"Look on the back of the picture and see what is written there, my dear," said her Aunt.
Mary slowly read: "'This is the only picture I owned before my marriage. I earned the money to buy it by gathering wheat heads.'"
"It belonged to my grandmother," said Aunt Sarah. "In old times, after the reapers had left the field, the children were allowed to gather up the wheat remaining, and, I suppose, grandmother bought this picture with the money she earned herself, and considered it quite a work of art in her day. It is over one hundred years old."
CHAPTER XVII.
AN OLD SONG EVENING.
Aunt Sarah and Mary spent few idle moments while carrying out their plans for "doing over" the old parlor. Finally, 'twas finished. Mary breathed a sigh of satisfaction as the last picture was hung on the wall. She turned to her Aunt, saying, "Don't you think the room looks bright, cheery and livable?"
"Yes," replied her Aunt, "and what is more essential, homey, I have read somewhere, 'A woman's house should be as personal a matter as a spider's web or a snail's shell; and all the thought, toil and love she puts into it should be preserved a part of its comeliness and homelikeness forever, and be her monument to the generations.'"
"Well, Aunt Sarah," replied Mary, "I guess we've earned our monument. The air that blows over the fields, wafted in from the open window, is sweet with the scent of grain and clover, and certainly is refreshing. I'm dreadfully tired, but so delighted with the result of our labors. Now we will go and 'make ready,' as Sibylla says, before the arrival of Ralph from the city. I do hope the ice cream will be frozen hard. The Sunshine Sponge Cake, which I baked from a recipe the Professor's wife gave me, is light as a feather. 'Tis Ralph's favorite cake. Let's see; besides Ralph there are coming all the Schmidts, Lucy Robbins, the school teacher, and Sibylla entertains her Jake in the kitchen. I promised to treat him to ice cream; Sibylla was so good about helping me crack the ice to use for freezing the cream. We shall have an 'Old Song Evening' that will amuse every one."