Aunt Jo's scrap bag, Volume 1 : $b My boys, etc.Alcott, Louisa May
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Aunt Jo's scrap bag, Volume 1 : $b My boys, etc.
Alcott, Louisa May
Children's stories
'Well, I will,' and Patty sewed away, wondering at this sudden interest
in her work, and why Aunt Pen laughed to herself as she put away the
ammonia bottle.
These are two of the naughty little things that got worked into the
quilt; but there were good ones also, and Aunt Pen's sharp eyes saw them
all.
At the window of a house opposite, Patty often saw a little girl who sat
there playing with an old doll or a torn book. She never seemed to run
about or go out, and Patty often wondered if she was sick, she looked so
thin and sober, and was so quiet. Patty began by making faces at her
for fun, but the little girl only smiled back, and nodded so
good-naturedly that Patty was ashamed of herself.
'Is that girl over there poor?' she asked suddenly as she watched her
one day.
'Very poor: her mother takes in sewing, and the child is lame,' answered
Aunt Pen, without looking up from the letter she was writing.
'Her doll is nothing but an old shawl tied round with a string, and she
don't seem to have but one book. Wonder if she'd like to have me come
and play with her,' said Patty to herself, as she stood her own big doll
in the window, and nodded back at the girl, who bobbed up and down in
her chair with delight at this agreeable prospect.
'You can go and see her some day if you like,' said Aunt Pen, scribbling
away.
Patty said no more then, but later in the afternoon she remembered this
permission, and resolved to try if aunty would find out her good doings
as well as her bad ones. So, tucking Blanch Augusta Arabella Maud under
one arm, her best picture-book under the other, and gathering a little
nosegay of her own flowers, she slipped across the road, knocked, and
marched boldly upstairs.
Mrs. Brown, the sewing-woman, was out, and no one there but Lizzie in
her chair at the window, looking lonely and forlorn.
'How do you do? My name is Patty, and I live over there, and I've come
to play with you,' said one child in a friendly tone.
'How do you do? My name is Lizzie, and I'm very glad to see you. What a
lovely doll!' returned the other child gratefully; and then the ceremony
of introduction was over, and they began to play as if they had known
each other for ever so long.
To poor Lizzie it seemed as if a little fairy had suddenly appeared to
brighten the dismal room with flowers and smiles and pretty things;
while Patty felt her pity and good-will increase as she saw Lizzie's
crippled feet, and watched her thin face brighten and glow with interest
and delight over book and doll and posy. 'It felt good,' as Patty said
afterwards; 'sort of warm and comfortable in my heart, and I liked it
ever so much.' She stayed an hour, making sunshine in a shady place, and
then ran home, wondering if Aunt Pen would find that out.
She found her sitting with her hands before her, and such a sad look in
her face that Patty ran to her, saying anxiously--
'What's the matter, aunty? Are you sick?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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