an's eyes. It was not alone the
children's racket that disturbed her. She sighed, and turned round to
open the door of the brick oven. The oven had been heated long ago, and
Dorcas had taken out the coals. It was just the time to put in the brown
bread, and Mrs. Lyman set the cabbage-leaf loaves on the wooden
bread-shovel, and pushed them in as far as they would go.

After this was done she began to mix pie-crust; but not a word had she
to say about the gown that would stand alone.

"Now, Patience, you may clean the mortar nicely, and pound me some
cinnamon."

Patty thought her mother could not know how her little arm ached. Linda
Chase didn't have to pound things; her mother thought she was too
small. Linda's father had a gold watch with a chain to it, and Linda's
big brother drove two horses, and looked very fine, not at all like
George and Silas. Patty would not have thought of the difference, only
she had heard Betsy Gould say that Fred Chase would "turn up his nose at
the twins' striped shirts."

"Mamma," said she, beginning again in that teasing tone so trying to
mothers, "_I_ have to eat bread and milk and bean porridge, and Linda
don't. She has nice things all the time."

"Patience," said Mrs. Lyman, wearily, "I cannot listen to idle
complaints. Solomon, put down that porringer and go ask Betsey to wash
your face."

"But, mamma," said Patty, "why can't I have things like Linda Chase?"

"My little girl must try to be happy in the state in which God has
placed her," said Mrs. Lyman, trimming a pie round the edges.

"But I don't live in a state," said Patty, dropping a tear into the
cinnamon; "I live in the _District_ of Maine; and I want a gown that'll
stand alo-ne!"

"It's half past eight,
And I can't afford to wait,"

sang Moses from the south entry.

This was a piece of poetry which always aroused Patty. Up she sprang,
and put on her cape-bonnet to start for school at Mrs. Merrill's, just
round the corner.

"Daughter," said Mrs. Lyman, in a low voice, as she was going out, "you
have a happier home than poor Linda Chase. Don't cry for things that
little girl has, because, my dear, it is wicked."

"A happier home than poor Linda Chase!"

Patty was amazed, and did not know what her mother meant; but when she
got to school there was Linda in a dimity loose-gown, and Linda said,--

"_My_ mother wants you to come and stay all night with me, if _your_
mother's willing."

So Patty went hom