"I've heard you tell of that before," said Mrs. Lyman, taking out a quantity of dough with both hands, putting it on a cabbage-leaf, and patting it into shape like a large ball of butter. A cabbage-leaf was as good as "a skillet," she thought, for a loaf of brown bread. "Did you ever see a gown stand all alone, mother? Linda says _hers_ does." "Poh, it don't!" said Moses. "I know better." "Then hers told a lie!" exclaimed little Solly. "George Wash'ton never told a lie." "Linda tells the truth," said Patty; "now, mamma, why don't _my_ gowns stand alone?" "I want to be like George Wash'ton," put in Solly again, pounding with the rolling-pin, "and papa's got a hatchet; but we don't have no cherry trees. I _can't_ be like George Wash'ton." "O, what a noise! Stop it!" said Moses, tickling little Solly under the arms. "Mamma, I wish I was as rich as Linda," said Patty, raising her voice above the din. A look of pain came into Mrs. Lyman's eyes. It was not alone the children's racket that disturbed her. She sighed, and turned round to open the door of the brick oven. The oven had been heated long ago, and Dorcas had taken out the coals. It was just the time to put in the brown bread, and Mrs. Lyman set the cabbage-leaf loaves on the wooden bread-shovel, and pushed them in as far as they would go. After this was done she began to mix pie-crust; but not a word had she to say about the gown that would stand alone. "Now, Patience, you may clean the mortar nicely, and pound me some cinnamon." Patty thought her mother could not know how her little arm ached. Linda Chase didn't have to pound things; her mother thought she was too small. Linda's father had a gold watch with a chain to it, and Linda's big brother drove two horses, and looked very fine, not at all like George and Silas. Patty would not have thought of the difference, only she had heard Betsy Gould say that Fred Chase would "turn up his nose at the twins' striped shirts." "Mamma," said she, beginning again in that teasing tone so trying to mothers, "_I_ have to eat bread and milk and bean porridge, and Linda don't. She has nice things all the time." "Patience," said Mrs. Lyman, wearily, "I cannot listen to idle complaints. Solomon, put down that porringer and go ask Betsey to wash your face." "But, mamma," said Patty, "why can't I have things like Linda Chase?" "My little girl must try to be happy in the state in which God has placed her," said Mrs. Lyman, trimming a pie round the edges. "But I don't live in a state," said Patty, dropping a tear into the cinnamon; "I live in the _District_ of Maine; and I want a gown that'll stand alo-ne!" "It's half past eight, And I can't afford to wait," sang Moses from the south entry. This was a piece of poetry which always aroused Patty. Up she sprang, and put on her cape-bonnet to start for school at Mrs. Merrill's, just round the corner.