e lintel of the
door, a little wood-pecker.

"There," said Ma Babcock, "there is what made those tap-taps, a
wood-pecker. Just as if I didn't know there couldn't be any ghosts.
And a great big girl like you, Alfaretta, being scared of a little
bird."

With that they all breathed a sigh of relief, and Matthew and ma went
down out of the barn, leaving Alfaretta to look over the contents of
the well packed closet, to find, if possible, her raincoat.

"My, my, just think what a lot I shall have to tell Dorothy. I wonder
what she will say. Just a bird. Shucks. I thought it was a real
ghost. But ma says there are no really real ghosts. But, well, I don't
know."

All this time Alfy had been opening boxes and shutting them, putting
them back where she had found them, when suddenly she came across an
old sampler about a foot square. Alfy looked at it, then brought it to
the lamp and could see lots of new and hard stitches she had never
learned. She didn't see how anyone could sew them at all. And,
my--what was that in the corner? A name. "Well," thought Alfy, "here
is a find. Maybe I can beg it off ma, and then I can take it to
Dorothy."

She had almost forgotten her raincoat, when she went back to the
closet and looked in the box again to see if there was anything else
new there, and then discovered her precious raincoat in the bottom
of the big box. Hastily closing the box and shoving things back in
the closet, with her raincoat and the queer old sampler, Alfy ran
hurriedly downstairs and through the yard and into the kitchen.

Ma Babcock had by this time prepared dinner and just as Alfy came in
she called all the children to the dinner table.

"Ma," exclaimed Alfy, "I found my raincoat, and this, too. What is
it?"

"Let me see." "Let me see." "And me," chimed in all the little
Babcocks, trying to get possession of what Alfy was holding.

"Be quiet," said ma, sternly. "Give it to me, Alfy." Alfy handed her
the sampler and Ma Babcock exclaimed: "Poor Hannah! Poor Hannah!"

"What Hannah? And was she very poor--poorer than we?" lisped little
Luke, the youngest of the Babcocks.

"Ma, who did you say?" demanded Alfaretta.

"Why, Alfy, this is a sampler made by one of my little playmates years
and years ago. A delicate little girl was Hannah Woodrow. She came up
here summering, and then 'cause she was broken in health stayed all
one year with me. She could sew so very well. She made that sampler
and left it with me