Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 Part 4

"Certainly. What is it?"

"I just want to tell you about my cousin Susie's new doll. You ought to see it; it is perfectly splendid!--wax face and hands and feet, and real hair, and--"

"Anna Maria, have I not told you repeatedly that you were not to speak about anything except what was absolutely necessary? Now do you think that such conversation is necessary?"

Anna Maria hung her head a little, and then she said, in a sort of apologetic way, "Well, teacher, it may not seem so, but really it is necessary _for me_. You see, I get thinking about something, and I can't stop thinking about it until I have told it to somebody else."

"Well, and when you have relieved your mind in this manner, at the expense of peace and quiet to the whole school, what then?"

"Oh, then I think about something else."

"Yes, and then you wish to chatter about that."

"But really, teacher, I can't help it. I always was so. Grandma says I talk more than all the rest of the family put together. In fact, the family have to be quiet because I talk so much. I always did, you know.

It is one of those things that can't be altered."

"Ah," said Miss Matilda, a little dryly, "I was not aware of that. Thank you for the information. I am sorry you did not tell me before."

One bright December afternoon, when school was about to be dismissed, Miss Matilda arose and said:

"Girls, I have decided that this cla.s.s is to receive a Christmas present--something which will be useful and agreeable to you all. As this article (which I will not at present name) requires some very neat sewing, I have further decided that Miss Anna Maria Spilkins, whom I heard mentioned as an excellent needle-woman, shall have the honor of making it."

The girls applauded, and Anna Maria looked very proud.

"Anna Maria," continued Miss Matilda, "do you think your grandmother has a nice piece of calico at home, about a yard and a half long, which she could let us have?"

"Oh dear yes," replied Anna Maria. "Why, she has lots. Last winter she made a patchwork quilt, and she went down to New York and bought everything new for it. Aunt Jemima thought she could have used some things that were in the house, but she thought she couldn't--and you never saw the like! One yard of this, and two yards of that, and three yards of the other--enough to make half a dozen quilts--and every bit of it perfectly lovely. Oh, there is one piece that is just splendid! It is pink, with flowers of every color you can think of all over it. It is so bright you can hardly look at it."

"That would be the very thing. Do you think she will let us have it?"

"Oh, I guess so. I'll _talk_ her into it; you depend on me for that."

"Very well. And to-morrow you will bring with you the calico, a yard and a half of alpaca braid to match, and your sewing materials."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Also, a large bra.s.s-headed nail and a hammer."

"Why, what is that for?"

"You will see when the time comes. And you will be excused from your lessons in the last hour on Thursday and Friday, so that you can do this piece of sewing in school."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Anna Maria was delighted. She felt herself a very important personage: besides, she had something new about which to chatter. Some of the other girls, however, were quite sulky over the affair. "I don't see why one of us couldn't do it," said one. "Miss Matilda is dreadfully partial,"

said another. "Yes, she lets Anna Maria Spilkins do anything she likes,"

said a third. But all were equally curious about it. "I do wonder what it can be," was heard on all sides.

The next morning Anna Maria arrived, bundle in hand. With great pride she spread out its contents. The girls were fairly dazzled with the beauty of the pink calico. In the afternoon, at the beginning of the last school hour, Miss Matilda said, "Anna Maria, have you brought the things we spoke of yesterday?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Anna Maria, stepping up to the desk.

Miss Matilda examined them with satisfaction. "Now, Anna Maria, take that bra.s.s-headed nail in your left hand, and the hammer in your right."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you notice that bar of wood along the wall, about five feet from the floor?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now measure carefully, and find the spot exactly over the middle of your desk; then drive the nail in."

Anna Maria obeyed. The hammering resounded strangely through the quiet school-room. When this piece of work was over, Miss Matilda folded down the pink calico, and marked out two long seams to be run and felled.

Anna Maria took the sewing to her seat, and st.i.tched away complacently, while the other girls fretted and growled over "that horrid grammar lesson." When school was over, she brought the work to Miss Matilda, who put it away carefully in her desk.

"Ah, teacher, do tell us what it is!" some of the girls exclaimed.

"I think you will see to-morrow," Miss Matilda answered, quietly.

The next afternoon Anna Maria resumed her work.

"I do believe it is going to be a bag," whispered one of the girls, who was watching her.

"Why, yes, so it is," said another. "But what can it be for?"

"Do you think Miss Matilda could mean to have a Christmas grab-bag for us?" asked a third.

"I don't know why she should," said a fourth; "I don't see that we have been _so awfully good_ as all that."

But a bag undoubtedly it was. Half an hour before school was over, Anna Maria had finished the string-case, and run the piece of pink alpaca braid through it. The work was done. She walked to the desk triumphantly, and presented it to her teacher. Miss Matilda examined it, commended the sewing, and then handed it back to her.

"And now, Anna Maria," she asked, "do you know what this bag is for?"

"No, ma'am."

"Have you no idea?"

"No, ma'am."

"_It is to put your head in!_ In future I shall never reprove you for talking. You may talk as much and as often as you please, but all you say must go into this bag. When it is quite full of talk, draw the string tight, so that not one word escapes, and bring it to me. Then I will empty the chatter out of the window, where it will disturb no one, and return you the bag, to be refilled whenever you choose."

A wild shout of laughter rang through the school-room. Anna Maria turned crimson, and dropped the bag. She would have been glad if the floor had opened and swallowed her. She could make no answer--for once in her life she was dumb.

"Pick up the bag, Anna Maria," said Miss Matilda, "and hang it on the nail above your desk."

Very slowly and unwillingly the little girl obeyed. She took her seat, and then, for the first time since she came to school, put her head down on her desk and cried. Miss Matilda took no notice; she merely called the second cla.s.s in grammar, and resumed the lessons.

When school was over, and all the other girls had gone, Anna Maria lifted her head, and exclaimed, "Oh, teacher, teacher, I can't stand it!