“Who’s that little gal goin’ by?” said old Mrs. Emmons. “That–why, that’s young Lucretia, mother,” replied her daughter Ann, peering out of the window over her mother’s shoulder. There was a fringe of flowering geraniums in the window; the two women had to stretch their heads over them. “Poor little soul!” old Mrs. Emmons remarked […]

“I don’t know what we’re goin’ to do,” said Aunt Maria Crooker. She sat in a large arm-chair, and held in her lap a bowl of sugar and butter that she was creaming. Aunt Maria filled up the chair from arm to arm, for she was very portly; she had a large, rosy, handsome face, […]

“Grandma.” “What is it, child?” “You goin’ to put that cup-cake into the pan to bake it now, grandma?” “Yes; I guess so. It’s beat ’bout enough.” “You ain’t put in a mite of nutmeg, grandma.” The grandmother turned around to Ann Mary. “Don’t you be quite so anxious,” said she, with sarcastic emphasis. “I […]

Ann Lizy was invited to spend the afternoon and take tea with her friend Jane Baxter, and she was ready to set forth about one o’clock. That was the fashionable hour for children and their elders to start when they were invited out to spend the afternoon. Ann Lizy had on her best muslin delaine […]

“And you must spin faster, Dorothy, or you’ll go to bed without your supper,” said Dame Betsy. “Yes, ma’am,” replied Dorothy. Then she twirled the wheel so fast that the spokes were a blur. Dorothy was a pretty little girl. She had a small pink-and-white face; her hair was closely cropped and looked like a […]

It was afternoon recess at No. 4 District School, in Warner. There was a heavy snow-storm; so every one was in the warm school-room, except a few adventurous spirits who were tumbling about in the snow-drifts out in the yard, getting their clothes wet and preparing themselves for chidings at home. Their shrill cries and […]

In the first place, Sarah Jane had no right to take the doll to school, but the temptation was too much for her. The doll was new–it was, in fact, only one day old–and such a doll! Rag, of course–Sarah Jane had heard only vague rumors of other kinds–but no more like the ordinary rag […]

“You needn’t waste any more time talkin’ about it, Benjamin; you can jest take that puppy-dog and carry him off. I don’t care what you do with him; you can carry him back where you got him, or give him away, or swap him off; but jest as sure as you leave him here half […]

By the 1st of June Mrs. Thayer had the sun-bonnets done. There were four of them, for the four youngest girls–Eliza, Mary Ann, Harriet, and Mirandy. She had five daughters besides these, but two were married and gone away from home, and the other three were old enough to make their own sun-bonnets. There were […]

Ruth stood by with a dish and spoon, while her mother stirred the stew carefully to be sure that it was not burning on the bottom of the kettle. Her sister Serena was paring apples and playing with the cat, and her father and her uncles Caleb and Silas sat before the fire smoking, sniffing […]

“I should think it was about time for him to be comin’,” said Mrs. Rose. “So should I,” assented Miss Elvira Grayson. She peered around the corner of the front door. Her face was thin and anxious, and her voice was so like it that it was unmistakably her own note. One would as soon […]

Nancy and Flora were going through the garden, stepping between the squash and tomato vines. Nancy’s mother stood in the kitchen door looking after them. “Mind you don’t hit your clothes on the tomatoes!” she called out. “No, we won’t,” they answered back. After they had passed the last bean pole they walked single file […]

Hannah Maria Green sat on the north door-step, and sewed over and over a seam in a sheet. She had just gotten into her teens, and she was tall for her age, although very slim. She wore a low-necked, and short-sleeved, brown delaine dress. That style of dress was not becoming, but it was the […]

IT did seem strange that Sally Patterson, who, according to her own self-estimation, was the least adapted of any woman in the village, should have been the one chosen by a theoretically selective providence to deal with a psychological problem. It was conceded that little Content Adams was a psychological problem. She was the orphan […]

BACK of the rectory there was a splendid, long hill. The ground receded until the rectory garden was reached, and the hill was guarded on either flank by a thick growth of pines and cedars, and, being a part of the land appertaining to the rectory, was never invaded by the village children. This was […]

THAT affair of Jim Simmons’s cats never became known. Two little boys and a little girl can keep a secret — that is, sometimes. The two little boys had the advantage of the little girl because they could talk over the affair together, and the little girl, Lily Jennings, had no intimate girl friend to […]

DOWN the road, kicking up the dust until he marched, soldier-wise, in a cloud of it, that rose and grimed his moist face and added to the heavy, brown powder upon the wayside weeds and flowers, whistling a queer, tuneless thing, which yet contained definite sequences — the whistle of a bird rather than a […]

MISS JANE CAREW was at the railroad station waiting for the New York train. She was about to visit her friend, Mrs. Viola Longstreet. With Miss Carew was her maid, Margaret, a middle-aged New England woman, attired in the stiffest and most correct of maid-uniforms. She carried an old, large sole-leather bag, and also a […]

IT was an insolent day. There are days which, to imaginative minds, at least, possess strangely human qualities. Their atmospheres predispose people to crime or virtue, to the calm of good will, to sneaking vice, or fierce, unprovoked aggression. The day was of the last description. A beast, or a human being in whose veins […]

THE spring was early that year. It was only the last of March, but the trees were filmed with green and paling with promise of bloom; the front yards were showing new grass pricking through the old. It was high time to plow the south field and the garden, but Christopher sat in his rocking-chair […]