At the Little Brown House

It was a glorious morning in early June; the dew still hung heavy on each grass blade and leaf, making rainbow tapestries that defy description, as the waking sunbeams stole int...

"Where do you s'pose? To the reception, of course," answered that young lady, who had just entered the room, rigged out in an ancient, faded pink gown which had once been pretty...

"You are reading, that's what!" exclaimed her sister in disgust, as she came within sight of the slender, brown legs swinging among the thickly-leaved branches. "Shut up that bo...

In the hot room, high up under the eaves of the little brown house, Peace sobbed out her anguish of soul, and then faced the problem of shoes with a dauntless spirit.

Just at dusk one cold, rainy night late in August, a shabby, weary, wet, old man plodded through the dripping woods, across the stone bridge, and up the road toward Parker. He h...

Peace stood at the kitchen window looking out into the winter twilight, heavy with falling snow, but as she spoke, she turned her back on the scene without, and walked over to t...

"Girls, here are some eggs to be delivered," said Gail one snowy December day as Cherry and Peace came stamping in from school. "One basket goes to Judge Abbott's, and the other...

"Merry Christmas, Gail, Faith, Hope, Charity, Allee! Merry Christmas, everyone! My stocking has _something_ in it, I can see from here. Wake up! Wake up! I want to look at my pr...

"She discovered a heap of old magazines somewhere about the place and is in the barn reading. Says her head aches too hard to work today," answered Hope, with an anxious pucker...

"Cherry, do you know it's 'most night, and those girls aren't at home yet? They said they'd sure be here by four o'clock, and here 'tis five and they haven't come." Peace was pl...

"Have you got any more corn or potatoes to drop, or onion sets to cover, or radishes and beans and turnips to plant, or wheat or barley to scatter, or--or anything else to do?"...

One hot, dusty afternoon in midsummer Faith trudged wearily up the road from the village, climbed the steps to the vine-covered piazza where Gail sat shelling peas, and dropped...

"Peace, come here, I want to talk with you," called Mr. Hartman, leaning over the fence and beckoning to the child at work in her melon patch, measuring the mottled green fruit...

Down the sloping hillside browned with the summer sun strolled Peace one afternoon late in August, gathering the purple foxgloves which waved invitingly in the breeze. It was on...

The hot summer was drawing to a close. Two weeks more and September would be ushered in, bringing with it the State Fair, always an event in the lives of the busy farmers of the...

"What are you doing with all that torn-up paper, Peace?" asked Allee, finding her sister busy stripping old papers into tiny shreds up in the barn loft, after she had searched a...

"Oh, look, Allee! See the elephants and lions and giraffes and zebras on that poster. It's the cirkis as sure as I'm alive! Do you know I've always wanted to see the cirkis, and...

Hardly had the four younger girls disappeared across the fields on the way to school the next morning, when the Abbott carriage drew up in front of the little brown house, and C...

It was a wild, stormy, October night. The rain fell fitfully, and the howling wind raced madly through forest and over farmland, shrieking down chimneys, rattling windows and do...

"This is Saturday morning, Gail, and Mrs. Grinnell says I can go to Martindale with her if you will let me," said Peace, a few days after their midnight conference. She might ha...

"Why, Gail, what are you doing?" asked Faith one cold, dull November day, as she hurried into the kitchen from her village trip, and found the older sister picking two plump hens.