Just then the bell sounded from the schoolhouse, and Amelia and Susan
went to their duties, but not with half so glad a heart as Tidy
set herself to hers. Down she squatted on the rock, and did not
leave the place till her first task was successfully accomplished,
and the precious piece of perforated paper safely stowed away
for Amelia's inspection.

Day after day this process was repeated, until all the letters
great and small had been learned; and now for the more difficult
work of putting them together. There seemed to be but one step
between Tidy and perfect happiness. If she could only have a
hymn-book and know how to read it, she would ask nothing more.
She didn't care so much about the Bible. If she had known, as you do,
children, that it is God's word, no doubt she would have been anxious
to learn what it contained. But this truth she had never heard,
and therefore all her desires were centered in the hymn-book,
in which were stored so many of those precious and beautiful hymns
which she loved so much to hear Uncle Simon repeat and sing.
Would she ever be so happy as to be able to sing them from her own book?


CHAPTER X.

LONY'S PETITION.

BUT, ah! this is a world of disappointment, and it almost always
happens that if we attain any real good, we have to toil for it.
Tidy's path was not to continue as smooth and pleasant as it had been.