Little Pilgrim at Aunt Lou's by Ella Rodman Church - HTML preview

IV.

It was a rainy day, and the children could not go out to play by the brook or in the fields. Bessie’s mamma said that she knew papa would like to get a letter from his little daughter, so the little daughter sat down to print one. This was all that Bessie could do in the way of writing, but she did it pretty well. This is what she wrote, with some help from mamma:

“DEAR PAPA:

I want to see you very much, for you are the only papa I have got, and a great deal nicer than the pigs and chickens and cows. I like them very much too. The pigs are funny. Charlie tumbled in one day, and the pigs ran into a corner. Aunt Lou said they were frightened at Charlie’s screams. He screams when he isn’t hurt. I don’t. Aunt Lou says I am a brave little girl, because I fall down and don’t cry.

From you dear little daughter,
 
 BESSIE.”

Papa was very much pleased indeed with this letter.

Then the little pilgrim wrote one to grandpapa, and grandpapa wrote an answer to it, and came and brought it himself.

Every one was so glad to see him! and the children soon found that they had another playmate. Jimmie was named after grandpa, and he thought that he ought to have him all to himself, but the little girls would not consent to this. Charlie wanted a “slice of grandpa” too; and he had to go all over the farm to see all the pets and the brook and the baby-house. Aunt Lou said that he was not free from the children except when he was asleep, but grandpapa declared that he did not want to be free from them.

He said that Bessie had grown half a head; and she certainly looked like a very chubby, rosy little girl since she had come to stay at Aunt Lou’s. She drank so much milk and ran about so much in the open air that she was getting quite strong.

Bessie scarcely thought of Blanche and the little trunk, there were so many other things to do. But Nellie said she was a beautiful doll, and that it must be so nice to have a real trunk to put her clothes in; she wished that her papa would get her one when he went to the city.

Our little pilgrim loved dearly to hunt for eggs.

Once she saw a little bird’s nest with four pretty eggs in it, but she knew that she must not touch these, for she did not want to make the little bird-mother unhappy.

Every one loved Bessie, and the children did not like to think of her ever leaving them. But the time came when she had to go away from Brook Farm; and, having said good-bye even to the cows and chickens, the little pilgrim went off again in the cars on her journey home.

END