Young Lucretia

Young Lucretia and Other
Stories, by Mary E.

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Title: Young Lucretia and Other Stories
Author: Mary E. Wilkins

Release Date: November 11, 2006 [eBook #19766]
Language: English
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YOUNG LUCRETIA AND OTHER STORIES
by
MARY E. WILKINS
Author of "A New England Nun, and Other Stories" "A Humble
Romance, and Other Stories" Etc.
Illustrated

New York Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square 1893 Copyright, 1892,
by HARPER & BROTHERS. All rights reserved.

CONTENTS
YOUNG LUCRETIA HOW FIDELIA WENT TO THE STORE ANN
MARY; HER TWO THANKSGIVINGS ANN LIZY'S PATCHWORK
THE LITTLE PERSIAN PRINCESS WHERE THE
CHRISTMAS-TREE GREW WHERE SARAH JANE'S DOLL WENT
SEVENTOES' GHOST LITTLE MIRANDY, AND HOW SHE
EARNED HER SHOES A PARSNIP STEW THE DICKEY BOY A
SWEET-GRASS BASKET MEHITABLE LAMB

ILLUSTRATIONS
"'LUCRETIA RAYMOND, WHAT DO YOU MEAN, PUTTING
YOUR DRESS ON THIS WAY?'" "'WHOSE LITTLE GAL AIR

YOU?'" MR. LITTLE SELECTS THE THANKSGIVING TURKEY
"THIS LITTLE GIRL SOON CAME FLYING OUT WITH HER
CONTRIBUTION; THEN THERE WERE MORE" "SARAH JANE
SAT DOWN BESIDE THE ROAD AND WEPT" "HE THRUST OUT
HIS RIGHT HAND AND GAVE SEVENTOES A PUSH" THE VISIT
TO CAP'N MOSEBY'S "'EAT 'EM!' ORDERED CAP'N MOSEBY"
"A PARSNIP STEW" "THERE, AMONG THE BLOSSOMING
BRANCHES, CLUNG THE DICKEY BOY" "SHE WAS A REAL
INDIAN PRINCESS"

YOUNG LUCRETIA
"Who's that little gal goin' by?" said old Mrs. Emmons.
"That--why, that's young Lucretia, mother," replied her daughter Ann,
peering out of the window over her mother's shoulder. There was a
fringe of flowering geraniums in the window; the two women had to
stretch their heads over them.
"Poor little soul!" old Mrs. Emmons remarked further. "I pity that
child."
"I don't see much to pity her for," Ann returned, in a voice high-pitched
and sharply sweet; she was the soprano singer in the village choir. "I
don't see why she isn't taken care of as well as most children."
"Well, I don't know but she's took care of, but I guess she don't get
much coddlin'. Lucretia an' Maria ain't that kind--never was. I heerd the
other day they was goin' to have a Christmas-tree down to the
school-house. Now I'd be will-in' to ventur' consider'ble that child don't
have a thing on't."
"Well, if she's kept clean an' whole, an' made to behave, it amounts to a
good deal more'n Christmas presents, I suppose." Ann sat down and
turned a hem with vigor: she was a dress-maker.
"Well, I s'pose it does, but it kinder seems as if that little gal ought to

have somethin'. Do you remember them little rag babies I used to make
for you, Ann? I s'pose she'd be terrible tickled with one. Some of that
blue thibet would be jest the thing to make it a dress of."
"Now, mother, you ain't goin' to fussing. She won't think anything of
it."
"Yes, she would, too. You used to take sights of comfort with 'em." Old
Mrs. Emmons, tall and tremulous, rose up and went out of the room.
"She's gone after the linen pieces," thought her daughter Ann. "She is
dreadfully silly." Ann began smoothing out some remnants of blue
thibet on her lap. She selected one piece that she thought would do for
the dress.
Meanwhile young Lucretia went to school. It was quite a cold day, but
she was warmly dressed. She wore her aunt Lucretia's red and green
plaid shawl, which Aunt Lucretia had worn to meeting when she was
herself a little girl, over her aunt Maria's black ladies' cloth coat. The
coat was very large and roomy--indeed, it had not been altered at
all--but the cloth was thick and good. Young Lucretia wore also her
aunt Maria's black alpaca dress, which had been somewhat decreased in
size to fit her, and her aunt Lucretia's purple hood with a nubia tied
over it. She had mittens, a black quilted petticoat, and her aunt Maria's
old drab stockings drawn over her shoes to keep the snow from her
ankles. If young Lucretia caught cold, it would not be her aunts' fault.
She went along rather clumsily, but quite merrily, holding her tin
dinner-pail very steady.