d her
mother decided to let her go until she grew tired of it.

"O, dear!" sighed Susy, the first day she took her; "she'll talk out
loud, I just about know she will, she's such a little chatter-box."

"Poh; no I shan't," said Prudy. "I ain't a _checker-box_, Susy Parlin;
but you are! I shan't talk in school, nor I shan't whisper, never in
my world!"

When they got home that night, Mrs. Parlin asked if Prudy had
whispered in school.

"No, ma'am. I never done such a thing--I guess. Did I, Susy? How much
I _didn't_ talk to you, don't you know?"

"O, she was _pretty_ good, mother," said Susy; "but she cried once so
I had to go out with her."

"Now, Susy Parlin, you _told_ me to cry! She _did_, mamma. She said if
I'd cry she'd give me a piece of her doughnut."

Susy blushed; and her mother looked at her, and said, "I would like
to see you alone a little while, Susy."

Then Mrs. Parlin had a talk with Susy in the parlor, and told her how
wrong it was to deceive, and how she must take the care of her little
sister, and set her good examples.

Susy said she would do as well as she could.

"But, mamma, if you are willing, I'd rather not sit with Prudy, now,
certainly. She says such queer things. Why, to-day she said she had
grandma's rheumatism in her back, and wanted me to look at her
_tongue_ and see if she hadn't. Why, mother, as true as I live, she
shut up her eyes and put out her tongue right there in school, and of
course we girls couldn't help laughing!"

"Well, perhaps she'd better sit by herself," replied Mrs. Parlin,
smiling. "I will speak to the teacher about her carrying her
knitting-work--that may keep her out of mischief."

Now it happened that grandma Read had taken a great deal of pains to
teach Prudy to knit;--but such a piece of work as the child made of
it!

The first time she carried the thing which she supposed was going to
be a stocking, the A B C scholars looked very much surprised, for none
of them knew how to knit.

Prudy said, "Poh, I know how to do it just as easy!"

But in trying to show them how smart she could be, she knit so fast
that she dropped a stitch every other moment.

"There, now, you are dropping stitches like every thing," said Lottie
Palmer, very much pleased. "I guess I know how to do _that_!"

"Poh, them's nothing but the _loops_," said Prudy.

But it was not long before she broke the yarn short off, and got her
work into such a fix that she had to take it home