in each stitch, so that I got all of them just exactly
even. I liked carpet rags a little better, because I didn't have to be
so particular about stitches, and I always picked out all the bright,
pretty colours.

Mother said she could follow my work all over the floor by the bright
spots. Perhaps if I were not to be kept in the house I wouldn't have
to sew any more. That made me so happy I wondered if I couldn't
stretch out my arms and wave them and fly. I sat on the pulpit wishing
I had feathers. It made me pretty blue to have to stay on the ground
all the time, when I wanted to be sailing up among the clouds with the
turkey buzzards. It called to my mind that place in McGuffey's Fifth
where it says:

"Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year."

Of course, I never heard a turkey buzzard sing. Laddie said they
couldn't; but that didn't prove it. He said half the members of our
church couldn't sing, but they DID; and when all of them were going at
the tops of their voices, it was just grand. So maybe the turkey
buzzard could sing if it wanted to; seemed as if it should, if Isaac
Thomas could; and anyway, it was the next verse I was thinking most
about:

"Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring."

That was so exciting I thought I'd just try it, so I stood on the top
rail, spread my arms, waved them, and started. I was bumped in fifty
places when I rolled into the cowslip bed at the foot of the steep
hill, for stones stuck out all over the side of it, and I felt pretty
mean as I climbed back to the pulpit.

The only consolation I had was what Dr. Fenner had said. That would be
the greatest possible help in managing father or mother.

I was undecided about whether I would go to school, or not. Must be
perfectly dreadful to dress like for church, and sit still in a stuffy
little room, and do your "abs," and "bes," and "bis," and "bos," all
day long. I could spell quite well without looking at a schoolhouse,
and read too. I was wondering if I ever would go at all, when I
thought of something else. Dr. Fenner had said to give me plenty of
good books. I was wild for some that were already promised me. Well,
what would they amount to if I couldn't understand them when I got
them? THAT seemed to make it sure I would be c