Little Miss Mouse

"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.

THE next Saturday there was another long seam of stitches to pick out. To this piece of cloth also was hanging a pocket of rather pretty pink and white stuff. Ruth thought it wo...

FOR a long time after this, Henrietta was neglected and the striped pocket lay unheeded in the box of pieces, for Stray was the absorbing interest to both Ruth and Billy. Genero...

Ruth looked across the room at the cheerful Billy stowing away the wood for the morning's fire. "You know I am really and truly named Brackenbury for always and forever," said t...

MISS HESTER did her best to comfort the grieving Ruth, and, if the truth were told, felt nearly as badly as the child herself at the destruction of the doll which had belonged t...

It was a mild day and Ruth was sitting on the steps with Stray in her lap. She had pinned a small shawl around him, and was now holding him like a baby, in which position, he se...

THE news was soon noised abroad among Ruth's playmates that she had another doll "zackly like Henrietta," and, because there was some mystery about it as well as because the dol...

IT was the next day after her surprise party that Ruth was running after Stray who had wriggled under the gate and had scampered down the street with Ruth in hot pursuit and cal...

THE next afternoon, Ruth and Billy had a long and earnest talk in the wood-shed. The visit of her uncle had been of enough importance for Ruth to be kept home from school and sh...

IN spite of such luxuries as Ruth had never before enjoyed, and the fact that there was little restraint put upon her, she did not feel in her new home a real content.

IT was a week later that Ruth was in her room with Hetty sitting before her on the window seat. The house was very still. Bertie's howls did not cleave the air. The swish, swish...

ALTHOUGH Ruth had still a very vague idea of the meaning of a receipt, she was still sufficiently impressed with its importance to hold to it very tenaciously and she carried it...