Understood Betsy

her. What funny wall-paper it was-so old-fashioned looking! The picture was of a blue river and a brown mill, with green willow-trees over it, and a man with sacks on his horse's back stood in

always told her, and helped her get dressed. But here nobody came. She discovered that the heat came from a hole in the floor nea

When she had finished she went out into the hall, and with a return of her aggrieved, abandoned feeling (you must remember that her stomach was very empty) she began to try to find her way downstairs. She soon found the steps

ined Elizabeth Ann. "I was waiting

s that her little baby-girl had grown up enough to be her own hairdresser, nor had it occurred to Elizabeth Ann that this might be possible. But as she struggled with the snarls she had had a sudden wild idea of doing it a different way from the pretty fashion Aunt Frances always followed. Elizabeth Ann had always secretly envied a girl in her class whose hair was all tied back from her fa

y enjoyed doin

d: "Now reach yourself a bowl off the shelf yonder. The oatmeal's in that kettle on the stove and the milk is in the blue pi

home it took the girl more than half an hour to get breakfast and set the table, and then she had to wait on them besides. She beg

moving iron, and said, in an astonishe

ught a quart of milk and a cup of cream every day, and they were

found something shocking in what the little girl had just said. Elizabeth Ann t

d breakfast as she sat looking about the low-ceili

ace of a window-sill. The shelf was covered with shining white oil-cloth, the pots were of clean reddish brown, the sturdy, stocky plants of bright green with clear red-and-white flowers. Elizabeth Ann's eyes wandered all over the kitchen from the low, white ceiling to the clean, bare wooden floor, but they always came back to those sunny windows. Once, back in the big brick school-building, as she had sat drooping her thin shoulders over her desk, som

rl now sat eating her very late breakfast; and beyond that, at the other end of the room, was another table with an old dark-red cashmere shawl on it for a cover. A large lamp stood in the middle of this, a bookcase near it, two or three rocking-chairs around it, and back of it, against the wall, was a wide sofa covered with bright cretonne, with three bright

elligent little girl) to feel that it belonged in the same class of remarks as one or two others she had noted as "queer" in the talk at Putney Farm last night. This variety of talk was entirely new to her, nobody in Aunt

she had always thought that nobody but poor, ignorant people, who couldn't afford to hire girls, did such things. And yet (it was odd) she did not feel like saying this to Cousin Ann, who stood there so straight in her gingham dress and apron, with her clear, bright eyes and red cheeks. Besides this feeling, Elizabeth Ann was overcome with embarrassment at the idea of undertaking a new task in that casual way. Ho

on goes in the side-table drawer with the other silver, and the saucer and cup in those shelves there behind the glass doors where the china belongs," continued Cousin Ann, thumping hard with her iron on a napkin and

m in the autumn. She had to figure it out for herself very slowly, because it was a new idea to her, and she was half-way through her tour of inspection of the house before there glimmered on her lips, in a faint smile, the first recognition of humor in all her life. She felt a momentary impulse to call down to Cousin Ann that she saw the point, but before she had t

the other rooms in the house than she had of the kitchen. There were no draped "throws" over anything; there were no lace curtains at the windows, just dotted Swiss like the kitchen; all the ceilings were very low; the furniture was all of dark wood and very old-looking; what few rugs there were were of bright-co

ot liked her music lessons at all, but she had never dreamed of not accepting them from Aunt Frances as she accepted everyth

ked up from her ironing, nodded, and said: "All through? You'd better come in and get warmed up. Those rooms get awfully cold these January days. Winters we mostly use this room so's to get the good of the kitchen stov

parently, for she could find no fastening. She heard steps inside, the door was briskly cast open, and she almost fell into the arms of Aunt Abigail, who caught her as she stumbled forward, saying: "Well, I'

lizabeth Ann. "I don't know what you mak

ross the room, "Henry, did you ever! Here's Betsy saying she don't know

t Abigail's remark with the same serious attention he had given to Elizabeth Ann's discovery about left and right. Then he began to turn the churn over an

w all about that! Didn't you ever see anybody doing that? Why, I've seen them hundreds of times!

with interest, and Aunt Abigail said: "Well

on the road. And that's all there is to it." She stopped, rather abruptly, looking uneasy. Uncle Henry inquired: "Now t

emory desperately and finding there only a dim recollection of a red glow somewhere c

do they burn in it, coke or coal or wood or charco

her head. "I never

"What do they do to the ro

Ann. "I didn't know

road, can they?" asked Aunt Abigail. "Don'

own at her toes. "I ne

takes for it to hard

said Elizabeth An

me. Don't you want to watch and see everything I do, so's you can answer if anybody asks you how butter is made?" Elizabeth Ann understood perfectly what was in Aunt's Abigail's mind, and gave to the process of butter-making

articles. "It's gathering," said Aunt Abigail, screwing the lid back on. "Father'll churn it a little more till it really comes. And

the pail held by Aunt Abigail. And she poured the water in to wash the butter, and screwed on the top herself, and, again all herself (for Uncle Henry had gone off as soon as the butter had "come"), swung the barrel back and forth six or seven times to swish the water all through the particles of butter. She even helped Aunt Abigail scoop out the great yellow lumps-her imagination had never conceived of so much butter in all the world!

ot one of the surprises that Putney Farm seemed to have for her. She discovered that her hands didn't seem to belong to her at all, that her fingers were all thumbs, that she didn't seem to know in the least beforehand how hard a stroke she was going to give nor which way her fingers were going to go. It was, as a matter of

let me try to make a pat. I was about five years old-my! what a mess I made of it! And I remember? doesn't it seem funny-that she laughed and said her Great-aunt Elmira had taught her how to handle butter right he

Abigail's face, and yet not seeing her at all, because she was thinking so hard. She was thinking! "Why! There were real people living when the Declaration of Independence was sign

had never to that moment had any notion that there ever had been really and truly any Declaration of Independence at all. It had been like the ounce, liv

h she were coming out of a dream, she thought, confusedly: "What did butter have to do with the Declaration of Independence? Nothing, of course! It co