Little Miss Mouse

"AUNT HESTER, do you like to make buttonholes?" Ruth asked with interest in her tones.

"No," was the answer, "I hate to make them." Aunt Hester bit off her thread fiercely. "I hate them," she repeated, reaching for her spool which had fallen under the chair.

Ruth made a scramble for it, picked it up and laid it in Aunt Hester's lap.

"If you don't like to make them, what's the reason you do it?" she went on. "I thought grown-up people could do just what they liked."

Aunt Hester gave a little scornful laugh. "That's where you are mistaken. When I was a little girl like you I thought so, too, and when my mother made me sit by her and sew as I make you, I used to think that when I grew up I'd never touch a needle."

"Oh, and now you have to do it nearly all day." There was sympathy in Ruth's tones.

"Never you mind what I do all day. You chatter too much. Go on with your work."

And Ruth returned to the slow and tedious task of picking out the threads from a coat. The threads stood up in a long row down the seam. Ruth called them Indians on account of the fancied resemblance to the feathered decorations on the heads of the savages in a picture in her geography.

She and Aunt Hester were sitting in the latter's bedroom where the two always spent an hour together on Saturday afternoons. Ruth always resented being kept indoors on this holiday, but Aunt Hester was obdurate.

To be sure Billy had to stack wood or chop kindling or do some such task at the same hour so he wouldn't be on hand to play with, anyhow. Lucia Field had to help her mother; Annie Waite's mother kept her busy, and it seemed as if there was a combined intention on the part of the older people to give this unhappy hour to children.

It was probable that they had decided to do it at some mothers' meeting, Ruth concluded, and she always felt a sudden rebellious pang whenever Aunt Hester prepared to go forth to one of these gatherings, for just after, there was sure to be a period of extra strictness, and certain little tasks that perhaps had been gradually slighted during the month were enforced more rigidly.

Ruth looked up at the clock. It still wanted fifteen minutes to three and there were many Indians still poking up their heads along the line of brown cloth. She ventured another remark. It was out of reason to sit silent more than ten minutes at a time.

"What are you going to do with this, Aunt Hester?" she asked.

"Make a coat for Billy."

"Whose did it use to be?"

"My father's."

"Oh." Ruth's mind wandered to the time when the coat had been new. It must have been a long time ago, she considered. She wondered what old Major Brackenbury kept in his pockets, and surreptitiously slipped her hand in the one which was still hanging to the piece of cloth upon which she was at work. He might have been fond of peppermint lozenges, she thought, like Dr. Peaslee who never failed to produce one when he met Ruth. But no lozenges of any kind were to be found; only some siftings of tobacco and particles of dust did Ruth's hand bring forth from the deep pocket.

She worked away diligently for a few minutes, then her tongue wagged again. "Was your father like Dr. Peaslee?" she questioned.

"Not a bit," sighed Miss Hester. "He was tall and slim, though not too slim. He carried a gold-headed cane. I can see him now," she stretched forth her hand and smoothed the cloth which lay in Ruth's lap. "I can see him now in that very coat coming out the gate with Bruno at his heels."

Ruth's eyes followed hers to the big house across the way. The tall white pillars were visible through the evergreens. It had been a pleasant place to live in.

"I know all about Bruno," she said, "but tell me some more. I am so tired of unripping."

"Of ripping, you mean. You couldn't unzip, you know. You have only five minutes more, so I can't begin to tell tales now. I want you to find Billy and tell him I want him to go to the store when he has finished his task."

"May I go to the store, too?"

"Yes."

Ruth settled back contentedly. Only five minutes more to fight the Indians. She would try to get to the end of the seam before the clock in the kitchen struck. So her fingers flew along the stretch of brown cloth and there were but a few more threads to pull when one, two, three, strokes sounded solemnly and slowly from the tall clock in the corner of the kitchen.

Ruth looked up inquiringly and Aunt Hester nodded her head.

"Fold up your work and put it in the big chest," she said, "and then you may go and find Billy. When he has finished his work, tell him to come to me."

Ruth did as she was bid. She found Billy industriously stacking wood.

"Whew," he cried as he saw the little girl, "there's a lot of it, isn't there? See how much I have already piled up."

"You're 'most through, aren't you?" said Ruth. "How hard you must have been working, Billy."

Billy smiled appreciatively. When Billy smiled, you forgot his red hair and snub nose, for his bright blue eyes were squeezed up so merrily and his whole face showed such a sunny expression that, you felt like smiling in return.

Ruth, on the contrary, was a sombre looking little mite with burning dark eyes, a small thin face and serious mouth. Her greatest beauty was her chestnut hair which rippled in shining waves to her waist when it was unplaited, but Miss Hester insisted upon smooth braids and was very particular that every hair should be in place, so the shimmering masses were generally confined in two plaits and tied tightly by a black ribbon.

"I'll help," said Ruth after she had watched Billy sturdily working to get his pile completed. "Aunt Hester wants to send you to the store and I'm going, too. Billy, did you know she hated to make buttonholes and her father had a gold-headed cane?"

"I know; I saw it once, the cane I mean. I didn't know about the buttonholes. She won't have to make 'em when I am a man."

"Why? What for?" asked Ruth, struggling with a stick of wood.

"'Cause, she has to do 'em now, so she can buy things for us."

"Oh, I didn't know that was why."

Ruth placed her stick of wood so that it rolled down from the pile. She thrust it back again and stood looking very thoughtful, then she said soberly, "She's awful good, isn't she, Billy?"

"You bet she is. She's a Jim dandy, if she does make a fellow work Saturday afternoons. Where'd you and me be, if it wasn't for her?"

"You'd be selling papers and I'd be in an orphan asylum, I suppose," returned Ruth readily. She was accustomed to this reminder from Billy.