"It's no great for beauty," Mrs. Brown had said, when Pink was a little thing. "I'll give it to you, Dolly, and you may keep it for your own."
And Dolly had been ever since proud and happy to claim it. It had always been beautiful in her eyes from the very days of her babyhood, when, at rare intervals, her mother rewarded her for being a good girl with one of the square lumps of white sugar hoarded in its bulging sides.
"Yes, I know Laura will like to see this," remarked Pink, in a satisfied tone, "and I hope she'll come to-morrow."
Laura did come to-morrow; and when, with innocent glee, her friend paraded before her the old pink sugar bowl, which she dignified by the name of her "property," somehow a lump rose in the spoiled child's throat that kept her silent. Suddenly a vision of the countless costly things she herself owned rose up before her. She had been proud of them, perhaps, but never really grateful, as now she began to see. She had fretted at any imperfections in them, and complained in the midst of them if her will was disregarded, as, for instance, about coming into the country for this summer. She stood abashed before the little pink sugar bowl, and its owner with her happy, satisfied smile. She began for the first time to understand the wise things her mother often said to her lately about being contented with such as we have.
Pink was sure that Laura had been suitably impressed by the sugar bowl, and she felt entirely pleased with the effect it had produced upon her. It pleased her still more when, after a few days, Laura asked to borrow the sugar bowl to show to her mother.
When Laura had told the story of Pink's property it had touched the heart of the soft-hearted mother as well as the child herself, and she had said, "I should like to see the sugar bowl myself."
Laura's father looked it over carefully. "This could really be turned into property," he pronounced, "for it is a valuable ancient piece; and if your little friend would like to sell it, I can find a buyer for her."
At first Pink could not find it in her heart to sell the keepsake she had been so fond of; but mother Brown reasoned with her, and father Brown said, shrewdly, "Sugar's just as good to us out of any other bowl, Dolly; and with the money, don't you see, you can buy things you would have to go without, and maybe lay up a mite besides." So the sugar bowl never came back to its place in the corner cupboard, but, true-hearted as Dolly was, she really never missed it, for its place was more than filled.
Laura, her sisters, and her mother, having begun to love the sweet-natured, healthy Pink, pleased themselves with heaping up the cup that had thought itself quite full before. They were always finding a pretext for bestowing some fair and fit gift upon her. The skillful fingers of Laura's sisters even shaped for her a white dress like Laura's own, and they said that it was well worth while to take a little trouble for the sake of seeing real gratitude for once.
When the frosts came, Pink's friends returned to the city. But the marvels of that surprising season were not yet all told. The little house under the hill was closed, and Pink's father moved up into the homestead to take charge of everything there until summer should come again.