She won’t mind having them all alike, will you, Peggy?”

“I’ll like it; it’s so pretty.”

“Oh, please, mother, do make me one,” Alice begged.

“I’m afraid you will have to be contented with the ten dresses you already have,” said her mother. “For, as I will have six dresses to make for Peggy and two for myself, I think that will be all I can manage.”

“Perhaps one of my dolls can have a dress out of it,” Alice said hopefully.

“Yes, I’ll cut out a dress for Belle, and I can teach you to make that so you can be sewing on it while I am making Peggy’s frocks.”

But it was some time before Peggy began to wear them, for it took her mother a long time to make them. The very next afternoon, after the dinner dishes were washed, Mrs. Owen got out the blue material and she cut out a dress for Peggy, and then a small one for Belle. Alice was learning to hem and she took as careful stitches as a grown-up person. Peggy was divided between wanting to do what the others were doing and hating to be tied down. She made frequent trips to the kitchen for a drink of water and to see how Lady Jane was getting on.

“You can overcast these sleeves, Peggy,” her mother said later in the afternoon. “That is much easier than hemming.”

“It’s better than hemming,” Peggy said, “because you can take such long spidery stitches. But I just hate sewing. I’m never going to sew when I grow up.”

“But that is just the time you’ll have to sew,” said Alice.

“No, I’m going to be a writing lady.”

“But they have to wear just as many frocks as other people,” said Alice.

“I’ll have them made for me. I’ll get such a lot of money by my writings.”

“You may be married and have to make clothes for your children,” said her mother.

“I’ll just have boys,” said Peggy. “That would be much the best. Then I could climb trees with them and climb over the roofs of houses, and nobody could say, ‘Peggy, you’ll break your neck,’ because I’d be their mother, so everything I did would be all right.”

“Oh, Peggy, you haven’t been putting your mind on your work,” said her mother. “Pull out those last few stitches and do them over again, and think what you are doing and not how you will climb trees with your sons.”

“I’ll have all girls,” said Alice. “Some will be dressed in pink and some in blue.”

“And some in red and some in yellow, and some in purple and some in green,” added Peggy, “and you’ll be called the rainbow family. There, mother, is that any better?”

“A little better, but you don’t seem to make any two stitches quite the same length.”

Peggy suddenly flung down her work. “There’s somebody at the back door,” she said.

“It’s the grocer’s boy. You can go and get the things, only be sure not to let the cat out.”

Peggy never quite knew how it happened. She did not mean to disobey her mother, but the afternoon was very pleasant and the kitchen was hot. It seemed cruel to keep a cat in the house. She held the door open and, while she was debating whether it would not be possible for her and the cat to take a walk together, Lady Jane slipped out. Something gray and fluffy seemed to fly along the grass and disappear under the fence. She had gone without waiting for their pleasant walk together. Instead they would have a mad race. Peggy liked the idea of a chase. It was much more exciting than overcasting seams.

Peggy and the pussy-cat had a wild race, and more than one person looked back to see why Peggy Owen, with flying yellow hair, was running at such speed cross-lots, through back yards, and climbing over fences. Suddenly Peggy was caught, as she was scrambling over a fence, by a piece of barbed wire. Her one remaining winter school frock was torn past mending. “Oh, dear, what will mother say?” said Peggy.

The skirt was almost torn from the waist, and Peggy felt like a beggar-maid as she crept home. “Only, everybody will know I am not a beggar-maid,” thought Peggy. “They’ll all say, ‘What mischief has Peggy Owen been up to now?’”

And her mother did say something very much like it when she came in. “Peggy, what have you been doing now?” she asked.

“I was hunting for Lady Jane,” she said breathlessly. “She slipped out of the kitchen door.”

“Peggy, how could you be so careless?” said her mother. Then, as she noticed the confusion on Peggy’s face, she said, “Did you let her out?”

“Not exactly,” said Peggy. “I was thinking perhaps it would be nice for us to have a walk together, when she ran away.”

“You don’t deserve to have any new clothes,” said her mother, as she looked at Peggy’s torn frock.

“The blue ones will be stronger than this old thing,” said Peggy.

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Owen, one hot morning, a few days later, as she started to make bread, “this yeast-cake isn’t fresh. What a shame! Peggy, you’ll have to go down to the village and get me another.”

Peggy was delighted at the chance for an errand. She never minded the heat, and she always liked to be out of doors better than in. It was Saturday morning so there was no school. This heat in April was very trying to Mrs. Owen and Alice.

“You’ll have to change your dress if you go to the village,” said Peggy’s mother. “You can put on one of your blue frocks if you like.”

So a few minutes later Peggy in her blue frock went out into the spring sunshine, a very happy little girl, with a small covered basket in her hand, for her mother had told her she might get half a dozen lemons and some sugar and a box of fancy crackers, so they could have some lemonade and crackers in the afternoon.

“Be sure you don’t forget the yeast-cake,” her mother said, “and don’t stop to talk to any strange children, and don’t call on any of the neighbors. Don’t run, it is too hot, but don’t waste any time on the road, for I want to get my bread started as soon as I can.”

Peggy danced along the road in spite of the heat, for it was a happy thing to be alive. She had not gone far when she saw a boy coming out of a crossroad. It was Christopher Carter, and he too had a covered basket in his hand.

“Hullo!” said Peggy.

“Hullo!” said Christopher. He joined her as he spoke.

“What have you got in your basket?” Peggy asked with interest.

“Butter and eggs from the Miller farm. What have you got in yours?”

“Nothing. Mother’s sent me to the grocery store to get some things.”

“How’s the cat?” he asked.

“She’s all right, only we have to keep her shut up, for if we let her out she’d go straight to your house. I can’t think why she likes you better than us.”

“She gets lots of scraps of fish and meat, because we are such a big family; and then I suppose she likes her own old home, just as a person would.”

“I know, but Alice is so crazy about her: Alice is my sister,” she explained.

“My sister is just as crazy about her.”

“So you’ve got a sister? I thought you had, and I guessed her name was Matilda Ann.”

“Matilda Ann! What an awful name! What made you think her name was Matilda Ann?”

“I don’t know. It just came into my head that her name was Matilda Ann.”

“Well, it isn’t.”

“Alice guessed