“Rose,” said Anne, as soon as they left the little shop, “I know what I shall buy for Aunt Martha; I shall buy her one of those fine pewter dishes.”

“So you can! It will be sure to please her,” replied Rose, looking kindly down at her little friend. “You are always thinking of giving people things, aren’t you, Anne? My Grandmother Freeman, who lived in Wellfleet, used to say that it was a sign that a child would grow up prosperous and happy if it had the spirit to give instead of to take.”

When the girls went up the brick walk to the Freeman house they saw Frederick and a number of small boys in the yard. Frederick was standing on a box with a paper in his hand, from which he was reading, and he and his companions were so interested that they did not notice the girls.

“He’s playing that he’s Colonel Crafts reading the Declaration,” Rose whispered to Anne, as they opened the front door, and entered the house. “Fred has made believe everything that has happened here in Boston for the last two years.”

“It’s warm weather for candy-making,” said Mrs. Freeman, as the family gathered at the supper table in the cool pleasant dining-room, “but Caroline is going to see her mother this evening, so you children can have the kitchen, and you will not have another opportunity for a long time to send Aunt Anne Rose any remembrance.”

The children all declared that it was not too warm for candy-making, and as soon as Caroline, a young woman who helped Mrs. Freeman and Rose with the household work, gave them permission Rose, Anne, Millicent and Frederick went into the kitchen. Rose opened a deep drawer in a chest which stood in one corner of the room.

“Look, Anne,” she said, and Anne peered in, exclaiming:

“Why, it’s filled with little boxes!”

“Yes,” said Rose, picking up one shaped like a heart; “stormy days, and sometimes in winter evenings, when I do not feel like knitting or sewing, I make boxes out of heavy paper or cardboard, and cover them with any bits of pretty paper or cloth that I can get. Frederick helps me. He can make even better ones than I can, and Millicent helps too,” and she smiled down at the little sister who stood close beside Anne.

“Let’s send Aunt Anne Rose the heart-shaped box,” said Anne.

“And fill it with heart-shaped taffy,” added Frederick, running toward a shelf filled with pans and kettles of various shapes and sizes, and taking down a box. “See, we have little shapes for candy,” and he opened the box and took out some tiny heart-shaped pans, and dishes shaped in rounds and stars and crescents.

“My!” exclaimed Anne, “and can you make the candies in these?”

“No!” and Frederick’s voice was a little scornful. “We have to boil it in a kettle, of course; then we grease the inside of these little pans with butter and turn the candy into them, and when it cools we tip them out, and there they are. Fine as any you can buy, aren’t they, Rose?”

“Yes, indeed, and Frederick knows just how to take them out without breaking the candy. He is more careful than I am,” said Rose, who lost no opportunity of praising her little brother and sister, and who never seemed to see any fault in them.

“Molasses taffy is the best,” declared Frederick, “but you can make some sugared raisins, can’t you, Rose?”

“We’ll have to be very careful in putting the candy in the boxes so that it will not melt,” said Rose.

Before it was time to pack the candy Mrs. Freeman came into the kitchen and untied a bundle to show the children what it contained.

“It’s lovely, mother!” exclaimed Rose, lifting up a little fleecy shoulder cape of lavender wool. “Why, it’s the one you knit for yourself!” and she looked at her mother questioningly.

“It seemed all I had that was pretty enough to send Mrs. Pierce,” replied Mrs. Freeman.

“But she lives way off in that lonesome place where she never sees pretty things. She’d be pleased with anything,” said Rose, who almost wished that her mother would keep the pretty shawl.

“That’s why I want to send this to her,” responded Mrs. Freeman. “If she had all sorts of nice things I wouldn’t do it; I’d just send her a cake with my love.”

“Send the cake, too,” said Mr. Freeman, who had followed his wife. “Send the cake with my love.”

“Why, so I will,” said Mrs. Freeman. “Caroline made two excellent loaves of spice cake this very day and we can well spare one of them. But you children must trot off to bed. It’s been a very exciting day.”

Little Millicent was quite ready for bed, but neither Anne nor Rose was sleepy, and Rose followed her little friend into her room.

“See how clear the night is, Anne,” she said, looking out of the window toward the harbor. “The water looks like a mirror.”

Anne came and stood beside her. Her thoughts traveled across the smooth waters to the little house in Province Town. “I shouldn’t wonder if Aunt Martha were looking out at the water and thinking about me,” she said, drawing a little nearer to the tall girl beside her. “I wish she knew how good everybody is to me.”

Rose put her arm about the little girl. “She expects everybody to be good to you, Anne,” she responded; “but I have thought of something that you can do for Mrs. Stoddard that I am sure will please her, and will be something that she will always like to keep.”

“What is it, Rose?” and Anne’s voice was very eager.

“Let’s sit down here on the window-seat, and I’ll tell you. You have learned to write, haven’t you, Anne?”

“Not very well,” confessed the little girl.

“All the better, for what I want you to do will teach you to write as neatly as possible. I want you to write a book.”

“A book!” Anne’s voice expressed so much surprise and even terror that Rose laughed aloud, but answered:

“Why, yes, and you must call it ‘Anne Nelson’s Book,’ and you must begin it by telling what Amanda Cary did to you, and how you believed that Mrs. Stoddard would be glad if you went away. And then you can write all your journey, about the Indians, the house in the woods, Aunt Anne Rose, and all that you see and do in Boston.”

“I haven’t any paper,” said Anne, as if that settled the question.

“I have a fine blank book, every page ruled, that will be just the thing,” responded Rose, “and I will help you write it. I can draw a little, and I have a box of water-colors. I will make little pictures here and there so that Mrs. Stoddard can see the places.”

“Oh, Rose! That will be fine. Shall we begin the book to-morrow?”

Anne was soon in bed, but there were so many wonderful things to think of that she lay long awake.

The Freeman household rose at an early hour. After breakfast Mrs. Freeman said: “Now, Anne, we will make believe that you are my own little girl, and I will tell you what to do to help me, just as I do Rose. You see,” she added with a little laugh, “that I am like Frederick. I like to play that all sorts of pleasant things are really true.”

Anne smiled back. “I like to make-believe, too,” she said.

“Then we’ll begin right now. You can help Rose put the chambers in order, and dust the dining-room. After that Rose can show you the attic, if you want to see where the children play on stormy days, or you may do whatever you please.”

“The attic will be the very place for Anne to write her book,” said Rose, and told her mother of their plan.

It was a very happy morning for Anne. Rose tied a big white apron around her neck, gave her a duster of soft cloth, and showed her just how to make a bed neatly, and put a room in order. Then, when the work was finished, the girls went up the narrow stairs to the attic, a long unfinished room running the whole length of the house with windows at each end. Under one of these windows stood a broad low table. Rose had brought up the blank book, a number of pens, made from goose-quills, and a bottle of ink. She put them on the table and drew up a high-backed wooden chair for Anne. “I’ll sit in this rocking-chair at the end of the table with my knitting,” said Rose.

Anne looked about the attic, and thought that the Freeman children had everything in the world. There was a big wooden rocking-horse, purchased for Frederick, but now belonging to Millicent. There were boxes of blocks, a row of dolls beside a trunk, a company of tin soldiers, and on a tiny table was spread out a little china tea-set. It was rather hard for Anne to turn away from all these treasures and sit down at the table. She had never seen so many toys in all her life, and she thought she would like to bring her own wooden doll, “Martha Stoddard,” that her father had made for her years ago, up to the attic to visit with these beautiful dolls of china, wax, and kid. But Rose had opened the book and stood beside the table waiting for Anne to sit down.

“How shall I begin?” questioned the little girl anxiously.

“Why, I’d begin just as if I were writing a letter,” said Rose.

So Anne dipped the quill in the ink, and, with her head on one side, and her lips set very firmly together, carefully wrote: “My dear Aunt Martha.”

Rose looked over her shoulder. “That is written very neatly, Anne,” she said.

“Don’t you want to make a picture now, Rose?” said the little girl hopefully.

Rose laughed at Anne’s pleading look, but drew the book toward her end of the table, and taking a pencil from her box of drawing materials made a little sketch, directly under Anne’s written words, of a little girl at a table writing, and pushed the book back toward Anne.

“Now I will knit while you write,” she said.

So Anne again dipped the quill into the ink, and wrote: “This is a picture of me beginning to write a book. Rose made it.” The attic was very quiet, the sound of Anne’s pen, and of Rose’s knitting-needles could be heard, and for a little time there was no other sound; then came a clatter of stout shoes on the stairway, and little Millicent appeared.

“See, I found this in Anne’s room!” she exclaimed.

Anne looked around, and saw Millicent holding up her beloved “Martha Stoddard.” With a quick exclamation she sprang up and ran toward her. “That’s my doll,” she exclaimed, and would have taken it, but Millicent held it tightly exclaiming:

“I want it!”

Anne stood looking at the child not knowing what to do. This doll was the dearest of her possessions. She had given her beautiful coral beads to the Indian girl, and now Millicent had taken possession of her doll. She tried to remember that she was a big girl now, ten years old, and that dolls were for babies like six-year-old Millicent. But “Martha Stoddard” was something more than a plaything to Anne; she could not part with it. But how could she take it away from the little girl?

“I want it,” repeated Millicent, looking up at Anne with a pretty smile, as if quite sure that Anne would be glad to give it to her. Anne put her hands over her face and began to cry.