like it now. How did you get over it?" The black eyes
glistened with eagerness and the little face was full of wistfulness.

"My mother used to talk to me and--"

"I might be better if I had a mother. Aunt Maria doesn't know how to
mother anything."

"I didn't have my mother always, dear, but long after she was gone, I
remembered the things she used to tell me, and they helped me so much to
control my temper."

"What did she say?" she asked curiously.

"Many, many things, Tabitha; too many to think of now. But she gave me a
rule to help me from getting mad, which I have never forgotten. She told
me to count ten when I was angry before I spoke a word to anyone; and by
the time I had counted ten I had hold of my temper, so it couldn't get
away. Sometimes, of course, I made mistakes and said things I regretted
afterwards, and then my mother taught me to go to the people I had hurt
and ask their forgiveness. It was often very hard to do, but I felt so
much happier afterward, and I have never been sorry for begging a
person's pardon."

"Even if they weren't nice to you?"

"Yes, dear, even if they were horrid. I knew I had done my part and
could forget all about the trouble; but if I hadn't told them I was
sorry, then I was unhappy all the time."

Tabitha looked thoughtfully out of the window far across the desert to
the mountains beyond, and finally answered slowly, "Well, that's worth
trying, though being a Catt seems to make everything different for me.
Maybe--" The noon whistle blew, and the child leaped to her feet with a
startled exclamation. "I must be going now. Aunt Maria wasn't at home
when we took the melon down, and no one knows where I've gone. Good-by!"

Away she rushed down the mountain path and up the main street of the
town toward home. As she neared the schoolhouse, she saw through the
open window the teacher correcting papers at her desk, her head bowed
low over her work and one hand shading her eyes.

"I was real wicked to her," said Tabitha to herself. "I ought to tell
her how sorry I am--for I am sorry now."

Impulsively she ran across the yard, threw open the door and burst into
the room.

"Teacher--Miss Brooks, I was real ugly and wicked yesterday. He did make
me awfully mad when he said such horrid things about my name, but I
oughtn't to have thrown water in his face nor dumped him in that puddle.
He said I did--but I never saw that part of it. He says he's sorry and
I'll believe him no