"Then little Polly Lane said she could hunt eggs, if that was all.
"And Patty Stevens said, 'Yes, so could she; and her mother said she might have a knitting-work party if she'd have it just the way Polly did; and she was going to tell her how Polly didn't have to cook the things.'
"'I hope Polly won't begin to knit till the rest of us get started,' said Mary Jane Cullen; 'for I don't think it's fair.'
"O, I tell you, Flaxie, by that time I had begun to feel ashamed of myself; and, at seven o'clock, when my party was all over, and the girls had gone home, I felt more ashamed still. I sat down on the meal-chest in the back room where Sally was churning, and watched the dash as it moved up and down, and the cream oozed out around the little hole in the cover. She asked me if I'd had a good time. She said she thought the girls had all behaved very well.
"'Why, yes, we'd had a pretty good time,' I said, rather faintly; and I helped myself to the cream till Sally sent me off for fear I'd be down sick.
"By that time I was feeling very wretched; I did not really know why. Perhaps it was all knitting-work; and perhaps it was partly cream;—and I began to think some of it might be molasses. I went to bed, but could not go to sleep, and fell to crying all by myself in the dark. Mother heard me, and came in to ask what was the matter.
"'I want to see my little sister Abby,' said I; 'that's what I'm crying for.'
"'But you never saw your sister Abby,' said mother; 'she died before you were born.'
"'I know it, mother,' sobbed I. 'I never saw her, and that's why I want to see her now!'