As I look back now, I must admit that such severe characterizations were really not due to the natural tendency of all elders to be sure that children are being badly brought up. Those two houses which formed the horizon of Maria Pearl’s life were certainly extravagant examples of how not to conduct life. The Purdon grandfather and grandmother and aunt were the strictest kind of church people (the kind who make you want to throw a brick through the church-windows), narrow, self-righteous, Old-Testament folks, who dragged little Maria (the “Pearl” was never pronounced inside their doors) to Church and Sunday-School and prayer-meeting and revivals and missionary meetings, and made her save all her pennies for the heathen. Not that she had very many to save, for the Purdons, although very well-to-do, were stingier than any other family in town. They loved money, it tore at the very fibers of their being to part with it, and they avoided this mental anguish with considerable skill. Although their competent “management” allowed them to live comfortably, there were few occasions which brought them to the point of letting any actual cash out of their hands. The dark, plain, well-fitting garments which clothed little Maria were never bought, but made over out of her grandmother’s clothes; the soap which kept her clothes immaculately clean had cost no money, but was part of the amazing household economies in which old Mrs. Purdon was expert and into which she introduced Maria with conscientious care. The child learned to darn and patch and how to make soap out of left-over bits of fat, and how to use the apple-culls for jelly and how, year after year, to retrim last season’s hat for this.