When she had gone away, looking so proud and happy, the poor little thing, I remembered that all I had to wear were the horrid red and blue things Aunt Martha knit last winter for me out of some yarn that Mrs. Joseph Burr of Upper Glen sent us.  It was dreadfully coarse yarn and all knots, and I never saw any of Mrs. Burr’s own children wearing things made of such yarn.  But Mary Vance says Mrs. Burr gives the minister stuff that she can’t use or eat herself, and thinks it ought to go as part of the salary her husband signed to pay, but never does.

I just couldn’t bear to wear those hateful stockings.  They were so ugly and rough and felt so scratchy.  Everybody would have made fun of me.  I thought at first I’d pretend to be sick and not go to church next day, but I decided I couldn’t do that, because it would be acting a lie, and father told us after mother died that was something we must never, never do.  It is just as bad to act a lie as to tell one, though I know some people, right here in the Glen, who act them, and never seem to feel a bit bad about it.  I will not mention any names, but I know who they are and so does father.

Then I tried my best to catch cold and really be sick by standing on the snowbank in the Methodist graveyard with my bare feet until Jerry pulled me off.  But it didn’t hurt me a bit and so I couldn’t get out of going to church.  So I just decided I would put my boots on and go that way.  I can’t see why it was so wrong and I was so careful to wash my legs just as clean as my face, but, anyway, father wasn’t to blame for it.  He was in the study thinking of his sermon and other heavenly things, and I kept out of his way before I went to Sunday School.  Father does not look at people’s legs in church, so of course he did not notice mine, but all the gossips did and talked about it, and that is why I am writing this letter to the Journal to explain.  I suppose I did very wrong, since everybody says so, and I am sorry and I am wearing those awful stockings to punish myself, although father bought me two nice new black pairs as soon as Mr. Flagg’s store opened on Monday morning.  But it was all my fault, and if people blame father for it after they read this they are not Christians and so I do not mind what they say.

There is another thing I want to explain about before I stop.  Mary Vance told me that Mr. Evan Boyd is blaming the Lew Baxters for stealing potatoes out of his field last fall.  They did not touch his potatoes.  They are very poor, but they are honest.  It was us did it—­Jerry and Carl and I. Una was not with us at the time.  We never thought it was stealing.  We just wanted a few potatoes to cook over a fire in Rainbow Valley one evening to eat with our fried trout.  Mr. Boyd’s field was the nearest, just between the valley and the village, so we climbed over his fence and pulled up some stalks.  The potatoes were awful small, because Mr. Boyd did