CHAPTER IX.

THE NEW BONNET.

The next morning, for a wonder.  Jenny Lincoln was up before the sun, and in the large dark closet which adjoined her sleeping room, she rummaged through band-boxes and on the top shelves until she found and brought to light a straw hat, which was new the fall before, but which her mother had decided unfit to appear again in the city.  Jenny had heard the unkind remarks which Mary’s odd-looking bonnet elicited, and she now determined to give her this one, though she did not dare to do so without her mother’s consent.  So after breakfast, when her mother was seated at her work in the parlor, Jenny drew near, making known her request, and asking permission to carry the bonnet to Mary herself.

“Mercy on me!” said Mrs. Lincoln, “what won’t you think of next, and where did you get such vulgar taste.  It must have been from your father, for I am sure you never took it from me.  I dare say, now, you had rather play with that town pauper than with the richest child in Boston.”

For a moment Jenny was silent, and then as a new idea came into her head, she said, “Ma, if you should die, and pa should die, and every body should die, and we hadn’t any money, wouldn’t I have to be a town pauper?”

“What absurd questions you ask,” said Mrs. Lincoln, overturning a work-box to find a spool of cotton, which lay directly on top.  “Do what you please with the bonnet, which I fancy you’ll find as much too small for Mary as the one she now has is too large.”

Jenny felt fearful of this, but “where there’s a will there’s a way;” and after considering a moment, she went in quest of her sister, who had one just like it.  Rose did not care a fig for the bonnet, and after a while she agreed to part with it on condition that Jenny would give her a coral bracelet, with gold clasps, which she had long coveted.  This fanciful little ornament was a birth-day present from Billy and at first Jenny thought that nothing would tempt her to part with it, but as Rose was decided, she finally yielded the point, brushing away a tear as she placed the bracelet in her sister’s hand.  Then putting the bonnet in a basket, and covering it with a newspaper, she started for the poor-house.

“Good morning, Miss Grundy,” said she, as she appeared in the doorway.  “May I see Mary, just a little minute?  I’ve got something for her.”

Miss Grundy was crosser than usual this morning on account of a sudden illness which had come upon Patsy, so she jerked her shoulders, and without turning her head, replied, “It’s Monday mornin’, and Mary ain’t goin’ to be hindered by big bugs nor nobody else.  Here ’tis goin’ on nine o’clock, and them dishes not done yet!  If you want to see her, you can go into the back room where she is.”

Nothing daunted by this ungracious reception, Jenny advanced towards the “back room,” where she found Mary at the “sink,” her arms immersed in dishwater, and a formidable pile of plates, platters and bowls all ready to be wiped, standing near her.  Throwing aside her bonnet and seizing the coarse dish towel, Jenny exclaimed, “I’m going to wipe dishes Mary, I know how, and when they are done, if Miss Grundy won’t let you go up stairs a minute, I’ll ask Mr. Parker.  I saw him under the woodshed grinding an axe.”