“I couldn’t run from Injuns in these,” thought Letitia miserably.  When she got downstairs she discovered what the buzzing noise was.  Her great-great-grandmother was spinning.  Her great-great-aunt Candace was knitting, and little Phyllis was scouring the hearth.  Goodwife Hopkins was preparing breakfast.

“Go to the other wheel,” said she to Letitia, “and spin until the porridge is done.  We can have no idle hands here.”

Letitia looked helplessly at a great spinning-wheel in the corner, then at her great-great-great-grandmother.

“I don’t know how,” she faltered.

Then all the great-grandmothers and the aunts cried out with astonishment.

“She doesn’t know how to spin!” they said to one another.

Letitia felt dreadfully ashamed.

“You must have been strangely brought up,” said Goodwife Hopkins.  “Well, take this stocking and round out the toe.  There will be just about time enough for that before breakfast.”

“I don’t know how to knit,” stammered Letitia.

Then there was another cry of astonishment.  Goodwife Hopkins cast about her for another task for this ignorant guest.

“Explain the doctrine of predestination,” said she suddenly.

Letitia jumped up and stared at her with scared eyes.

“Don’t you know what predestination is?” demanded Goodwife Hopkins.

“No, ma’am,” half sobbed Letitia.

Her great-great-grandmother and her great-great-aunts made shocked exclamations, and her great-great-great-grandmother looked at her with horror.  “You have been brought up as one of the heathen,” said she.  Then she produced a small book, and Letitia was bidden to seat herself upon a stool and learn the doctrine of predestination before breakfast.

The kitchen was lighted only by one tallow candle and the firelight, for it was still far from dawn.  Letitia drew her little stool close to the hearth, and bent anxiously over the fire-lit page.  She committed to memory easily, and repeated the text like a frightened parrot when she was called upon.

“The child has good parts, though she is woefully ignorant,” said Goodwife Hopkins aside to her husband.  “It shall be my care to instruct her.”

Letitia, having completed her task, was given her breakfast.  It was only a portion of corn-meal porridge in a pewter plate.  She had never had such a strange breakfast in her life, and she did not like corn-meal.  She sat with it untasted before her.

“Why don’t you eat?” asked her great-great-great-grandmother severely.

“I—­don’t—­like—­it,” faltered Letitia.

If possible, they were all more shocked by that than they had been by her ignorance.

“She doesn’t like the good porridge,” the little great-great-aunts said to each other.

“Eat the porridge,” commanded Captain John Hopkins sternly, when he had gotten over his surprise.