Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: your father has to work so hard and spend so much of his money on clothes for you. I like pretty clothes too, but if my father thinks I Figure 22. Wheel rou Spinning Flax am putting too much thought on myself, he tells me so. He shows me my duty." Mary Jane pulled her flax-wheel toward her and whirled the wheel rapidly. "My father believes I will grow in grace and patience for big sorrows and disappointments if I bear little ones cheerfully. What kind of practice are you getting, Jenny Lewis? It is wicked to talk about a father as you have talked about mine. I am not disappointed one bit about not going to your house. I like my homespun dresses and I can make linen as fine as you get in your dresses from England. When I get the kitchen cleaned and the floor sanded and the white curtains in place I feel happy. It is my work and it pleases my mother and I like to do it. Father does not say much about our work, because he expects us to do it well. He knows work is good for us. But what are you doing, Jenny? All you think about is pretty dresses and looking gay. I am glad Father thought I was needed here at sup- pertime — but I will come down to your house some other night," Mary Jane said more gently. "Perhaps you are right, Mary Jane, but you need not get so cross about it. I may be lazy, I suppose, but I do not see what there is about work that makes you like to do it, and in disappointment, even a little one, that makes you glad to bear it." "Jenny, I cannot explain. I like to cook and clean and spin and knit. That's the way I feel. It isn't hard. I don't mean to be conceited or think myself better than other people, but somehow when my father is strictest with me something inside of me likes it. Here comes Dorothy with a bunch of pink and white arbutus. It gr...