when you stood by the table making
bread? and it slipped off my finger this afternoon into the water
barrel!"

"Why, Susy!"

"And I was a coward, and didn't dare tell you, auntie. I thought maybe
you'd forget I had it, and some time when you asked for it, I was
going to say, 'Hadn't you better take a pair of tongs and see if it
isn't in the water barrel?'"

"O, Susy!" said aunt Madge.

"She isn't any worse than me, auntie," said Grace. "Ma asked me how
the mud came on my handkerchief, and I said Prudy wiped my boots with
it. And so she did, auntie, but I told her to; and wasn't I such a
coward for laying it off on little Prudy? I am ashamed--you may
believe I am."

"I am glad you have told me the whole truth now," replied aunt Madge,
"though it does make me feel sad, too, for it's too much like my
hatchet story. O, do remember from this time, children, and never,
never, _dare_ be _cowards_ again!"

Just then grandpa Parlin came to the door with a sad face, saying,--

"Margaret, please come up stairs, and see if you can soothe poor
little Harry by singing. He is so restless that neither Maria nor I
can do any thing with him."

This baby, Horace's brother, was sick all the time now, and once in a
while Margaret's sweet voice would charm him to sleep when every thing
else failed.

CHAPTER X

MORE STORIES

"I move we have some more stories," said Horace the next evening, as
they were sitting in the twilight. "It's your turn, Gracie."

"Well, I don't know but I'd as soon tell a story as not," replied
Grace, pushing back her curls; "I reckon Pincher wants to hear one, he
begins to wag his tail. I can't make up any thing as I go along, but I
can tell a sober, true story."

"Certain true, black and blue?" asked Prudy, who always _would_ have
something to say, whether she knew what she was talking about or not.

"Didn't I ever tell you about our school-dog out West, aunt Madge? You
see it was so queer. I don't know where in the world he came from. He
had one of his eyes put out, and was 'most blind out of the other, and
only a stump of a tail, and didn't know how to get his living like
other dogs."

"O dear, it was so funny he should take it into his head to come to
school, now wasn't it, auntie? He knew Miss All'n just as well as
could be, and used to go with the rest of the scholars to meet her
every morning; and when she patted him on the head, and said 'Good old
doggie,' it did seem like he'd f