Hillsboro People
off to her spinning. Just as her first employer had said, there was no lack of work for a spinner who worked as fast and yet as carefully as if it were for herself. In Hannah's thread there
old granary cleared out for her workroom. Here, day after day, the wheel whirred unceasingly, like a great bee, and Hannah stepped back and forth, back and fo
greater joy for her. Of course, first always in her thoughts was Ann Mary, pulling weeds and tending her witch gar
t came out at night and said charms and things over Ann Mary as she slept. However that might be, she could have kissed his funny, splay feet every time she
to recover from an arrow-wound got in a skirmish with the Indians in Canada. He was very idle, and very much bored by the dullness of the little town, which seemed such a metropolis
and could make shift to write her name, could not read or write, and had never had the slightest instruction in an
h utter ecstasy that he was quite touched, and
ah recited them, stepping back and forth by her wheel, you would have thought that "c-a-t, cat; r-a-t, rat," was the finest poetry ever written. And in no time at all it was no longer "c-a-t, cat," but
at her spelling, he said he was willing to occupy some of his enforced leisure in giving her instr
for them, and so Captain Winthrop fell into the habit of going over to Master Necronsett's house in the afternoon with his books, and being there, all ready for a lesson, when Hannah came hurrying back
ah from a book called "The Universal Preceptor; being a General Grammar of Art, Science, and Useful Knowledge." Out of this he taugh
't waste any pity on Hannah for having such a mistaken teacher, for it is likely enough, don't you think, that research and science a hundred
e talked to her about nobody knew but herself, although Master Necronsett passed back and forth so often in his herb-gathering that it is likely he may have caught something. It seems not improbable, from what happe
right for her sister, Hannah asked Master Necron
, perchance, some of the great virtue of the pla
gined that even that carven image of an old abor
n will not hurt yo
noticed how a light seemed to shine right through Ann Mary's lovely face every time Captain Winthrop looked at her. The little student was the most surprised girl in t
it to be a poor return for Hannah's devotion, now after all, just to go off and desert her. She had said that, if Hannah thought she ought to, sh
turned very pale, and, leaving her wheel still whirling, she ran like the wind t
et her. After one glimpse of that beautiful, radiant face, Hannah fell a weeping for very joy that
lose Ann Mary herself. Grandmother explains here that the truth is that
her many times out of light-heartedness that Hannah would put no obstacle in the way. This made little Hannah blush and feel very queer. She look
start it up again? And when the other two looked around at her, there she was, spinning and smiling,
ng along beside him, like an old friend. And when he saw his two dear daughters-Ann Mary, who had gone away like a lily, now blooming like a rose, and Hannah, stout little Hannah, with her honest blue eyes
at the minister's house
ause Hannah said they
ept old Master Necronset
went anywhere exc
ur own great-great-great-grandmother and aunt, perhaps you wouldn't care to have me tell you all about their costumes. It was a grand occasi
ion, and Hannah and her father in another, and there were