, if you should try from now
until your next birthday, so I'll tell you first how she came to go to
Tougaloo at all.
To begin with, Mamma Bradley had been rummaging about in the attic a
long time, when little Fay set out to find her.
"What are you doing up here, mamma?" said Fay. "I've been hunting for
you ever so long."
"Oh, I'm looking for some things to put in the barrel that is going to
Tougaloo for the poor people that the missionaries are working for."
"Clothes?" said Fay.
"Yes, clothes, and I suppose they would be glad of almost anything that
would help to make their lives more comfortable," said her mother.
Fay sat down in an old basket and watched her mother fold and unfold the
contents of trunks and boxes so quietly, that Mrs. Bradley finally
looked up and said:
"Why don't you go to your play, dear? What are you thinking about?"
"I was thinking," said Fay, "do you s'pose the Tougaloo folks have any
little girls?"
"Oh, yes, plenty of them."
"Big's me?"
"Yes, all sizes, I suppose," said Mrs. Bradley, going on with her work.
"Well," said Fay, "I was thinking, how d'you s'pose they'd like Susy?"
"What! the new dolly that Auntie gave you for keeping your elbows off
the table?"
"Yes'm," said Fay. "Do you s'pose she'd make a little Tougaloo girl's
life any more comfor'ble?"
"Why, yes, dear, anything that gives you so much pleasure would please
them, of course," said her mother, "but are you quite sure you want to
give Susy away?"
"Well, when Auntie gave us our missionary boxes in the Sunday-school
class, she told us to be sure and remember what was printed on them, and
she read on one side something about people giving their first fruits,
and she said it meant their best things, and on top it said, 'Inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto
me.' Now Susy is my best doll--any way I love her best, and there
couldn't be anybody much leaster than a little girl like me way down in
Tougaloo, could there, mamma?"
"Well, you must think it all over, and if you are quite sure that you
want to do it, we will take Susy down to the church this afternoon with
the other things," said her mother.
Fay said no more, and in a few minutes she tripped down stairs, and when
her mamma followed soon after, she heard the creak of Fay's little
rocking chair, and the words, "Sleep, baby, sleep," which told her as
she peeped through a crack in the door, that Susy w
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