"It is growing thin in places," she said, laying it on Blue Bonnet's knee, "but a few stitches will preserve it for some time yet."
The next hour was one not soon to be forgotten by Blue Bonnet. Threads knotted at the most impossible places; stitches were too long, sometimes too short. Her hands grew hot and sticky. At the end of an hour her cheeks were flushed and her head ached.
Miss Clyde took the work from the tired and clumsy fingers and smoothed the hair back from the warm brow.
"I think you have done very well for the first time, Blue Bonnet. Next time it will come easier. You would better rest now, and perhaps Grandmother will read to us until lunch time."
"Yes," Mrs. Clyde said, "I will indeed. What shall it be, Blue Bonnet?"
Blue Bonnet thought a minute, then she clapped her hands softly.
"I know, Grandmother. Thoreau! I read something of his this summer on the ranch, and I liked it."
Mrs. Clyde went into the library, coming back presently with Robert Louis Stevenson's "Men and Books."
"Perhaps you would like to know something of Thoreau's life, Blue Bonnet. Mr. Stevenson gives a fair glimpse of him. At least he does not spare his eccentricities. We view him from all quarters."
The lunch bell rang long before Blue Bonnet thought it time.