time till the picture card comes before I begin my lady work?"

"It won't be long till that gets here," said Mrs. Merrill; "maybe it will
be here before we are ready because we haven't done our breakfast dishes
yet--that's a joke on us, isn't it?"

Mary Jane agreed that it was and in gay spirits they set to work.

Some folks might have said that a little girl Mary Jane's age was far too
young to dry dishes--that she might break them. But Mary Jane's mother was
not one of those "some folks." She believed that little girls not only
could help well, but that they liked helping. So Mary Jane had learned to
dry dishes some time ago and could polish the silver and shine the glasses
just as well as any one. Of course it might take a little longer than when
mother or 'Manda or Alice did it, but who cares about time when a job is
well done? And there was one thing about working with her mother that Mary
Jane especially liked; while they worked, they always talked--such fine
talks, Mary Jane thought, about everything that Mary Jane liked to talk
about.

This morning it was sewing, of course.

"How old were you when you learned to sew, mother?" asked Mary Jane as she
picked up a glass and began to shine it.

"Let me see," said Mrs. Merrill thoughtfully. "I was younger than you are,
I know, I wasn't more than three and a half or four years old."

"And did you sew on a card?" asked Mary Jane.