"I jes' want to tell you, I've been resulted, and I am never going to live here anymore! I'll go 'way; clear off in the woods! And then I guess you'll all be sorry! Mary need never make any more scrambled eggs for breakfast, cause" (she almost broke down at the bare thought of so direful a catastrophe), "cause there'll never be any chil'en to eat 'em anymore! And then I guess grandpa will be sorry when he comes home tired, and doesn't have his s'ippers all yeddy!"
"O," said her mamma, gravely, "you are going right off, are you, before dinner?"
"Yes, wight st'ait away, now! I'll go get my hat."
Down stairs the quick feet pattered to the hall-closet where the little sun hat hung, always ready for the garden. Soon she was back, and held her chin up with great composure for grandma to tie the strings.
The dear grandmother quietly laid her fine sewing down beside her on the sofa. "Is my little girl going away off by herself in the woods?"
"Yes, miles and mileses!"
"And what will you do when you get hungry?"
"Why, I'm going to take all my money," forthwith going to a drawer in the old-fashioned book-case, and taking out a diminutive porte-monnaie, which con
tained her whole fortune, three silver three-cent pieces, and hanging it on her fat little hand, "and I can go to some g'ocery in the woods, and buy lots of butter crackers."
I, sitting in an easy chair, just recovered from a long illness, suggested, "But, Zay, you might want something besides crackers. I know a little girl who is very fond of 'drum-sticks' and 'wish-bones'!"