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The two little girls were very close friends, and were together all the time which they could snatch out of school hours. Not long after the presentation of the sixpence, one night after school, Patience’s mother wanted her to go on an errand to Nancy Gookin’s hut.

Nancy Gookin was an Indian woman, who did a good many odd jobs for the neighbors. Mrs. Mather was expecting company, and she wanted her to come the next day and assist her about some cleaning.

Patience was usually willing enough, but to-night she demurred. In fact, she was a little afraid of the Indian woman, who lived all alone in a little hut on the edge of some woods. Her mother knew it, but it was a foolish fear, and she did not encourage her in it.

“There is no sense in your being afraid of Nancy,” she said with some severity. “She’s a good woman, if she is an Injun, and she is always to be seen in the meeting-house of a Sabbath day.”

As her mother spoke, Patience could see Nancy’s dark harsh old face peering over the pew, where she and some of her nation sat together, Sabbath days, and the image made her shudder in spite of its environments. However, she finally put on her little sunbonnet and set forth. It was a lovely summer twilight; she had only about a quarter of a mile to go, but her courage failed her more and more at every step. Martha Joy lived on the way. When she reached her house, she stopped and begged her to go with her. Martha was obliging; under ordinary circumstances she would have gone with alacrity, but to-night she had a hard toothache. She came to the door with her face all tied up in a hop-poultice. “I’m ‘fraid I can’t go,” she said dolefully.

But Patience begged and begged. “I’ll spend my sixpence that uncle Joseph gave me, and I’ll buy you a whole card of peppermints,” said she finally, by way of inducement.

That won the day. Martha got few sweets, and if there was anything she craved, it was the peppermints, which came, in those days, in big beautiful cards, to be broken off at will. And to have a whole card!

So poor Martha tied her little napping sunbonnet over her swollen cheeks, and went with Patience to see Nancy Gookin, who received the message thankfully, and did not do them the least harm in the world.

Martha had really a very hard toothache. She did not sleep much that night for all the hop-poultice, and she went to school the next day feeling tired and cross. She was a nervous little girl, and never bore illness very well. But to-day she had one pleasant anticipation. She thought often of that card of peppermints. It had cheered her somewhat in her uneasy night. She thought that Patience would surely bring them to school. She came early herself and watched for her. She entered quite late, just before the bell rang. Martha ran up to her. “I haven’t got the peppermints,” said Patience. She had been crying.

Martha straightened up: “Why not?”

The tears welled out of Patience’s eyes. “I can’t find that sixpence anywhere.”

The tears came into Martha’s eyes too. She looked as dignified as her poulticed face would allow. “I never knew you told fibs, Patience Mather,” said she. “I don’t believe my mother will want me to go with you any more.”

Just then the bell rang. Martha went crying to her seat, and the others thought it was on account of her toothache. Patience kept back her tears. She was forming a desperate resolution. When recess came, she got permission to go to the store which was quite near, and she bought a card of peppermints with the Squire’s sixpence. She had pulled out the palm-leaf strand on her way, thrusting it into her pocket guiltily. She felt as if she were committing sacrilege. These sixpences, which Squire Bean bestowed upon worthy scholars from time to time, were ostensibly for the purpose of book-marks. That was the reason for the palm-leaf strand. The Squire took the sixpences to the blacksmith who stamped them with B’s, and then, with his own hands, he adjusted the palm-leaf.