Hannah Maria was naturally obedient; moreover, her mother was
a decided woman, so she had been very diligent; in fact the seam was
nearly sewed.
It was very still--that is, there were only the sounds that seem to make
a part of stillness. The birds twittered, the locusts shrilled, and the
tall clock in the entry ticked. Hannah Maria was not afraid, but she was
lonesome. Once in a while she looked around and sighed. She placed a pin
a little way in advance on the seam, and made up her mind that when she
had sewed to that place she would go into the house and get a slice of
cake. Her mother had told her that she might cut a slice from the
one-egg cake which had been made that morning. But before she had sewed
to the pin, little Mehitable Lamb came down the road. She was in reality
some years younger than Hannah Maria, but not so much younger as Hannah
Maria considered her. The girl on the door-step surveyed the one
approaching down the road with a friendly and patronizing air.
"Holloa!" she sang out, when Mehitable was within hailing distance.
"Holloa!" answered back Mehitable's little, sweet, deferential voice.
She came straight on, left the road, and struck across the grassy north
yard to Hannah Maria's door-step. She was a round, fair little girl; her
auburn hair was curled in a row of neat, smooth "water curls" around her
head. She wore a straw hat with a blue ribbon, and a blue-and-white
checked gingham dress; she also wore white stockings and patent leather
"ankle-ties.
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