CHAPTER I.

"I wish I knew how to sew," Susy one day said to her nurse.

"I wish so, too," said nurse. "For then you could be always making aprons and things for your babies. And in time, you could make a shirt for your papa."

Susy smiled at this pleasant prospect.

"I'll go and ask mamma to teach me," said she, jumping up. "And I'll make my dollies some frocks, and some aprons, and some cloaks and bonnets. And I'll make _you_ an apron, too, Robbie."

Robbie looked as if he admired Susy very much, and began to think, as he always did when pleased, what he could give her.

In the mean time their nurse had cut out a little white petticoat, and was basting it very nicely together.

"Is that for me?" cried Susy joyfully. "O Nursey!"

And Susy sat down, took the needle in her eager little fingers, and began to sew.

"Oh! you mustn't put the needle back and forth that way!" said nurse. "See here, the point of the needle should come towards you."

"Yes, I know," said Susy, and went on sewing all sorts of ways.

"That isn't right," said nurse. "When you learn to sew you ought to learn the best way."

"This is the best way," said Susy.

"Very well. If you know so much, there's no use in my teaching you," said nurse, feeling rather vexed.

"Oh! dear, here's an old, ugly old knot!" said Susy. She pulled the thread angrily and it broke.

"Fix it for me, will you nurse?"

Nurse joined the thread in silence. Susy took one more stitch and her needle unthreaded.

"I can't string my needle," said she.

"You must learn," said nurse. "See, this way. And you needn't talk about stringing it, as if it were a bead. Ah! well. I may as well thread it this time. But my! what stitches! Why, dolly will fall through between them."

"I guess I won't learn to sew," said Susy. "It's hard. Here's the needle. I'll put it back in your cush pinion for you."

"My pin cushion, you mean. But I should be ashamed if I were you, not to know how to sew. There was little Mary Jones where I used to live; she sewed like a woman. Such stitches! But then there are few children like Mary Jones."

"I thought you said she was the trial of your life," said Susy.

"Well! the child's memory!" said nurse, lifting up her hands. "You should not notice every thing I say, my dear. Now I'll tell you something. You learn to sew and you shall make a little bag to give to your mamma. Just such a bag as Mary Jones made for her mamma. Only yours shall be blue, and hers was pink. Come! that's a good girl! Your mamma will be so pleased!"

So Susy sat down again, and took a few more stitches.

"The needle hurts me!" said she.

"That's because you've no thimble. I'll lend you my silver thimble--the one your aunt gave me."

So nurse wound a large piece of paper round and round Susy's finger, and crowded the thimble over the whole. It looked like a helmet on a dwarf.

Susy took one more stitch, and sighed.

"I'm tired," said she. "And the thimble is so heavy!"

"Well, put your work away then," said nurse, "and when we go out I'll buy you a dear little brass thimble. But not unless you'll promise to be patient, and to try to learn."

Susy promised, but her promise cost her many tears. For her needle unthreaded, her thread broke, or got into knots, her hands were awkward and did not know how to behave, and then when she cried on her work, it made it hard to sew.

But every day, her hands grew more skillful. Finding they really _must_ learn to sew, they would not dispute about such a trifle, and you can not think how delighted Susy was to be able, one day, to carry her mamma the nice bag she had made for her.

"Thank you, darling," said her mamma. "I am very glad your little hands have made this for me, and I will keep it a great while. Why, when your aunt Laura was your age, she had made a whole quilt of bits of calico not much larger than the palm of your hand. The next thing I know, I suppose you will be writing me a little letter."

"Oh! I never could learn to write!" said Susy.

"Why not? Are not your hands just like mine? And they learned to write."

Susy smiled, and looked at her mamma's hands and then at her own, but did not have time to talk any more just then.