last of which had disappeared from the walls of the house, long before
Mercy was born. No old magpie was ever a more indiscriminate hoarder than
Mrs. Carr had been; and, among all her hoardings, there was none more
amusing than her hoarding of old wall-papers. A scrap a foot square seemed
to her too precious to throw away. "It might be jest the right size to
cover suthin' with," she would say; and, to do her justice, she did use in
the course of a year a most unexampled amount of such fragments. She had a
mania for papering and repapering and papering again every shelf, every
box, every corner she could get hold of. The paste and brush were like
toys to her; and she delighted in gay combinations, sticking on old bits
of borders in fantastic ways, in most inappropriate situations.

"I do believe you'll paper the pigsty next, mother," said Mercy one day:
"there's nothing left you can paper except that." Mrs. Carr took the
suggestion in perfect good faith, and convulsed Mercy a few days later by
entering the kitchen with the following extraordinary remark,--

"I don't believe it's worth while to paper the pigsty. I've been looking
at it, and the boards they're so rough, the paper wouldn't lay smooth,
anyhow; and I couldn't well get at the inside o' the roof, while the pig's
in. It would look real neat, though. I'd like to do it."

Mercy endured her mother's help in packing for one day. Then the
desperateness of the trouble suggested a remedy. Selecting a large, strong
box, she had it carried into the garret.

"There, mother," she said, "now you can pack in this box all the old
lumber of all sorts which you want to carry. And, if this box isn't large
enough, you shall have two more. Don't tire yourself out: there's plenty
of time; and, if you don't get it all packed by the time I am done, I can