paint is on a shelf in the woodhouse, and you can paint it. I'm afraid
Jane Cotton's Sam won't ever amount to much. Poor Jane!"

Thomasia read the letter aloud, and at this point Loraine interposed
warmly: "Jane Cotton's Sam is abused! It's a shame everybody groans over
him--_I_ like him. If there isn't a lot of good in him, then I don't
know how to read human nature, that's all."

The next morning very early someone knocked at the kitchen door. It was
Laura Ann's turn to make the fire, and she answered the knock. Jane
Cotton's Sam stood on the steps outside. He had a mysterious little
package in his hand. He looked up eagerly, but it was evident from the
disappointed look on his face that Laura Ann was the wrong girl. And he
did not know the right one's name!

"Good-morning!" nodded Laura Ann, sublimely unconscious of the
soot-patch over her nose.

"Good-morning. I'd like to see--I've brought something for the one that
teaches school."

"Loraine? But she isn't up yet--"

"Yes, I am up, too," called a voice overhead, "but I won't be long! I'll
be _down_."

It was a little fish, dressed and ready to fry, that was in the tiny
bundle. The boy extended it blushingly. Then his eyes lifted to
Loraine's in frank petition for pardon.