years,
Heavy with loss, eager with questioning pain

To read the dim Hereafter,--to obtain
One glimpse beyond the earthly curtain, where
Their dearest dwell, where they may be or e'er
September's slender crescent shines again!

NEEDLE AND GARDEN.

THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A
STRAWBERRY-GIRL.

WRITTEN BY HERSELF.

CHAPTER IX.

It must be remembered that we were on the same street with our
neighbors, the Tetchy family, and that multitudes of their customers
passed our gate on their way to the old established strawberry-garden.
When a company of new customers came along in search of the Tetchys,
some of them would stop at our gate, and, looking through the open
lattice-work, would see the strawberries, and, thinking this the right
place, would often come into the house and call for a saucer of fruit.
Some of these did so while I was engaged in picking, even pushing
through into the garden where I was at work. This publicity was a great
annoyance to me, especially as my mother increased it by insisting on
supplying all the fruit thus called for. Hence the same parties made
repeated visits. My mother thought it as important to cultivate
customers as to cultivate strawberries. They called for cream,--as all
people must have the best of everything; but having no cow, she bought
milk as required, and though no doubt extensively diluted before it
reached us, yet it seemed to go down with entire satisfaction.

Thus, without ever anticipating it, we fell heirs to a sprinkling of the
profitable business which the Tetchys were carrying on: for, as part of
the unintended legacy, my mother appropriated their high prices also.
She took such interest in this mode of selling our fruit that I began to
fear she would really convert our premises into another
strawberry-garden. I confess the temptation was strong, because she
thereby secured three times the profit that we could obtain at the
market. As it was, she realized thirty dollars during the season from
these unexpected customers. But not one of us would listen to the
project of a strawberry-garden. Jane was, in fact, too proud to
entertain the idea of waiting on the crowd of impudent, loafing young
men who frequent such places as openings for getting rid of their money;
while Fred declared that his sisters should never come down to the
condition of waiters at any table but their own. So my mother was
overr