Young Lucretia and Other Stories

E-text prepared by Chuck Greif, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
AUTHOR OF A NEW ENGLAND NUN, AND OTHER STORIES A HUMBLE ROMANCE, AND OTHER STORIES ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1893
Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers. —— All rights reserved.

Who's that little gal goin' by? said old Mrs. Emmons.
That—why, that's young Lucretia, mother, replied her daughter Ann, peering out of the window over her mother's shoulder. There was a fringe of flowering geraniums in the window; the two women had to stretch their heads over them.
Poor little soul! old Mrs. Emmons remarked further. I pity that child.
I don't see much to pity her for, Ann returned, in a voice high-pitched and sharply sweet; she was the soprano singer in the village choir. I don't see why she isn't taken care of as well as most children.
Well, I don't know but she's took care of, but I guess she don't get much coddlin'. Lucretia an' Maria ain't that kind—never was. I heerd the other day they was goin' to have a Christmas-tree down to the school-house. Now I'd be will-in' to ventur' consider'ble that child don't have a thing on't.
Well, if she's kept clean an' whole, an' made to behave, it amounts to a good deal more'n Christmas presents, I suppose. Ann sat down and turned a hem with vigor: she was a dress-maker.