Some of the children _wear_ thimbles, and some set them upon their desks and _wiggle_ the needle through without their aid. Here is a child so tiny that no thimble in the box will serve her. She has a delicate face, with big brown eyes, and her fingers are the slenderest of appendages to her atoms of hands. Her sister, a year or so older, has a round, chubby face, with plump, dimpled, brown hands, but these fat fingers also must grow to the smallest thimble. Here is a quiet, modest little girl whose five baptismal names, Cynthia Ann Finetta Bloomfield Celeste, furnish her nothing prettier for every day use than "Lusty." She could not thread a needle or tie a knot when she joined the Hope Band, and the second year she wore one of the smallest thimbles with a bit of cloth inside for "chinking" to keep it on. Here Susie's sympathies are drawn out towards a thin, nervous-looking little Frances, who has a hand and foot crippled. She walks painfully along to her place and holds her work at a disadvantage in the poor little cramped left hand, but she likes to be there with the others. Most of the heads are covered with little tight braids, on some heads standing at every angle, on some laid smoothly down, one braid tied to another. A few have their curly hair cropped close, and here is a little girl with a bushy mass overshadowing her lively face. She takes but a stitch or two until she goes up to the front and holds her work out for her teacher's inspection. Some time elapses before that lady can notice it and say, "That is pretty good, Lena; now go right on carefully." Lena returns slowly to her place, takes a stitch or two more and repeats the performance. When will the work be completed? O no, that is the way she used to do, but _now_-- A middle-sized "Topsy" comes pushing rudely forward, tossing her head and whispering disagreeable things to those she has to pass, and Susy hopes she will not be brought into any closer relations with _her_, when she happens to see her tenderly fondling a broken-armed, broken-legged dollie, while her work is being adjusted, and thinks somewhat better of her. There are several Lilies and Roses in this growing garden. The lilies are not white and the roses are not red, but more attractive and interesting to their teacher's eyes than the black pansies the flower gardeners {109} labored so long to produce. Their teacher is fond of flowers and has her windows full, even in winter, but she does not smile upon them with such a heartful of affection as upon these, nor can those bask in the light of her merry face more freely. As her short, round figure moves down the aisle and back, and Susie gets a good look at her, she says to herself, "Why surely this is Mrs. Santa Claus! How glad I am!" and it is not a strange conclusion, for her figure and expression _are_ like the poet's description of dear Saint Nick.