How do you think she was dressed? In a "petticoat and loose gown." The loose gown was a calico jacket that hung about the waist in gathers, and the petticoat was a moreen skirt that came down almost to the ankles. Then her feet—I must confess they were bare. Nearly all the little children in Perseverance went barefooted in summer.

Patty had been longing for an education ever since she was two years old, and at three and a half she was allowed to go to school. All the other children had been taught the alphabet at home, for Mrs. Lyman was a very considerate woman, and did not think it fair to trouble a teacher with baby-work like that; but this summer she had so much to do, with little Benny in her arms and Solly under her feet, that she was only too glad to have talkative Patty out of the way.

So, just as the stage-horn was blowing, at half past eight one bright June morning, Mary put into the dinner basket an extra saucer pie, sweetened with molasses, and walked the little one off to school. What school was Patty had no idea. She had heard a great deal about the new "mistress," and wondered what sort of a creature she could be. She soon found out. Miss Judkins was merely a fine-looking young lady, with a tortoise-shell comb in her hair, not quite as large as a small chaise-top. She looked like other people, and Patty was sadly disappointed. There was an hour-glass on the desk full of dripping sand, and Patty wanted to shake it to make the sand go out faster, for she grew very tired of sitting still so long hearing the children read, "Pretty cow, go there and dine." She was afraid to say her letters; but after she had said them, was much prouder than the Speaker of the Senate after he has made a very eloquent speech. She had nothing more to do, and watched the little girls working their samplers. Her sister Mary, not yet eight years old, was making a beautiful one, with a flower-pot in one corner and a tree and birds in the other, and some lines in the middle like these:—

"Education.

Patty looked on, and watched Mary's needle going in and out, making little red crooks. She did not know the silk letters, and would not have understood the verse if she had heard it read; but neither did the big sister understand it herself.

"Be this the business of her youth," Mary thought meant the sampler, for really that sampler had been the business of her youth ever since she had learned to hold a needle, and the tree wasn't done yet, and the flowers were flying out of the flower-pot on account of having no stems to stand on. Patty was ashamed because she herself had no canvass with silk pictures on it to carry out to the "mistress." The more she thought about it, the more restless she grew, till before noon she fell to crying, and said aloud,—

"I want to work a sambler; yes, I do."

Miss Judkins told Mary she had better take her home. Patty felt disgraced, and cried all the way, she did not really know what for. Sometimes she thought it was because the school was such a poor place to go to, and then again she thought it was because she wanted to work a "sambler." When they got home she did not wait till they were fairly in the house, but called out, with a loud voice,—

"O, mamma! She's only a woman! The mistress is only a woman!"

That was all the way she had of telling how cruelly disappointed she felt in the school.

Mrs. Lyman had just put the baby in the cradle, and was now rocking little Solly, who was crying with a stone bruise in the bottom of his foot. Betsey Gould was washing, Dorcas and Rachael were making dresses, and the dinner must be put on the table. No wonder tired Mrs. Lyman was sorry to see Patty come home crying, or that she laid her pale, tired face against Solly's cheek when Patty whined, "Mayn't I work a sambler?" and said, in a low tone, as if she were breathing a prayer,—

"Let patience have her perfect work."

Patty had often heard her poor, overburdened mother make that same remark, but had never understood it before. Now she thought it meant, "Let my daughter Patience have a sambler to work;" and she cleared the clouds off her little face, and went dancing out to see the new goslings. Mary, who was thoughtful beyond her years, coaxed Solly into her arms, and soothed him with a little story, so that her mother could go and take up the dinner.

Patty found out next day that she was not to have a sampler; but to console her Mary hemmed a large piece of tow and linen cloth, and told her she might learn to work on it with colored thread. It was a funny looking thing after Patty had scrawled it all over with Greek and Hebrew; but it was a wonderful help to the child's feelings.

She was a great pet at school, and grew quite fond of going; but she tells Flyaway she does not remember much more that happened, after she began that sampler, until the next spring. At that time she was a trifle more than four years old.