“That’s true. I suppose your plan is a good one.”
So a second piano was bought, and put up in the playroom, and the twins had to do their practising separately, except for a few little duet exercises, which their teacher kindly gave them. And it must be confessed they made better progress than when they combined practising and social conversation.
In addition to the hour for music, Dolly was required to spend an hour every day, sewing.
The Misses Dana believed in that old-fashioned accomplishment, and put the child through a regular course of overhanding, felling, and hemming, insisting on great neatness and accuracy of stitches.
This hour caused Dolly a great many sighs, and even a few tears. She didn’t like needlework, and it was so hard to keep her stitches even and true.
But the real hardship was that Dick didn’t have to sew also. It didn’t seem fair that she should work so hard for an hour, while he was free to play or do what he chose.
She remarked this to Aunt Rachel, who saw the justice of the argument, and thought it over.
“That’s true, in a way,” she responded. “There isn’t any occupation so necessary for a boy to learn, as for a girl to learn sewing, but I think that Dick should have a corresponding task.”
So it was arranged that for an hour every day, Dick must do work in the garden. Real work, not just fun. He was to weed both his own and Dolly’s flower-beds, and mow the grass and trim the hedges in their playground, and water the plants, if necessary; in short, do the drudgery work of the garden, while Dolly plodded along at her sewing.
This plan worked finely, and sometimes Dick had the playground in such perfect order that he could put in his hour weeding or mowing the other parts of the lawn. Aunt Rachel bought a small lawn-mower for his use, and under Pat’s instructions his hour’s hard work each day taught him much of the real science of gardening.