕn dāʹsh_ŭ_n). Expression in favor of -something. - -_recruiting_ (re᷵ kro͞otʹĭng). Persuading new men to join the army or -navy. - -_recruits_ (re᷵ kro͞otzʹ). Men who had recently joined the army or navy. - -_reveille_ (re᷵ vālʹya᷵). The bugle call awakening the soldiers in the -morning. - -_Reverend_ (rĕvʹẽr _ĕ_nd). A clergyman’s title; one who is to be honored. - -_ruching_ (ro͞oshʹĭng). A plaited strip of lace or net. - -_sassafras_ (săsʹ_ȧ_ frăs). A kind of tree, from the root bark of which a -flavoring extract is made. - -_Savior_ (sāvʹyẽr). Christ. - -_scarred_ (skārd). Having the marks of old cuts. - -_serenade_ (sĕrʹe᷵ nādʹ). Singing or playing outside a house as a -greeting to one or more within the house. - -_shirred_ (shûrd). Sewed in such a way as to make the material hang full -and loose. - -_soliloquy_ (so᷵ lĭlʹo᷵ kwĭ). A talking to oneself. - -_sorghum_ (sôrʹgŭm). A sirup made from a variety of corn plant. - -_stealth_ (stĕlth). In secret. - -_suet_ (sūʹĕt). A hard fat. - -_superstitious_ (sūʹpẽr stĭsh_ŭ_s). Having fear of what is unknown; -believing in signs. - -_symbol_ (sĭmʹb_ŏ_l). A sign. - -_telescope_ (tĕlʹe᷵ skōp). A kind of traveling bag. - -_Timotheus_ (tĭ mōʹthe᷵ ŭs). A man spoken of in the Bible. - -_tithes_ (tīthz). Tenths. What one gives toward the support of a church. - -_unsurveyed_ (ŭnʹs_ŭ_r vādʹ). Not measured. - -_vouchers_ (vouchʹẽrz). Papers showing money is due one. - -_wagered_ (wāʹjẽrd). Bet. - -_waistcoat_ (wāstʹkōt). A man’s garment worn under the coat; a vest. - -_whinny_ (hwĭnʹĭ). The sound made by a horse; a neighing. - -_worsted_ (wo͝osʹtĕd). A cloth made of soft woolen yarn. - -_wrenched_ (rĕncht). Twisted or pulled off by force. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY CANDLELIGHT STORIES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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