“Very well,” she said, “these things will do to start with. I shall begin her lessons to-night.”
Just as she put them back into the bag, she spied the Yarn Baby.
“I’ll put that silly doll in, too,” she said, tumbling the Yarn Baby into the bag and pulling the drawing-strings tight.
Then she carried the bag downstairs and out on the porch, where Mary Frances sat in the porch swing reading a book.
“It is high time, my dear,” she said, “that you learn to crochet and knit. To-night I shall give you your first lesson.
“Oh, won’t that be splendid, Aunt Maria?” cried the little girl. “I do want to learn so much!”
“It seems very strange to me that you do not know anything about such work,” said her aunt. “Why, I made your father learn how to knit when he was only six years old!”
Mary Frances did not tell her Aunt Maria that her father had told her about those lessons, and how he had hated the work because, every time he made a mistake, his aunt would whack his chubby, clumsy little fingers with a ruler.