“Yes,” Annie answered, half laughing, half wondering at the strange child before her.
It was the poor needlewoman’s dinner hour, so she said:
“Now, my dear, amuse yourself any way you please—looking out of the window, or taking up and looking at anything you like in the room, while I get dinner for us two, won’t you?”
“Look here,” said the little girl, “I don’t want to do that. I want to do something to help you. I do like to do something real useful, only people won’t let me half the time.”
“Why, what can you do, you solemn, responsible midget?” inquired the needlewoman.
“You are making fun; but I am in earnest, and I can do many things. I can piece crazy quilts, as they call them; but, oh, I tell you they are not crazy at all, but just the most sensible things in the whole world; for they use up every bit of the scraps without wasting a thread of any. Scraps that you couldn’t use for anything else. Oh, I tell you what! the woman that first thought of that sort of a quilt was possessed of common sense.”
“I quite agree with you, my dear, but I am not making a quilt, and have no quilt pieces,” said Annie.
“Well, then, if you have got any buttons to sew on anything, or any strings to run in anything else, I can do that.”
“Very well,” said Annie, who was too wise a woman to discourage any child’s desire to do useful work, however futile the attempt might prove to be—“Very well, you are an industrious little girl, I think, and I will give you something to do.”
“All right,” said the small sage.