a little sweeping-cap
with a red bow, some gingham aprons and white aprons, and brown towels
and red-and-white towels, and dust-cloths, all with red M's in their
corners; and put at the top was a little book tied on the tree with a
big red bow. Her mother took this down and handed it to her, and every
one stood and looked on and smiled because she was so surprised. When
Margaret looked at the cover of the book she knew what was inside in a
minute, because, painted on the cover was a little girl who looked just
like her with a big apron on, and a sweeping-cap, holding a broom in one
hand and a dust-pan in the other, and above, in bright red letters, were
the words, Saturday Mornings.

"Oh, it's for me!" she cried, delighted. "It's like my own cook-book,
only it tells how to clean house instead of cook. I love to clean house!
I love to make beds! I love to wash dishes! I just _love_ to sweep! May
I wear that beautiful cap, and are all those dish-towels for me, and is
that my very own dust-pan?" Then she ran to the tree and got everything
down. First she put on all the aprons, one on top of another, with the
ruffled waiting-on-table apron on top of the rest, and she put the cap
on her head, and hung all the dish-towels over one arm and all the
dusters over the other, and gathered up the brooms and dust-pan in her
arms and sat down in a corner with her book.

"This is the best of all," she said, soberly. "My other presents are
lovely, too, my books and my gold heart pin, and my white rocking-chair
for my own room, and the mittens grandmother knit for me with the lace
stitches down the back, but I like my little book best, and all the
things on my own little tree most. This is the nicest Christmas I ever,
ever had! The name of my book is Saturday Mornings, because other days I
have to go to school, but Saturdays I can sweep and dust and wash
dishes. What fun it will be! I don't know which chapter sounds best."
She hugged the little dust-pan and shook out the dish-towels. "Oh, I
just can't wait to begin," she said.

CHAPTER II

THE KITCHEN FIRE

Although Margaret had become pretty well acquainted with the kitchen
during the year she was learning to cook she had never quite understood
how to manage the kitchen range or the fire, because Bridget always
attended to that part for her. But at the very first lesson in the
Saturday Morning Class her mother, who was to be the teacher that day,
said the subject would be