It was her rule that the girls should all listen very attentively to the sermon, remember the text, and the chapter from which it was taken, and then when they came home they were required, after dinner, to spend an hour in writing down all that they could remember of the sermon. At first Ruby was sure that she never could remember anything to write down afterwards, and though she listened as hard as she could, and did her very best to remember, all that she could possibly keep in her head was the text, and one sentence, the sentence with which Mr.

Morsell began his sermon; but she soon found that by listening very closely and trying to remember, she grew able to remember much more.

Some of the older girls, who had been with Miss Chapman for two and three years, and were accustomed to this practice, could write down a really good epitome of the sermon, and once in a while a scholar did so well that Miss Chapman would send her work over to the minister, and the next time he came to tea he would compliment her for it; and that not only pleased the scholar, but made all the others determine to do so well that their extracts, too, should be sent over to him sometimes.

Mr. Morsell always remembered what young hearers he had, and he never failed to put something in his sermon that even Ruby and Maude could understand and remember, if they tried hard enough; so it was a great deal easier for them than if he had preached only for grown-up people.

Each girl had a blank-book, and after Miss Chapman had looked her extracts over, she required the scholars to copy these extracts into their blank-books.

Ruby was quite pleased when she found that each Sunday she could remember more and more, and that where five lines contained all that she remembered of the first sermon, it soon took two pages to hold all that she could write.

She was glad that she had to copy it in this blank-book, for then she could take it home with her at Christmas, and show it to her father and mother and Ruthy; and everything that she did she always wanted to show them, or tell them about, for she never forgot the dear ones. Maude was learning to remember nicely, too. She was not at all a dull little girl. It was only that she had not been accustomed to use her mind when she came to the school, and it had taken her some little time to learn to keep her thoughts upon anything, and really study. She was quite pleased when she found that in this exercise of memory she was doing quite as well as any of the new scholars, and better than four or five of them could do.

After a while, when the girls grew older, and finished learning all that they could study with Miss Chapman, and some, perhaps, did not go to school any more, they were very glad that they had learned to listen so attentively; for any one of those little girls who practised listening to the sermon and remembering all they could of it, and then strengthened their memory by writing it down afterwards, found that they had a great deal to be glad of in this training. Even after they grew up, they were so in the habit of listening attentively that they never heard a sermon without being able to remember a great deal of it; so their memories were not like sieves, through which a great deal could run, but in which very little, or perhaps nothing, would remain.

But they did not realize then how good it was for them, for even grown-up people very seldom realize that, and so the girls grumbled a good deal sometimes, when they had to sit down on Sunday afternoon and write out what they could remember.

There was one thing, however, which the girls soon discovered. It did not make it any easier to grumble about it, and the sooner one set to work in good earnest, the more one was likely to remember of the sermon, and the sooner the task was accomplished; and they had the rest of the afternoon to themselves until Bible-cla.s.s hour just before tea-time.

Then Miss Chapman heard them say the catechism, and talked to them and heard them recite the Bible lesson which they had studied that morning.

The time between writing the sermon and the Bible cla.s.s was always a pleasant time to the scholars. They sat in one another's rooms and talked, or if it was a pleasant day they went out and walked about the garden. While Miss Chapman would not allow any loud laughing nor playing on this day, yet she was glad to have it one which the girls would enjoy as much as possible, and would look back upon with pleasure.

There was always some special dainty for tea, and then, after tea, the girls all gathered around the piano in the parlor, and Miss Emma played hymns for them, and they sang until it was time to go to bed. They all enjoyed this. Even the girls who could not sing very well themselves liked to hear the others sing, and they were sorry when the old clock in the hall struck the bed-time hour.

Every Sunday seemed such a long step towards the holidays when they should go home and see their fathers and mothers again. While after the first week or two none of the girls were homesick, and all were very happy, yet there was not one of them who had not a little square of paper near the head of her bed, with as many marks upon it as there were days before vacation began, and every morning the first thing they did was to scratch one of these marks off. So Sunday seemed a long step ahead when they looked back over seven days that had pa.s.sed.

Agnes and Ruby generally spent the leisure part of Sunday afternoon with Miss Ketchum. She was very fond of the little girls, and liked to have them come and see her, so they had a very pleasant time in her room.

They would save their bags of candy, instead of eating them on Sat.u.r.day, and Miss Ketchum would have a nice little plain cake, of which her little visitors were very fond, and then they would take down the dishes and have a very nice time.

While they were enjoying the good things Miss Ketchum would read to them, or they would see which could tell her the most about the extracts they had written from the sermon. They had such pleasant times with her that they were always sorry when the boll rang for Bible cla.s.s, and they had to say good-by and run away.

Altogether, Sunday was a very happy day at Miss Chapman's, not only to Ruby and Agnes, but to all the other scholars, and they were always ready to welcome it.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS.

All the girls had a great deal of Christmas preparation. In the evenings they were busy making their Christmas presents for their friends at home, and Ruby was delighted when her Aunt Emma taught her how to knit wristlets. She was very proud when she had finished the first pair for her mother. They had pretty red edges and the rest was knitted of chinchilla wool.

Perhaps you would laugh at Ruby if I should tell you quite how much she admired them. When she first began to knit she wished that she need not practise nor study nor do anything else, she enjoyed her new occupation so much; and she carried her wristlet around in her pocket, wrapped up in a piece of paper, so that it should not become soiled, and every little while she would take it out and look at it lovingly.

She could imagine her mother's surprise and pleasure when she should give them to her, and tell her that her little girl had knitted every st.i.tch of them for her. There were a great many st.i.tches in the wristlets, and before the first pair was finished Ruby had grown very tired of knitting; but she was willing to persevere when she thought of the pleasure it would be to give them to her mother as her very own Christmas gift to her.

The pair she was making for her father did not take her nearly so long to make, even although they were larger, for she had learned to knit so much more quickly; and she was quite proud of the way in which the needles flashed in her busy little fingers.

Ruby had brought her doll to school with her, and she found her great company when she went up to her room, although she was such a busy little maiden that she did not find much time in which to play with her. Sometimes she would take her over to Miss Ketchum's room and leave her for a few days, so that when she went there for a little visit she would find her doll waiting for her, but generally Ruby had so many other things in which she was interested that she did not find time to play with her child.

But she was making something for Ruthy's Christmas present in which she needed her doll's help very much. Aunt Emma was showing Ruby how to crochet the dearest little baby sacque and hood, for a gift to Ruthy, and as Ruthy's doll was just exactly the same size as Ruby's, Ruby could try the sacque upon her own doll every now and then, and be quite sure that she was getting it the right size.

It was a pretty little white sacque with a rose-colored border, and it was so very pretty that Ruby made up her mind that after Christmas, when she should not have so much to do, she would make another just like it for her own doll. The hood was made to match the sacque, and Ruby could hardly wait for Christmas to come when she thought of the happiness her gifts would give. She was impatient to hear Ruthy exclaim with admiration over the beautiful sacque and hood, and to see how proud her father and mother would be when she slipped the wristlets upon their hands, and told them that she had taken every st.i.tch for them with her own fingers.

But besides these home preparations, there was to be a little entertainment given at Christmas by the scholars, to which some of the people of the village were always invited, besides the friends of the day-scholars, and those of the boarding-scholars who could come. This entertainment was given the evening before the girls left for their Christmas holidays, so very often their parents came a day earlier to take them home, in order to be present at this entertainment.

It was given to show the improvement of the scholars during the term, and all the girls had some part to take in it.

To some of them this was a great trial, but Ruby delighted in showing off, and she was perfectly happy when she found that she was to take part three times. It added to her pleasure to have her father write that he would surely be there, for he was coming to bring her home, as Aunt Emma was going somewhere else for her Christmas holidays. So Ruby practised and studied with all her might, as happy and as good a little girl as you could find anywhere, enjoying school-life more every day.

Ruby was to play the ba.s.s part in a duet with one of the older girls, and she had taken lessons such a little while that this seemed a very great thing to her. She was always ready to practise, so that she should be sure to know her part perfectly, and she went about the house humming the tune, until Aunt Emma declared laughingly that she fully expected to hear Ruby singing it in her sleep.

Besides this, Ruby was to recite a piece alone, and to take part in a dialogue; so you can see that she had quite a good deal to do. She would have been quite willing to do more, however, and she looked forward very eagerly to the evening of the entertainment.

The dialogue was quite a long one, and Ruby studied it every morning while she was getting dressed, pretending that her aunt and the stove were the other two characters in the piece. To be sure, neither of them said anything, for Aunt Emma was busy getting dressed, and the stove was silent, of course; but Ruby knew what they should say, for she had studied the piece so much that she knew the other parts nearly as well as her own; so she said for them what should be said when their part came, and then repeated her own speeches. There was no danger that Ruby would not be fully prepared when the great evening came.

It did not seem possible, now that she looked backward, that she had really been away from home so long. Each day had been so full of duties and pleasures, and had pa.s.sed so rapidly, that they had gone almost before Ruby knew that they had commenced, and now there were only very few marks left to be scratched out upon the girls' calendars.

Ruby was very sorry for Agnes. Her mother lived so far away that it was not possible for her to go home until the long summer vacation came, so Agnes had to spend her Christmas at school.

The teachers did all they could to make the day a happy one for her, and her mother sent her a box of presents, but still that was not of course anything like a home Christmas, and it generally made Agnes feel very badly when she heard the other girls talking about the good times they expected to have at Christmas.

"It is n't only the parties and the Christmas trees and the good times," she said to Ruby one day. "It is being away from mother that is the hardest part of it all. I always put her picture on the table when I open the box and look at the presents she has sent me, and try to pretend that she is giving them to me; but it is n't of much use. I know all the time that she is hundreds of miles away, and that she wants to see me just as much as I want to see her."

It was just one week before Christmas that a very beautiful idea came into Ruby's mind, and she was so pleased that she jumped up and spun around like a top, and caught Agnes by the waist and made her spin around, too, until both the little girls tumbled down in a heap on the floor.

"Why, Ruby, are you crazy?" asked Agnes, laughingly. They had been sitting before the fire in Miss Ketchum's room, eating chestnuts and talking about the evening of the entertainment, and both of the girls had been quiet for a little while, Agnes thinking how much she would like to have her mother at the school that night, and Ruby thinking of the pleasure with which she would watch her father while she was reciting her piece, when all at once she jumped up in this state of excitement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: READING THE INVITATION TO AGNES (missing from book)]

"What is the matter?" asked Agnes again; but Ruby would n't tell her.

"It is just the most beautiful idea in all the world," she exclaimed; "but it is something about you, Agnes, and I don't want to tell you until I am quite sure how it is going to turn out. No, you need n't ask me. I shall not tell you one single word of it. I can keep a secret when I want to, and I don't mean to tell you this one. I will only tell you that if it turns out all right you will like it as much as I do, I think. Oh, I am so full of it that I must go over and tell Aunt Emma about it; but you must not ask me to tell you, for indeed I will not."

And Ruby did not, although you may imagine that Agnes was very curious to know what it could be over which Ruby was so excited, and which concerned herself.

Ruby would only answer, "Wait and see."

It had occurred to her that perhaps her mother would be willing to let her invite Agnes to come home with her for her Christmas holidays.

Ruby knew that her mother was very much better now, and she was almost sure that she would not feel as if company would tire her too much.

Ruby and Agnes had been such friends, and Ruby had told Agnes so much about her home and mother and Ruthy, that she was sure that next best to going to her own home and seeing her own mother, would be going to Ruby's home and spending Christmas with Ruby's mother.

Aunt Emma thought that it was a very nice plan, and Ruby wrote that very afternoon to ask her mother about it.

It seemed to the impatient little girl as if the answer would never come; and every day she watched when the mail came to see if there was a letter for her; but in three days it came, and she was delighted to find that a little letter was enclosed for Agnes, giving her a very cordial invitation to come home with Ruby to spend her Christmas holidays.

Ruby's mother was very much pleased with the idea, and glad that her little daughter had thought of inviting her lonely schoolmate home with her; and if anything could have made Ruby happier than she was already, it was her mother's approval of her plan.

You may be sure that Agnes was delighted. It seemed almost too good to be true, at first; and when she read the kind letter from Ruby's mother, and Miss Chapman gave her permission to accept the invitation, she began to look forward to the holidays quite as eagerly as any of the other girls.