"Do you call that work?" asked her mother. "N--o!" said Kristy, thinking a moment. "Well, I'll tell you! I'll get my knitting;" and she ran out of the room and in a minute or two came back with some wool and needles with a very little strip of knitting, all done up in a clean towel. She had set out to knit a carriage-blanket for a baby she was fond of, but she found it slow work, for as soon as she became interested in anything else the knitting was forgotten. Now she took her seat in a low chair and began to knit. "Now begin," she said, as her mother took up her sewing. "Did I ever tell you, Kristy, how I learned to knit?" "No," said Kristy; "I suppose your mother taught you." "She did not. I was taught by my grandmother, my father's mother, one winter that I spent with her, when my mother was ill." "Wasn't your grandmother very queer?" asked Kristy. "Did she look like that picture in your room?" "Yes; that's a good likeness, but she wasn't exactly queer. She was a very fine woman, but she had decided notions about the way girls should be brought up, and she thought my mother was too easy. So when she had the whole care of me, she set herself to give me some good, wholesome training." "Poor little mamma!" said Kristy. "What did she do? It seems so funny to think of you as a little girl being trained!" "Well, it was not at all funny, I assure you. I thought I was terribly abused, and I used to make plans to run away some night and go home. But every night I was so sleepy that I put it off till another night; and indeed I had a bit of common sense left, and realized that I had no money and did not know the way home, and couldn't walk so far anyway; though I did run away once"-- "Oh, tell me about that"--cried Kristy, laughing; "you run away! how funny! tell me!" "I'll tell you the story of my naughty runaway, but first I must tell you about my grandmother and why I wanted to run away." CHAPTER VI HOW MAMMA RAN AWAY My mother was not a very strong woman, while I was a healthy strong girl, so when she tried to teach me to knit and sew, I always managed to get out of it, and she was too weak to insist. So when I went to my grandmother's to spend the winter, and her first question was, "What sewing have you on hand now?" I was struck with horror. "Why none"--I stammered, and seeing the look of surprise in her face, I hastened to add, "I never have any on hand." "Do you never sew?" she asked, in her sternest tone. "Why--not very often," I faltered. "I don't like to sew." "Hm!" said my grandmother, "I shall have to teach you then; I am surprised! ten years old and not know how to sew! At your age, your Aunt Emily was almost an expert needlewoman; she could do overhand, hemming, felling, backstitching, hemstitching, running, catstitching, buttonholes, and a little embroidery." I was aghast. Had I got to learn all these mysteries of the needle! My grandmother went on.