, the major's wife, our dear mistress, took me one day into
her gentle hands, and after examining me carefully and making up her
mind to the act, deliberately took her scissors, ripped me up into
pieces, and sent me to the dyer's, to be colored brown. This was too
horrid--I was soused into the vilest mixture you can imagine, and
suffered every thing abominable, such as being stretched within an
inch of my life, and then almost burned to death. At last, I came
out with the color you now see me, not a handsome brown, but a real
sickish rhubarb color. My dear mistress laughed when she looked at
me. "This is a dose," said she, "but it will do for an every day
coat for Jonathan, and I can make it myself, with Keziah Vose's aid;
so I will not grieve about it. So Keziah was sent for and set to
work.

Now Jonathan was a white-haired, chubby boy, and this was his first
coat. Keziah went by her eye altogether. She took no measures except
for the sleeves, and these she said she would make large and long,
to allow for Jonathan's growing. She made me so broad behind that
one brass button could not see the other, although they were, as you
see, almost as large as a small plate; the skirts came down so as to
hide the calves of his legs, and were so full as nearly to meet
before. My sleeves had a regular slouch. There was no hollow in the
back, and I looked as if I was made for one of the boys' snow men,
not for a human being.

When I was finished and put on for the first time, all the children
and their mother were present, as it happened. My droll looks and
rhubarb color, the comical expression of Jonathan's face,--for he
was a great rogue,--and his sun-bleached hair, half hidden by my
high, stiff collar, set them all into a gale of laughter. He took
hold of my full skirts, one on each side, and began to dance; and
even his mother and Keziah laughed too. Nothing was to be done. A
few times, the mother of Jonathan tried to induce him to wear me at
home, for she could not afford, she said, to lose all I had cost
her; but it was all in vain--giggle, giggle, went all the children
when they saw me, and I had to be hung up, as you see me now.
Whenever they wanted a comical dress in any of their plays, I was
brought out, and that little girl asleep there, and her brothers
still amuse themselves with my comical looks. Alas! I am of no other
use in this world.

The young people used to amuse themselves by acting little plays, or
some oth