o busy with her roasted chicken and
custard pie that she forgot all about the patchwork.

CHAPTER II

PRUDY GOING UP TO HEAVEN

Prudy soon tired of sewing, and her mother said, laughing, "If grandma
Read has to wait for somebody's little fingers before she gets a
bedquilt, poor grandma will sleep very cold indeed."

The calico pieces went into the rag-bag, and that was the last of
Prudy's patchwork.

One day the children wanted to go and play in the "new house," which
was not quite done. Mrs. Parlin was almost afraid little Prudy might
get hurt, for there were a great many loose boards and tools lying
about, and the carpenters, who were at work on the house, had all gone
away to see some soldiers. But at last she said they might go if Susy
would be very careful of her little sister.

I dare say Susy meant to watch Prudy with great care, but after a
while she got to thinking of something else. The little one wanted to
play "catch," but Susy saw a great deal more sport in building block
houses.

"Now I know ever so much more than you do," said Susy. "I used to wash
dishes and scour knives when I was four years old, and that was the
time I learned you to walk, Prudy; so you ought to play with me, and
be goody."

"Then I will; but them blocks is too big, Susy. If I had _a axe_ I'd
chop 'em: I'll go get _a axe_." Little Prudy trotted off, and Susy
never looked up from her play, and did not notice that she was gone a
long while.

By and by Mrs. Parlin thought she would go and see what the children
were doing; so she put on her bonnet and went over to the "new house."
Susy was still busy with her blocks, but she looked up at the sound of
her mother's footsteps.

"Where is Prudy?" said Mrs. Parlin, glancing around.

"I'm 'most up to heaven," cried a little voice overhead.

They looked, and what did they see? Prudy herself standing on the
highest beam of the house! She had climbed three ladders to get there.
Her mother had heard her say the day before that "she didn't want to
shut up her eyes and die, and be all deaded up--she meant to have her
hands and face clean, and go up to heaven on a ladder."

"O," thought the poor mother, "she is surely on the way to heaven, for
she can never get down alive. My darling, my darling!"

Poor Susy's first thought was to call out to Prudy, but her mother
gave her one warning glance, and that was enough: Susy neither spoke
nor stirred.

Mrs. Parlin stood looking up