Here Jessie sat down and began to make her bright little needle fly almost as swiftly as if it had been in a sewing-machine. While she sewed she hummed the following words, which, as Uncle Morris said, had more truth in them than poetry:
|
“I love to do right,
And I love the truth,
And I’ll always love them,
While in my youth. “And when I grow old, And when I grow gray, I will love them still, Do wrong who may.” |
Having finished her song, Jessie rested her hands on her lap a moment, and said:
“I love those words, I do. When I grow gray! ha! ha! Jessie Carlton a little old woman with gray hair! Won’t it be funny? I wonder if everybody will love me then as everybody loves Uncle Morris now. Why not? Everybody?—no, not everybody, for Charlie don’t love him, and our Hugh don’t love him much. That’s because they are naughty, though. Well, every good person loves Uncle Morris, because he is so good and kind; and so, if I am good and kind, when I am a little, gray old woman, everybody will love me. Ha! ha! Won’t it be nice to be called Aunt Jessie, and to be loved, oh, so well!—but I must go on with my sewing.”
Tap, tap, tap, said somebody’s knuckles on the door.
The door opened. Carrie Sherwood’s little, red, round, laughing face peeped in.
“O Carrie! is that you? Come in.”
Carrie tripped in, and while her eyes flashed with excitement, she said:
“O Jessie, we have found a nice slide out on the edge of the brook. It is the first time the ice has frozen hard enough to bear this fall, and we are having such a nice time. Come and see it, just for a moment.”