the garden, and, going up close to Lize Jane, began to pick
with all my might. "My bowl fills up faster 'n your pail," said I.
"Cause its littler," said she; "and besides, I'm picking 'em off the
stems."

"What do you do that for, Lize Jane? It takes so long."

"I know it; it takes foreverlastin'; but mother told me to, so'st I
could get more into my pail."

I opened my eyes.

"She told me to get my pail chuck full. She didn't use to care, but
now the currants are most gone, and she wants all she can get."

I said nothing, but I remember I thought Mrs. Bean was a queer
woman, to want our very last currants.

"Sh'an't you have your party before they're all gone?" said Lize Jane.

"What party?"

"Why, the one you're going to have."

I suppose she knew my heart was aching for one.

"I want a party dreffully," said I, "but mamma won't let me."

"Won't let you?" cried Lize Jane, in surprise. "Why, Fel Allen had
hers last week."

"I know it, and Tempy Ann made us some lemonade."

"Did she? I wish I'd been there," said Lize, pursing her lips. "But
Fel lives in such a monstrous nice house, and wouldn't ask me to her
party; that's why. Mother says I hadn't oughter care, though, for when
she dies she'll lay as low as me."

I did not understand this speech of Mrs. Bean's, which Lize Jane
repeated with such a solemn snap of her black eyes; but it came to me
years afterwards, and I think it the worst teaching a mother could
give her little child. No wonder Lize Jane was full of envy and spite.

"But you'll ask me to _your_ party, won't you?" said she, with a
coaxing smile.

"I can't, if I don't have one, Lize Jane."

"You're a-makin' believe, Mag Parlin. You will have one; how can you
help it, with a garden full of gooseb'ries and rubub?"

"And thimbleberries, too," added I, surveying the premises with a
gloomy eye. We certainly had enough to eat, and it was a very strange
thing that I couldn't give a party.

"Has your mother got any cake in the house?" added Lize.

"Yes, lots in the tin chest; but she never lets me eat a speck,
hardly," bemoaned I. I was not in the habit of talking to Lize Jane of
family matters; but she had shown so much good sense in saying I ought
to have a party, that my heart was touched.

"Your mother, seems to me, she never lets you do a thing," returned
Lize Jane, in a pitying tone. "Ain't you goin' to have a silk pairsol,
like Fel Allen's? I should think you might."

She had d