It was Essie Carter who spoke. Her mother sat by the window sewing, while Gracie played with her dolls upon the doorstep. Essie was just starting for the post-office.

"I think," she continued, "that I will go across the pasture lot, it is more shady that way and it is very warm this afternoon."

At mention of the pasture lot Gracie sprang up and said in her lisping tones, "Gracie go too!"

"Gracie may go as far as the fence and wait for Essie there," said her mother. And clinging to her sister's hand, carrying her favorite doll, the little one went down the lawn, across the meadow and there cheerfully relinquished her hold and set about hunting violets while Essie went on to the country post-office, where she secured the coveted letter. On her return she found Gracie hanging upon the fence.

"Did you get a letter?" she asked.

"Yes; and now we will hurry home and mamma will read it to us."

"Did my papa write it?" asked the child.

"Yes, dear; papa wrote it to us, maybe there will be a little letter in it for Gracie."

"With what did he write it?"

"With a pen, of course."

"What is a pen?" asked the little questioner.

"O Gracie Carter! you can ask the most questions of any child that ever was born, I do believe!" exclaimed Essie.

"But what is a pen?" persisted Gracie.

"A pen is a thing to write with," replied Essie despairing of evading the questions.

"Who made a pen?"

"I don't know," was Essie's frank reply.

And then she fell to thinking unheeding Grade's questions. After the letter had been read and talked over Essie said:

"Mamma, Gracie wanted to know who made pens, and I couldn't tell her; a thing we use so constantly too! I would like to know something about them myself."

"Well, dear, can't you find out?"

"If we were at home I could study it up in the library, but we haven't any books here excepting poems and Bibles and the dictionary."

"Is that the way you rank your books?" asked Mrs. Carter smiling.

"No; but it is such a matter of course to have the Bible that I was not going to mention it, then I just happened to think of the dictionary."

"Well, go to the dictionary and see what you find there."

Essie turned over the pages and read, "An instrument used for writing, formerly made of the quill of a goose or other bird, but now also of other materials, as gold and steel."

"Why, mamma, is that true, pens can be made of a quill? I never heard of such a thing."

"There are a few things that my daughter has never yet heard of."

"Now, mamma, you are laughing at me! But truly I never heard of a pen being made of a quill. Dear me, I wish I had a cyclopÆdia. The next time we come out here I mean to bring a whole set!"

"Perhaps I could tell you something about pens," said Mrs. Carter quietly.

"O mamma! I beg your pardon," exclaimed Essie coloring slightly. "I ought to have known that you could! I have heard papa call you a walking cyclopÆdia."

"Your uncle Horace was at one time employed in a gold pen manufactory and I learned a great deal at that time, and we studied up the history of pens. If I remember rightly the first pens used were made of iron or steel and were not used with ink, but the letters were cut in stone, or clay, and afterwards the same sort of an instrument was used to write upon waxed tablets; then when parchment and paper began to be used pens were made of reeds, and of course the people must have had ink of some sort. Now about quill pens. It was probably more than a thousand years ago that some one discovered that the quills of birds made better pens for writing on paper than could be made of reeds, and people have used quill pens more or less ever since."

"Why do we not use them? Did you ever use one?"

"Two questions at once! I'll answer the last one first. Yes, I remember using quill pens when I first began to go to school. My father had never used any other and he had a prejudice against steel pens, which had already come into use, and as we kept a flock of geese we always had a supply of quills. It was considered in my father's day one of the necessary qualifications of a schoolteacher that he should be able to make a good quill pen. Such steel pens as we use may be classed among modern inventions. It is said that they were first introduced about the beginning of the nineteenth century, but they were not a success and very little progress was made in the manufacture for more than a quarter of a century. One thing will surprise you, I think. The first pens made, in an English factory about the time they were successfully introduced, sold for nearly twenty-five cents apiece at wholesale rates."

"At that rate it would cost papa a fortune to keep me in pens! Why, I use up a box in a little while."

"Probably; you are apt to use up things."

"I wish papa would give me a gold pen; I believe I could keep one a long time," said Essie.

"Probably the best steel pens are made in England, but American gold pens are the best. A great amount of labor is bestowed upon them. Every one is carefully tested before it is put into the market. When a person buys a gold pen he pays a good price for it and expects it to last a long time, and this is the reason that they are so carefully tested. If half the steel pens in your box prove to be worthless, the remainder are still cheap."

"But, mamma, you have not told me why people do not use quill pens nowadays."

"I suppose principally because metal pens are more durable. Quill pens require to be mended often and one who writes much would find it quite a task to make and mend his pens. I should not wonder if we would find a bunch of quills hanging from the rafters in the attic of this old house and I should like to make a quill pen for you that you may write with a pen like the one your grandfather always used. And now, Essie, if you will pay attention to your father's request you shall have a gold pen when we go back home," said mamma, smiling kindly.

"You mean about taking pains with my writing?"

"Yes; I have sometimes thought that in nothing does culture or want of culture show itself more than in a person's penmanship."