When November came, an interesting thing happened to the Merrill children. There had been a number of letters from Miss Chandler. Mother and Father talked about them after the little girls were in bed. Father had taken the letters to show Mr. Thorne.

One afternoon Mother told Lucy and Dora that both were to have music lessons. Lucy was to learn to play the piano properly, not with two or three fingers the way she picked out tunes now, but with all ten fingers and according to rule. Miss Chandler and Miss Page and Mr. Thorne thought it would be nice for Dora to have a little violin.

Miss Chandler was sure that Dora could learn to play. She had a friend who had already chosen a fiddle for Dora. It wasn’t full-sized, but was otherwise just what grown people used. Dora thought it was beautiful.

Alice Harper had a fiddle also, and when Mrs. Merrill spoke to Mrs. Harper about a teacher for Dora, Mrs. Harper asked Dora to come to her house every Saturday morning when Alice had her lesson, and take one from the same teacher.

Alice’s teacher was a young man who came from Boston. He would be glad to have two pupils instead of one.

Lucy was to take piano lessons from Miss Ball, and also on Saturday. But Miss Ball had many pupils who wanted their lessons that day. Lucy would have to go at eight o’clock. This was a chilly hour for a music lesson, but Lucy said she did not mind. They both felt very important with music to carry about the streets.

“I shall expect you to practise every day,” said Mother. “You must remember that the lessons cost money, and the money will be wasted if you don’t try hard to learn.”

Lucy and Dora felt sure they should never want to do something else instead of practising. Mrs. Merrill said she hoped they wouldn’t.

After her first lesson Dora felt quite discouraged. She had expected that Mr. Irons would show her at once how to play. Instead, he spent all the time telling her how to hold her fingers and how to keep the bow in the proper position. He would not let her draw the bow across the strings unless her fingers were just as he wanted them.

Dora tried hard, but when Mr. Irons said she had worked long enough and might listen while Alice had her lesson, Dora decided that it would be some time before she could play that fiddle.

Alice could really play quite well, and Dora felt more cheerful when she remembered that there had been a time when Alice had to think about her fingers and the way she held the bow. If Alice could learn to do both without thinking much about it, she could learn, too. It is a long step toward learning how to do anything when one realizes that it must be done a little at a time.

When Dora reached home that Saturday, Mrs. Merrill was mixing bread and Lucy was perfectly determined to help mix it. She had washed her hands nicely and every time Mrs. Merrill looked the other way Lucy would make dabs at the bread dough.

“Lucy,” said Mrs. Merrill, “next summer I will show you how to make bread, but you must leave this alone. You may make some gingerbread if you like.”

Lucy flew for the cook-book. She knew which rule Mother used, only Mother never had to look at the book. She got out the bowl and a spoon and the flour and the molasses.

“You don’t need to bring out the whole jug,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Pour into a cup what the rule says.”

Lucy hadn’t thought of this. It was easier than carrying out the heavy jug. She did everything just as the rule said and didn’t notice that Mother kept an eye on her mixing-bowl. When the gingerbread was put into a nicely buttered pan and safe in the oven, Lucy gave a sigh.

“Don’t you wish you could make gingerbread?” she asked Dora, who was paring apples for Mother’s pies. The Hallowe’en pumpkins were already changed into pies and eaten.

“I think I could make it,” said Dora.

Lucy was surprised, for Dora didn’t often say things like that. “Mother, could she?” she asked Mrs. Merrill.

“Anybody who can read can use a cook-book, and anybody with common sense can cook,” said Mother.

Lucy was quite annoyed. Neither Dora nor Mother understood how choice that gingerbread was going to be. She at once told Dora that she was paring the apples too deep.

“It isn’t good next to the skin,” said Dora, and she went on paring the apples in just the same way.

“Don’t be cross, children,” said Mrs. Merrill. “You might help Dora with the apples, Lucy, if you think you can do them better. I want to get everything possible done before dinner because this afternoon I mean to take you over to the city to see about your winter coats.”

“Both of us?” asked the children.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Saturday afternoon isn’t a good time to go shopping, but now you are having music lessons in the morning, I can’t manage it then. And I don’t like to take you out of school to go.”

“Are we both to have new coats?” asked Dora. She knew that Lucy was to have one, because she had outgrown her old one. It could not be buttoned without squeezing hard. Dora had expected to wear that coat herself, and she did not like its color. The color was brown.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill. “Lucy’s old coat will do for you to wear on stormy days, but it does not look very well. She has worn it three winters. We have decided to buy you a new one.”

Dora was delighted. People in the little brown cottage thought twice before spending a dollar. Father had told the children that he was saving money so he could send them to school a long time, and was buying insurance. That meant if anything happened so Father could not work in the printing-press, there would still be money to take care of Mother and the little girls. Dora had not expected to have a new coat.

“Will it be blue, Mother?” she asked after a time. Lucy was paring apples now, and Dora didn’t think it was quite fair for her to choose those with nice smooth skins and leave the specked ones for Dora to do. But she did not say anything.

“Will what be blue, child?” asked Mother. “Look at your gingerbread, Lucy.”

“My coat,” said Dora. Lucy dropped her knife and flew to the oven.

How good that gingerbread did smell! It had turned into a desirable brown cake.

“Is it done, Mother?” Lucy asked.

“Try it and see,” said Mrs. Merrill. “We will look at the blue coats, Dora.”

Lucy brought from the pantry one of the clean straws Mother kept to test cake. She stuck it into her gingerbread. When she drew it out the straw felt dry and smooth.

“It is done,” she said.

Mother took the pan out of the oven. She tipped out the gingerbread and put it on a rack and covered it with a cloth. “It looks very well,” she said.

The fragrance of that gingerbread filled the whole house. It even penetrated to the parlor where Timothy was sleeping on the couch. He had no business there and he got up and came into the kitchen. It was not because his conscience pricked him, however, but because of the gingerbread.

Lucy came back to the table where Dora was working. She was so proud of her cooking that she no longer felt cross. She took an apple which had a big speck on the side.

After dinner everybody hurried to get the dishes washed and then Mrs. Merrill and the children went to the city. There was no need to lock the house, for Mr. Merrill would be at home. The printing-press did not run on Saturday afternoons.

It was late before the shoppers came back. Dora did not wait to open the packages before telling Father that she had a pretty blue coat. Lucy had another brown one, not like her old coat, but a different shade of brown. To go with the coat was a round brown sailor hat with a ribbon hanging down the back. Dora’s hat was just like it, only dark blue, with a blue ribbon. Then Dora asked Father if he had been lonesome.

Father said he had been too busy to be lonesome. Dora wondered what he had been doing. On the floor before the Franklin stove was spread a newspaper, with chips on it, as though Father had been whittling.

Mr. Merrill looked at the new coats and hats and thought them very pretty. After supper, when they were all in the parlor, he began to whittle again.

Lucy and Dora were learning their Sunday-school lesson. Mrs. Merrill had just found out that they had not even looked at it, and she said it must be learned at once. She should be much ashamed of them if they went to Sunday school without knowing the lesson.

Dora hurried as much as she could. She read the lesson and looked up the Bible references and tried to answer the questions. But all the time she wondered what Father was making. As soon as she finished she asked him.

“What do they look like?” inquired Father.

“Like little dolls, only in pieces,” said Dora.

“That’s just what they are,” said Mr. Merrill, and then he smiled at her. Dora’s eyes grew wide.

“Father!” she said. “Are you trying to make marionettes like those we saw in Boston? Are you really?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” said Mr. Merrill, and he fitted a little arm to one of his bodies. “These are just tiny ones but I thought we’d begin small and see how we come out.”

“Is it to be Jack and the Beanstalk?” asked Dora eagerly. “Do let it be that, because we know how to play it.”

“This is Jack I’m working on,” said Mr. Merrill. “That’s his mother there, not put together, but I don’t know whether I can make a proper cow.”

“Father!” exclaimed Lucy, “Dora had a toy cow once on wheels and the wheels were broken. Couldn’t you use that cow? You could take it apart at the joints.”

“I am a printer, not a butcher,” said Mr. Merrill, “but I’ll look at that cow, if Dora is willing we should use it.”

Dora was willing. The cow belonged to her very little girlhood. She never played with it now.

Lucy ran up-stairs and found the cow. Mr. Merrill said it was the right size and would do nicely. He would try strings fastened to it in different places and perhaps they could make it walk without taking it apart or putting joints in its legs.

Dora began making plans. There could be a set of dolls for “Cinderella,” and, of course, they would need rabbits for the rabbit play. She asked Father at once if he could make some.

Mr. Merrill said he would prefer to finish the marionettes for Jack before he began any more, but he thought he could manage the rabbits. “How about clothes?” he asked. “Can you and Mother ’tend to that part?”

When they asked her, Mother looked rather doubtful. “I can make dolls’ clothes,” she said, “but these dolls are very small. We will try. The clothes must fit exactly right so as not to interfere with the strings to work their arms and legs.”

“Perhaps we could make paper clothes,” suggested Dora; “paste the paper right on.”

“That might answer,” said Mother, “but we will try the cloth ones. How was Jack dressed?”

The children told her and Mrs. Merrill said she would see what she could do.

Father explained that the idea was really Uncle Dan’s. Dan said it would be possible to make a little stage for the marionettes and that he would make one if Father would whittle the dolls. The back of the stage was to come up high enough so that Lucy and Dora could stand behind and not be seen while they were working the little puppets. All this was to be a Christmas present from Father and Uncle Dan.

Dora and Lucy thought it the nicest gift anybody could think of. They were perfectly sure no other little girls in Westmore would have a Christmas present like it. Mr. Merrill promised that if the first marionettes turned out well he would make the characters for another play.

Lucy and Dora planned at once to give an entertainment with the theatre and invite their Sunday-school class and Miss Page. Mrs. Merrill agreed that this would be pleasant, but she thought they would have to see how well the figures would work when they were finished, and that it might take both children a little time to learn how to pull the strings.

“I would not invite Miss Page just yet,” she said.