"Where?"
"I'll get them, if you're good. And then you can go out in the front yard, and eat them, so that you can drop the stones on the grass."
Hendie was soon established on a flat stone under the old chestnut trees, in a happy oblivion of Mahala's injustice, and her little sister's perfections.
"I'll tell you, mamma. I've been thinking we need not keep Mahala, if you don't wish. She has been so used to do nothing but run round after Hendie, that, really, she isn't much good about the house; and I'll take Hendie's trundle bed into my room, and there'll be one less chamber to take care of; and you know we always dust and arrange down here."
"Yes—but the sweeping, Faithie! And the washing! Parthenia never would get through with it all."
"Well, somebody might come and help wash. And I guess I can sweep."
"But I can't bear to put you to such work, darling! You need your time for other things."
"I have ever so much time, mother! And, besides, as Aunt Faith says, I don't believe it makes so very much matter what we do. I was talking to her, the other day, about doing coarse work, and living a narrow, common kind of life, and what do you think she said?"
"I can't tell, of course. Something blunt and original."
"We were out in the garden. She pointed to some plants that were coming up from seeds, that had just two tough, clumsy, coarse leaves. 'What do you call them?' said auntie. 'Cotyledons, aren't they?' said I. 'I don't know what they are in botany,' said she; 'but I know the use of 'em. They'll last a while, and help feed up what's growing inside and underneath, and by and by they'll drop off, when they're done with, and you'll see what's been coming of it. Folks can't live the best right out at first, any more than plants can. I guess we all want some kind of—cotyledons.'"