"My mother used to talk to me and—"
"I might be better if I had a mother. Aunt Maria doesn't know how to mother anything."
"I didn't have my mother always, dear, but long after she was gone, I remembered the things she used to tell me, and they helped me so much to control my temper."
"What did she say?" she asked curiously.
"Many, many things, Tabitha; too many to think of now. But she gave me a rule to help me from getting mad, which I have never forgotten. She told me to count ten when I was angry before I spoke a word to anyone; and by the time I had counted ten I had hold of my temper, so it couldn't get away. Sometimes, of course, I made mistakes and said things I regretted afterwards, and then my mother taught me to go to the people I had hurt and ask their forgiveness. It was often very hard to do, but I felt so much happier afterward, and I have never been sorry for begging a person's pardon."
"Even if they weren't nice to you?"
"Yes, dear, even if they were horrid. I knew I had done my part and could forget all about the trouble; but if I hadn't told them I was sorry, then I was unhappy all the time."
Tabitha looked thoughtfully out of the window far across the desert to the mountains beyond, and finally answered slowly, "Well, that's worth trying, though being a Catt seems to make everything different for me. Maybe—" The noon whistle blew, and the child leaped to her feet with a startled exclamation. "I must be going now. Aunt Maria wasn't at home when we took the melon down, and no one knows where I've gone. Good-by!"
Away she rushed down the mountain path and up the main street of the town toward home. As she neared the schoolhouse, she saw through the open window the teacher correcting papers at her desk, her head bowed low over her work and one hand shading her eyes.
"I was real wicked to her," said Tabitha to herself. "I ought to tell her how sorry I am—for I am sorry now."