y is good to eat, they is. And you mus' tell
me a story, you mus', 'cause I'm a-helpin' Aunt Cheerie, I am."

For you must know that the Small Chick is not very polite, and doesn't
say "please," when she can help it.

"Lend us a hand at the apples, too," said Aunt Cheerie.

"No, I can't tell stories and pare apples, too."

"Does you need your fingers to tell stories wid, like the dumbers that we
heard talk without saying anything?"

Chicken Small had been to an exhibition of Professor Gillett's deaf and
dumb pupils.

"Well, no," I said; "but you see, Chicken, I never could make my tongue
and my fingers go at the same time."

"I should think you had never done much with your fingers, then," said
Aunt Cheerie; "for I never knew your tongue to be still, except when you
were asleep."

I felt a little anxious to change the subject, and so began the story at
once.

"Little Sukey Gray----"

"What a funny name!" cried the Fairy.

Yes, and a funny girl was Sukey Gray. She had yellow hair that was tied
up in an old-fashioned knot, behind, though she was only eleven years
old; for you must know that Sukey lived in a part of the country where
chignons and top-knots of the latest style were unknown. Now Sukey's way
of doing up her hair in a great knot, behind, with an old-fashioned tuck
comb, was not pretty. But Susan Gray lived in what was called the
"White-Oak Flats;" a region sometimes called the "Hoop-Pole Country." It
was not the most enlightened place in the world, for there was no school,
except for a short time in winter, and the people were very
superstitious, believing that if they carried a hoe through the house, or
broke a looking-glass, somebody "would die before long," and thinking
that a screech-owl's scream and the howling of a dog were warnings; and
that potatoes must be planted in the "dark of the moon," because they
grew underground, and corn in the "light of the moon," because it grew
above ground; and that hogs must be killed in the increase of the moon,
to keep the pork from frying away to gravy!

As Sukey had always lived in the White-Oak Flats, she did not know that
they were dreary, for she was always happy, doing her work cheerfully.
But one of Susan's cousins, who lived a hundred miles away, had made her
a visit. This cousin, like Sukey, lived in the country, but she had
plenty of books and had read many curious and wonderful things, with
which she was accustomed to delight Sukey.

But whe