When the class had finished
reading, they took their places at these benches, the boys to do sums,
and the girls to work on their samplers. Each little Puritan girl had
brought her sewing bag to school, and was working her name, the date
of her birthday, and a verse of some kind on a square of canvas, which
made her sampler. Patience was working a very fine sampler indeed. Her
mother had given her some bright crewels that she had brought from
England, and Patience was using them to embroider a basket of flowers
in cross-stitch in one corner of her sampler. Patience bent low over
her sewing, until her long flaxen braids almost touched the floor. At
last, though, she looked up.
Where was Peregrine, she wondered? He was not on the bench with the
other boys. At last Patience saw her brother. Oh, dear, how disgraced
she felt! Peregrine had not learned his lesson well, because he had
looked out of the window. He had not recited well, so Mistress
Endicott had put the dunce's cap on his head and he stood in a corner
where all could see him.
But Peregrine's punishment did not last for long. He was soon forgiven
and busy bringing in logs of wood to pile on the fire. Already the
days had a touch of frost in them, and Peregrine's father had sent the
school-mistress a load of wood.
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