A Little Girl in Old New York

to go to New York to

ther stout personage with a fair, florid complexion, brown hair, rough and curly, and a border of beard shaved well away from his mouth. Both beard and hai

did not like being separated from her a whole fortnight. She was such a nice, quiet, well-behaved little girl. Children were trained in those

mond-shaped pieces of two colors, filled in with white around the edge, making a square. Her grandmother was comin

iberately. Then she went on with her

softly. The little girl was the most precio

had a mind to understand the ca

't know as we could l

his beard which gave her pink cheeks. They both laughed. She held her sew

tell;" and her f

gun with grammar. You may find her making mistakes occas

rything?" raising

the meadows nor the woods nor the creek." (I think he said "medders" and "crick," and his "nor"

l sighed too. She drew up he

uble to move;" she began g

an Kortlandt, who never committed her

r she would have had a dimple. Or perhaps he put so many k

he was small and fair with a rather prim face and thick light hair, parted in the middle, c

there was enough left to make the little girl a frock. It had the merit of washing well, but it gave her a rather ghostly look. It had a short, full waist with shoulder straps, making a square neck, a wide belt, and a skirt that came down to the tops of her shoes, which were

er when the folks are asleep? And the stores are so-so-" she tried to think of the longest word she knew-"so magnificent? Aunt Patience and Aunt Nancy were so nice. And the cat was perfectly white and sat in Aunt N

f we get very homesick we shall ha

nd Prince, but the stores are on the corners instead of going to the village, and its nice and queer to ride in

l" in those far-back

ueezed the little girl with a f

the little girl down on the stool as carefully as if she had been china.

hill. Everybody called him Familiar, but

ed her Han and Hanny. One grandmother always said Hanneran. But

a daughter was most welcome, and she was called Margaret Hunter after her mother, and shor

her gave a sigh of disappointment, she had so longed for another girl. When Jim

and was a bit offended that Margaret was not named for her. Now she came with a fairy god-mother's insistence, and declared she would put a hundred dollars in the ban

farm. When a widow she had gone back to her girlhood's home and taken care of her old father. David, her eldest son, had come

nd I'll give her a hundred dollars as well, and my string of gold bead

ering on gray. I think myself that she should have had a prettier name, but people were not throwing away even two-hundred-dollar chances in those days. Neither

nd cousins and so many wonderful things to see. She must find out whether there would be any snow and sleighrides in the w

rl of seventeen, was begging to be sent away to school another year, and learn some of the higher branches people were talking about. Joe thought she should. Her father was quite sure she knew enough, for she could do all the puzzling sums in "Perkins' Higher Arithmetic," and you couldn'

arm, this had been divided between the two remaining sons, but Frederic had been seized with the Western fever and gone out to what was called the new countri

. But people had begun to complain even then that farming did not pay, and John wanted to learn a trade. And if three or four went out of the old home nest! Steve wan

patted down the seams, and laid it on the pile. Her "stent"

lf for her own. It was so neat that it looked like a doll's house. Her

irl in New York was almost a year older, and she had a large wax doll with "truly" cl

baby shoes of blue kid that were outgrown before they were half worn out, so choice had her mother been of them. There were some gift-books and mementos and a beautiful Shaker basket Stephen had given her at

ouse, a big, square room with a door at each side, and smoky rafters overhead. The brick and stone chimney was built inside, very wide at the bottom and tapering up to the peak in the roof. There was a great black crane across it, with two sets of trammels

a kind of fascination. She always wore a plaid Madras turban with a bow tied in front. She had been grandmother Underhill's slave woman. I suppose very few of you know there were slaves

the little girl, "is t

You's got such little claws o' han's. Don't se

that spanned the creek. The spring, or rather the series of them, ran around the house and down past the kitchen, then widened o

en-coops. Pretty little chicks whose mothers had "stolen their nests;" thirty-tw

cows to pasture, chopped wood, picked apples, and dug pota

as she came back with her pai

some of dem big blackbre'es fer supper steder gallopin' roun' lik

rite simile. In vain had Margaret explained th

'stology. I jes' keeps to de plain Bible dat served de chillen of Isrul in de wilderness. Some day, Miss Peggy, when you's waded tru

can walk along the stone fence and pick the h

he would have spelled the word that way. Jim

of her fingers. That was a

l we come ba

f strong muslin with the thumb and finger ends

. There were so many stones on the ground that they built the walls as they "cleared up." The blackberry lot was a wild tangle

high. They generally cut one path through in the e

it into Jim's pail. They were such great, luscious berries that they soon had it filled. Then the

exercises once a month, but this was to be a rather grand affair, as

a big flat stone and declaimed so that the little girl might s

olumbia! to

world and the chi

the little girl enthusiastically. She n

enough to face the whole school. They were in her "Child's Reader" with the "Litt

n washed, lately

y to Anna

usty the leaves and flowers grew in a dry time, and she learned that the whole world was the better for an o

lbow-grease," and the ol

e was Anna," she

t another a to the Ann," s

ke being called

n pop calls me James I think it's time to pick m

ith a soft sigh. "Girls ought to have p

oubles in fourteen years. And seven again! Why you'll ha

ht she would rather have the pretty name. Yet

fter the cows," said Jim. "I

d looked over at the wild flowers. There were clusters of yarrow in bloom, spikes of yellow snap-dragons, and a great clump of thistles in thei

n from the old gobbler, and the big gander who believed he had pre-empted the farm from the Indians. She generally climbed over

red along. She was rather glad Jim did not see the