GROWING UP A Story of the Girlhood of JUDITH MACKENZIE By JENNIE M. DRINKWATER “Each year grows more sacred with wondering expectation.” —Phillips Brooks. A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. Copyright, 1894, By A. I. Bradley & Co. CONTENTS. I. The Horn Book II. Square Root and Other Things III. Was this the End? IV. Bensalem V. Daily Bread and Daily Will VI. The Best Thing in the World VII. A Small Disciple VIII. This Way or That Way? IX. The Flowers That Came to the Well X. The Last Apple XI. How Jean Had an Outing XII. A Secret Errand XIII. The Two Blessed Things XIV. An Afternoon with an Adventure in It XV. “First at Antioch” XVI. Aunt Affy’s Experience XVII. The Story of a Key XVIII. Judith’s Turning Point XIX. A Morning with a Surprise in It XX. Judith’s Afternoon XXI. Marion’s Afternoon XXII. Aunt Affy’s Evening XXIII. Voices XXIV. “I Always Thought You Cared” XXV. Cousin Don XXVI. Aunt Affy’s Faith and Judith’s Foreign Letter XXVII. His Very Best XXVIII. A New Anxiety XXIX. Judith’s Future XXX. A Talk and What Came of It XXXI. About Women XXXII. Aunt Affy’s Picture XXXIII. Nettie’s Outing XXXIV. “Sensations” GROWING UP I. THE HORN BOOK. “I remember the lessons of childhood, you see, And the horn book I learned on my poor mother’s knee. In truth, I suspect little else do we learn From this great book of life, which so shrewdly we turn, Saving how to apply, with a good or bad grace, What we learned in the horn book of childhood.” —Owen Meredith. Judith’s mother sat in her invalid chair before the grate; she looked very pretty to Judith with her hair curling back from her face, and the color of her eyes and cheeks brought out by the becoming wrapper; the firelight shone upon the mother; the fading light in the west shone upon the girl in the bay-window, the yellow head, the blue shoulders bent over the letter she was writing. “Judith, come and tell me pictures.” About five o’clock in the afternoon, her mother’s weariest-time, Judith often told her mother pictures. The picture-telling began when Judith was a little girl; one afternoon she said: “Mother, I’ll tell you a picture; shut your eyes.” It was in this very room; her mother leaned back in her wheel-chair, lifted her feet to the fender, shut her eyes, and a small seven-year-old “told” her “picture.” Telling pictures had been the amusement of the one, and the rest of the other, many, many weary times since. As the child grew, her pictures grew.