Maybee stood by the window with a very sober face. There wasn’t much to see so early in the morning; only the street, a few passers-by, and over the hills, a spiral of white smoke where the cars were hurrying away towards the great city, carrying mamma and Sue with them. How long it would be till night! And mamma had said when she kissed her good-by, “I want Maybee to do exactly as Aunt Cynthia tells her, all the whole time. If she gets tired of play, there’s her garden to weed, the play-room to put in order, and that last seam to sew.”
Now, Aunt Cynthia didn’t like children; she didn’t “like anything much, except patch-work,” Maybee said, “an’ she must be made of patch-work, ’cause she always had stitches in her back when she was real cross.” Maybee would never sew patch-work for fear it would make scowls over her eyes, like Aunt Cynthia’s; so mamma had taught her to sew on soft, white under-garments for herself and her dollies. That “last seam” was in a night-dress for Lauretta Luella.
“I’ll sew it right straight up. That’ll please my mamma awfully,” thought Maybee.
“Ma-b-e-l!” called Aunt Cynthia from up-stairs. “Come here, this minute, and slick up your bureau-drawers.”
“I’m busy,” said Maybee, threading her needle.
“Never mind; come right along. What would your mother say to things being tumbled in this way?”
She would say “Put them in order,” Maybee knew. She had said “Mind Aunt Cynthia.” But Maybee felt more like sewing her seam, and mamma told her to do that, didn’t she? So the little girl sat still, and Miss Cynthia, after calling several times, arranged the drawers herself.
“I’ll sew it right straight up.” p 134]
“And now, Mabel,” she said, coming into the parlor with the inevitable big basket of patch-work, “you can sew very neatly, and I want you to help me a little while.”