My mother was not a very strong woman, while I was a healthy strong girl, so when she tried to teach me to knit and sew, I always managed to get out of it, and she was too weak to insist. So when I went to my grandmother’s to spend the winter, and her first question was, “What sewing have you on hand now?” I was struck with horror.

“Why none”—I stammered, and seeing the look of surprise in her face, I hastened to add, “I never have any on hand.”

“Do you never sew?” she asked, in her sternest tone.

“Why—not very often,” I faltered. “I don’t like to sew.”

“Hm!” said my grandmother, “I shall have to teach you then; I am surprised! ten years old and not know how to sew! At your age, your Aunt Emily was almost an expert needlewoman; she could do overhand, hemming, felling, backstitching, hemstitching, running, catstitching, buttonholes, and a little embroidery.”

I was aghast. Had I got to learn all these mysteries of the needle! My grandmother went on.

“We’ll begin at the beginning then; I’ll prepare some patchwork for you.”

My heart sank; patchwork was the thing my mother had tried to have me do, and I hated it. I remember now some mussed up, dirty-looking blocks, stuffed behind a bureau at home—to have them lost.

True to her word, my grandmother brought out her “piece-bag” and selected a great pile of bits of colored calico and new white cotton cloth, which she cut into neat blocks about four inches square, and piled up on the table, the white pieces by themselves, the pink and the blue in separate piles, and the gray and dull colored also by themselves.

Then taking needle and thread, she began basting them for sewing, a white and colored one together. Oh, what a pile there was of basted pieces, ready for me to learn overhand, or “over ’n over” as I used to call it. I thought there was enough for a quilt. Should I have to sew it all? I was in despair. But my grandmother was much pleased with the show. “There!” she said, “when you finish those, I shall prepare some more, and if you are industrious, you will have enough for a quilt by spring, and then I will have a quilting and you can take home to your mother a sample of the work you have done.”

Somehow this picture did not allure me. I thought only of the weary, weary hours of sewing I should have to do.

Well, that very day she sent to the store and had a thimble bought for me, and that afternoon after school I began my quilt under her eye. I must have a regular “stint,” she said, and it was to be—at first—one of those dreadful blocks, at least four inches of over-and-over stitches! This was to be done the first thing after school, before I could go out to play.

I won’t tell you of the tears I shed over those blocks, of the bad stitches I had to pick out and do over, of the many times I had to go and wash my hands because of dirty thread. I thought my grandmother the most cruel taskmaster in the world.

And the patchwork was not all. When she found that I could not even knit, and that I was accustomed at home to read all the long winter evenings before my bedtime at eight, she said at once that so much reading was not good for me, and I must have some knitting. So she had some red yarn bought, and some steel needles, and “set up” a stocking big enough for my little brother, cheering me, as she thought, by telling me that if I paid proper attention to it, I could knit a pair of stockings for him before spring. My evening “stint” was six times around the stocking-leg.

These two tasks, which my grandmother never failed to exact from me, made life a burden to me. How I hated them! how naughty I was! How I used to break my needles and lose my spool of thread, and ravel my knitting to make a diversion in the dreary round, forgetting that all these hindrances only prolonged my hours of labor, for every stitch of my task must be finished before she would release me.

I brooded over my hardships till I became really desperate, and so was in a fit state to agree to a plan proposed by a schoolmate—to run away. She too had troubles at home; her mother made her help in the housework; she had to wash dishes when she wanted to play out of doors.

We compared notes and made up our minds that we were persecuted and abused, and we wouldn’t stand it any longer. We were not quite so silly as to think of a serious runaway, but we wanted to get rid of our tasks for one day at least; and besides it was spring now and the woods were full of flowers, which I loved, next to books, best of anything in the world.

So after school one day we started for the woods instead of for home. We felt very brave and grown-up when we turned into the path that led into the woods, but before the afternoon was over our feelings changed, and we began to feel very wicked, and to dread going home. I thought of my grandmother’s sharp eyes fixed on me, and dreaded what punishment she might inflict, for I knew she believed in punishments that terrified me, such as doubling my daily task, shutting up in a dark closet, and even, I feared, the rod.

Moreover my fault was made worse by the fact that I had lost my schoolbooks which I was taking home for the study-hour in the morning. I had laid them down on a log and was unable to find them again, though we spent hours—it seemed to me—in looking for them.

We did not enjoy our freedom after all, for the sense of guilt and dread took all the pleasure out of everything; besides, we had one great fright. We heard some great animal rustling among the bushes and were sure it was a bear. We turned and fled, running as hard as we could, looking fearfully back to see if we were pursued, stumbling over logs, and tearing our clothes on bushes. I lost one shoe in a muddy place, and Jenny lost her sunbonnet.

We picked flowers, and when the frail things wilted in our hot hands, we threw them away, and not till it began to grow dark did we get up courage to turn towards the village.

The piece of woods was not large, and we did not really get lost, and before it was quite dark, two very tired, shamefaced girls, with torn dresses and generally disreputable looks, stole into the back doors of their respective homes.

I never knew what happened to Jenny—she never would tell me; but I met the stern face of my grandmother the moment I stepped into the kitchen. I had tried to slip in and go to my room to wash and brush myself, and try to mend my dress before she saw me, but the moment I entered, her eye was upon me.

After one look of utter horror, she seized me by the shoulders, and walked me into the sitting-room, where the family were gathered,—my uncle who lived with my grandmother, and my three cousins, all older, and not playmates for me.

She left me standing in the middle of the room, while all eyes were turned in reproof upon me.

“There!” said my grandmother, in her most severe voice, “there’s the child who runs away! Look at her.”

Then my uncle began to question me. Where had I been? where was my shoe? how did I tear my dress? what did I do it for? what did I think I deserved? and various other questions. Before long, I was weeping bitterly, and feeling that imprisonment for life would be a fitting punishment for my crimes.

Then came my sentence in the stern voice of my grandmother: “I think a suitable punishment for a naughty girl will be to go to bed without her supper.” This was assented to by my uncle, and I was sent off in disgrace, to go to bed.

Now I had a healthy young appetite, and the long tramp had made me very hungry, so that the punishment—though very mild for my offense—seemed to me almost worse than anything.

I was tired enough, however, to fall asleep, but after some hours I awoke, ravenous with hunger. All was still in the house, and I knew the family must have gone to bed. A long time I lay tossing and tumbling and getting more restless and hungry every minute.

At last I could stand it no longer, and I crept out of bed and carefully opened the door—my room was off the kitchen. The last flickering remains of the fire on the hearth made it light enough to see my way about.

Softly I crept to the pantry, hoping to find something left from supper; but my grandmother’s maid was well trained, and I found nothing; the cookie jar, too, was empty, for tomorrow was baking-day. I was about turning back in despair when my eyes fell on a row of milk pans, which I knew were full of milk.

The shelf was too high for me to reach comfortably, but I thought I could draw a pan down enough to drink a little from it, and not disturb anything. So I raised myself on tiptoe and carefully drew it towards me.

You can guess what happened; and if I had known more I should have expected it. As soon as I got the pan over the edge the milk swayed towards me, the pan escaped from my hands, and fell with terrific clatter on the floor, deluging me with milk from head to foot.

Terrified out of my wits, I fled to my room, jumped into bed, covered my head with the bedclothes, and lay there panting. There was a moment’s silence, and then my grandmother’s voice,—

“What was that? What has happened?” and my uncle’s answer, “I’ll bring a light and see.”

Alas! a light revealed wet milk tracks across the kitchen, leading to my room. In a minute it was opened by my grandmother, who drew me out into the kitchen, and stood me up on the hearth—uttering not a word.

I was utterly crushed; I expected I knew not what, but something more than I could guess, and to my uncle’s “Why did you do it, child?” I could only gasp out with bursts of frantic tears, “I was so hungry!”

My grandmother, still silent, hastened to get me dry clothes, then left me standing on the warm hearth, sobbing violently, and feeling more and more guilty, as I saw what trouble I had made.

Then she got clean sheets and made up my bed afresh. While she was doing this, my uncle went in and spoke to her very low. But I think I must have heard or guessed that he said my sentence had been too severe, and I was not so much to blame for trying to get a simple drink of milk, for when my grandmother came out, went into the pantry and brought me a slice of bread and butter, I was not surprised, but fell upon it like a half-starved creature.

Then I was sent to bed again, and it being nearly morning, the maid was called up, and I heard her scrubbing the floor and reducing the kitchen to its usual condition of shining neatness.

I never tried to run away again; my grandmother never scolded me, but my shame as I put on the new shoes and took the new schoolbooks was punishment enough. I tried harder after that to please my grandmother, and really learned a good deal of sewing, and could knit beautifully before I went home.

“Poor little mamma!” said Kristy, as her mother paused, “you didn’t have much fun, did you? I can just fancy how you looked, all dripping with milk. Tell me another.”

“Well, I’ll tell you something that happened to Jenny soon after that. Jenny had often told me about an old aunt she had, whom she and her two cousins used to go to see very often. She wanted me to go with her sometimes, but I didn’t know her aunt, and I was shy, and didn’t like to visit strangers, so I never went.”