It was all Jane could do the next morning to make Clematis get up when the rising bell rang.

“I don’t want to get up yet,” grumbled Clematis. “I will get up pretty soon.”

“No you won’t either. You’ll get up right off now. We have to be ready for breakfast in fifteen minutes.”

Jane pulled down the clothes, while the other girls laughed. Poor Clematis had to get up.

At first she was cross, but when she looked out of the window, she smiled.

From this window she could see way off to a beautiful hill, golden brown in the morning sun.

Part way to the hill was a river. Its little waves shimmered and danced. Its shores were quite green already.

Now Clematis was wide awake and happy. She started to dress.

“Wash first,” said Jane.

Clematis started to grumble again, but when she looked into the mirror above the wash stand, there was the river, smiling at her in the mirror.

She knew this river. She had been there. Perhaps she would go again some day.

For breakfast they had a bowl of oatmeal and milk, with two slices of bread.

Clematis looked around while they were eating.

“Don’t you ever get a cup of coffee for breakfast?” she asked of Sally, who sat next to her.

“Oh, no, never, but sometimes we have cocoa, on real cold mornings.”

Clematis turned up her nose a little. She did not care much for oatmeal.

“I like doughnuts and coffee a great deal better,” she said.

“Huh, you won’t have any doughnuts and coffee round here,” said Jane. “You’d better eat what you have.”

Clematis took her advice, and had just finished her bread, when the bell sounded.

“Now, Clematis,” said Miss Rose, “you are going to stay here for a while anyway, so you must take your part in the daily work.”

“Yes’m.”

“I think you said yesterday you would like to help Katie in the kitchen.”

“Oh, yes’m,” said Clematis. She had been thinking of Deborah and longing to see her.

“Well, let’s go down and see what Katie can find for you to do.”

There was Deborah, sleeping under the edge of the stove. Clematis took her while Miss Rose was asking Katie.

“This little girl thinks she would like to have some work down here in the kitchen, Katie. Is there anything you would like her to do?”

“Ah, no thank you, Miss Rose, she wouldn’t be any use at all.”

Clematis looked up. She did not feel very happy.

“Why, don’t you think she could help you?” Miss Rose looked surprised.

“No miss, she is no use at all. Yesterday I asked her to peel some potatoes, but she never lifted a finger. She said she didn’t know how.”

“Why, Clematis, I am surprised.”

“Well,” said Clematis, “if you never learned to peel potatoes, would you know how to do it?”

“Yes, I think I should. Katie would have shown you, if you had been willing to try.”

Clematis hung her head, and buried her face in Deborah’s soft fur.

“You see, miss, she’s of no use to me. She don’t want to work at all. Her cat, now, is a worker. She caught a big rat in the night.”

“Well then, Clematis, we shall have to ask Mrs. Snow to find you something else to do.”

Clematis dropped her kitten, and the tears ran down her cheeks, as she followed Miss Rose upstairs.

Katie looked after her with a sad smile.

“She’ll have a hard row to hoe round here, believe me,” she said to herself.

Mrs. Snow frowned when Miss Rose told her.

“I am very sorry,” she said. “She may work with Jane, then, in the dormitory. Jane is a good worker and can teach her.”

Poor Clematis was rather frightened when she heard that she was to work in the dormitory. She was afraid a dormitory was some dark place like a prison. She did not know that the dormitory was the big room where she had slept.

Soon Clematis was back in the big room again. There she took the place of another little girl, who was making up the beds with Jane.

“Hurry up now,” said Jane. “We have got to get these beds all made up before nine o’clock. School begins then.”

She showed Clematis how to tuck the sheet in, down at the foot, and pull it up smooth at the head of the bed.

Clematis was looking out of the window, way over the river, to the sunny brown hill.

“There now. Why don’t you look out?” said Jane. For Clematis had given such a pull that she pulled all the clothes out at the foot of the bed.

“I was looking out, so there,” said Clematis.

“Yes, looking out of the window, that’s all.” Jane was vexed.

“Now hurry up and get them tucked in again.”

But Clematis was very clumsy, and not very willing. She had never had to make beds before. She didn’t see any need of it.

“Why can’t you leave the blankets till you go to bed, and then just pull them up?” she said, pouting.

“Because you can’t, that’s why. And you’d better try, or you’ll never get a chance to go to the country.”

“What do you mean? Who goes to the country?”

Clematis came round the bed and took Jane by the arm.

“Why, most of the children who do well, or try hard to do well, go to the country for two weeks in the summer.”

“To the country where the flowers grow, and where there is grass all around?”

“Sure, and where they give you milk and apple pie. Oh, apple pie even for breakfast, and doughnuts between meals. I had doughnuts every day.”

“Crickety!” said Clematis.

“You’d better not let Miss Rose hear you say that, and you needn’t worry. You won’t go to any country, when you can’t even make beds.”

Clematis gave Jane a frightened look, and started to work the best she knew how.

But the best Clematis knew how was very poor work, and by the time the bell rang for school, one bed still had to be done.

“Let it alone,” said Jane. “I can make it up faster myself.”

Her hands and feet moved fast enough to surprise little Clematis, who followed her friend down to the school room, wondering how long it would take her to learn to make beds.