"What is the matter, Bridget?" said Hatty. "Is your crust heavy?"
"No," said Bridget,—"but my heart is. I was thinking how I wished I knew how to read and write. There's Patrick, my brother, way over in Ireland—the last time I saw him I wasn't taller than that butter firkin. Father and mother are dead, and Pat is just the pulse of my heart, Hatty! Well, when he writes me a letter, it's me that can't for the life of me read a word of it; and if I get Honora Donahue to read it, I'm not sure whether she gets the right sense of it; and then a body wants to read a letter more than once, you know; and so I take it up, my darlin', and turn it over and over, and it's nothing but Greek and Latin to poor Bridget. And so many's the time, Hatty, I've cried hours over Pat's letters, for reason of that. Then I can't answer them—cause you know I can't write—and in course I don't want to turn my heart inside out for anybody else to write it to Pat for me; and so you see, my darlin', it's a bother all round entirely,"—and Bridget shut to the oven door, and wiped her eyes with the corner of her check apron.
Hatty was a very warm-hearted little girl, and she couldn't bear to see Bridget cry, so she threw down the bit of paste in her hand; then starting to her feet, as if a sudden thought had struck her, ran quickly up stairs into the parlor, where her mother was sitting, talking with two ladies.
Hatty forgot that her face, and hands, and check apron, and even her curls, were all over flour, when she burst into the room, saying,
"Oh, Mamma!—Bridget and I have been talking, and Bridget—(great big Bridget!)—don't know how to read and write! and she has nobody to love but Pat—and Pat is in Ireland; and when he writes her a letter she can't read it, and she can't answer him, because she don't know how to write; and she hasn't seen Pat since—since he was as little as a butter firkin—and she is so unhappy—and, Mamma, mayn't I have an A-B-C book, and teach Bridget how to read and how to write?" And little Hatty stopped—not because she had no more to say, but because she was out of breath.
Hatty's mamma smiled, and said, "There was a little girl just your size, in here about an hour ago, who 'didn't see the use of going to school, and wished she might never look into another book so long as she lived.' Have you seen anything of her?"
HATTY'S MISTAKE.
Hatty blushed and said, "Oh, Mamma, I never will be so foolish again. I see now how bad it is not to learn when one is a little girl."
Well, the A-B-C book was bought, and very funny it was to see little Miss Hatty looking so wise from under her curls, and pointing out the letters to Bridget with a long knitting needle. It was very slow work, to be sure; but then Hatty was patient, for she had a good, kind heart; and how proud she was when Bridget was able to read Pat's letters! and prouder yet when she learned to answer them! and you may be sure that Hatty never was heard to say again that "she didn't see the use of going to school."