dye yarns
with yellow oak or maple bark and to make purples from elder and sumac
berries; she could spin and knit as well as any old "Aunt" of the
village, and cut and shape a garment as deftly as the Edgewood
tailoress, but the task of making bricks without straw was a hard one,
indeed.

She wore a white cotton frock on this particular Sunday. It was starched
and ironed with a beautiful gloss, while a touch of distinction was
given to her costume by a little black sleeveless "roundabout" made
out of the covering of an old silk umbrella. Her flat hat had a single
wreath of coarse daisies around the crown, and her mitts were darned in
many places, nevertheless you could not entirely spoil her; God had used
a liberal hand in making her, and her father's parsimony was a sort of
boomerang that flew back chiefly upon himself.

As for Patty, her style of beauty, like Cephas Cole's ell had to be
toned down rather than up, to be effective, but circumstances had been
cruelly unrelenting in this process of late. Deacon Baxter had given the
girls three or four shopworn pieces of faded yellow calico that had been
repudiated by the village housewives as not "fast" enough in color
to bear the test of proper washing. This had made frocks, aprons,
petticoats, and even underclothes, for two full years, and Patty's
weekly objurgations when she removed her everlasting yellow dress from
the nail where it hung were not such as should have fallen from the lips
of a deacon's daughter. Waitstill had taken a piece of the same yellow
material, starched and ironed it, cut a curving, circular brim from it,
sewed in a pleated crown, and lo! a hat for Patty! What inspired Patty
to put on a waist ribbon of deepest wine color, with a little band of
the same on the pale yellow hat, no one could say.

"Do you think you shall like that dull red right close to the yellow,
Patty?" Waitstill asked anxiously.

"It looks all right on the columbines in the Indian Cellar," replied
Patty, turning and twisting the hat on her head. "If we can't get a peek
at the Boston fashions, we must just find our styles where we can!"

The various roads to Tory Hill were alive with vehicles on this bright
Sunday morning. Uncle Bart and Abel Day, with their respective wives on
the back seat of the Cole's double wagon, were passed by Deacon Baxter
and his daughters, Waitstill being due at meeting earlier than others by
reason of her singing in the choir. The Deacon's one-h