women, she did not want them to be
shaken, nor have their ears cuffed; so the ideas advanced by the
strange little old woman just suited her.

"Set 'em to sewing patchwork," said this little old woman, sewing
patchwork vigorously herself as she spoke. She was dressed in a
gown of bright-colored patchwork, with a patchwork shawl over her
shoulders. Her cap was made of tiny squares of patchwork, too. "If
they are sewing patchwork," went on the little old woman, "they can't
be in mischief. Just make 'em sit in little chairs and sew patchwork,
boys and girls alike. Make 'em sit and sew patchwork, when the bees
are flying over the clover, out in the bright sunlight, and the great
bluewinged butterflies stop with the roses just outside the windows,
and the robins are singing in the cherry-trees, and they'll turn over
a new leaf, you'll see!" sewing away with a will.

[Illustration: THE PATCHWORK WOMAN.]

So the school was founded, the strange little old woman placed over
it, and it really worked admirably. It was the pride of the city.
Strangers who visited it were always taken to visit the Patchwork
School, for that was the name it went by. There sat the children, in
their little chairs, sewing patchwork. They were dressed in little
patchwork uniforms; the girls wore blue and white patchwork frocks
and pink and white patchwork pinafores, and the boys blue and white
patchwork trousers, with pinafores like the girls. Their cheeks were
round and rosy, for they had plenty to eat--bread and milk three times
a day--but they looked sad, and tears were standing in the corners
of a good many eyes. How could they help it? It did seem as if the
loveliest roses in the whole country were blossoming in the garden of
the Patchwork School, and there were swarms of humming-birds flying
over them, and great red and blue-winged butterflies. And there were
tall cherry-trees a little way from the window, and they used to be
perfectly crimson with fruit; and the way the robins would sing in
them! Later in the season there were apple and peach-trees, too, the
apples and great rosy peaches fairly dragging the branches to the
ground, and all in sight from the window of the schoolroom.

No wonder the poor little culprits cooped up indoors sewing red and
blue and green pieces of calico together, looked sad. Every day bales
of calico were left at the door of the Patchwork School, and it all
had to be cut up in little bits and sewed together again.