rship as they pleased.
They were very intelligent people, too, though, as this history says,
'from the middle and humbler walks of English life.' It was the men who
came over to Massachusetts Bay and settled in Boston who were the
aristocrats, and they were not nearly so liberal and generous as the
Plymouth men. The head ones were stiff and overbearing, and meddled and
interfered with people who didn't think as they did, and made a lot of
strict little laws about all sorts of things, so that the name of
'Puritan' and 'puritanical' came to be used for anything that was
bigoted and narrow-minded; and these names have stuck to all New
England, and papa says that at this day people mix up things, and think
that the Mayflower people and Boston people were all alike."

Kitty Grant gave a little hop, skip, and jump here, to Laura's
astonishment. "Oh, Laura, it's such larks," she cried out. The two girls
were walking down Beacon Street on their way home from school, and Laura
looked about her to see what Kitty had so suddenly discovered to call
out such an exclamation. Seeing nothing unusual, she asked, "_What_ is
such larks?"

Kitty laughed. "Oh, Laura, can't you see that this little fact you have
pulled out from this tangled-up colony business, this dear dreadful
little fact that the Mayflowers were not aristocrats, only--what does
your history book say? Oh, I have it--'from the middle and humbler walks
of English life;' not blue Mayflowers, but common colors--can't you see
that it will be such larks for me to use this little fact like a little
bombshell, when Mrs. Arkwright, or Maud, or Flo Aplin, or any of these
Mayflower braggers begin to hold forth?"

"Why, Kitty, I thought you liked Maud and Flo!"

"I do when they don't give me too much Mayflower. I've always thought,
and so has mamma, that this was their one fault,--that if it wasn't for
that, they would be pretty near perfect; and now--and now, Brooksie, I
shall proceed to be the means of grace that shall make them paragons of
perfection. Oh, Laura, you're a treasure with that head of yours crammed
full of facts, and I'll forgive you anything for this last little fact,
even for neglecting me for that little Bodn girl!"

"I haven't neglected you."

"Well, snubbed me, then."

"Nor snubbed you. I only want to be considerate and polite to Esther;
that's all."

"What a horrid name she has! Did you ever think of it, Laura--Esther
Bodn--Bodn?"

"I don't think it's