n front of the open window, a chair as uncomfortable as
Shaker doctrines to the daughter of Eve, and there Susanna often sat
with her sewing or mending, Sue at her feet building castles out of
corncobs, plaiting the husks into little mats, or taking out basting
threads from her mother's work.

"My head feels awfully undressed without my curls, Mardie," she said.
"I'm most afraid Fardie won't like the looks of me; do you think we
ought to have asked him before we shingled me?--He does _despise_
unpretty things so!"

"I think if we had asked him he would have said, 'Do as you think
best.'"

"He always says that when he does n't care what you do," observed Sue,
with one of her startling bursts of intuition. "Sister Martha has a
printed card on the wall in the children's diningroom, and I've got
to learn all the poetry on it because I need it worse than any of the
others:--

"What we deem good order, we're willing to state,
Eat hearty and decent, and clear out your plate;
Be thankful to heaven for what we receive,
And not make a mixture or compound to leave.

"We often find left on the same China dish,
Meat, apple sauce, pickle, brown bread and minced fish:
Another's replenished with butter and cheese,
With pie, cake, and toast, perhaps, added to these."

"You say it very nicely," commended Susanna.

"There's more:--

"Now if any virtue in this can be shown,
By peasant, by lawyer, or king on the throne;
We freely will forfeit whatever we've said,
And call it a virtue to waste meat and bread.

"There's a great deal to learn when you're being a Shaker," sighed Sue,
as she finished her rhyme.

"There's a great deal to learn everywhere," her mother answered. "What
verse did Eldress Abby give you today?"

"For little tripping maids may follow God
Along the ways that saintly feet have trod,"

quoted the child. "Am I a tripping maid, Mardie?" she continued.

"Yes, dear." "If I trip too much, might n't I fall?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Is tripping the same as skipping?"

"About the same."

"Is it polite to trip an' skip when you're following God?"

"It could n't be impolite if you meant to be good. A tripping maid means
just a young one."

"What is a maid?"

"A little girl."

"When a maid grows up, what is she?"

"Why she's a maiden, I suppose."

"When a maiden grows up, what is she?"

"Just a woman, Sue."

"What is saintly feet?"

"Feet like those of Eldress Abby o