|Grandma Farn is getting old, and has a disease of the eye. She will be
seventy at her next birthday. She cannot see to read or to sew as well
as she used to. But she has a number of grandchildren.
She calls them her eyes. She says that they must do her seeing for her;
and they do, for they are good boys and girls, and love her very much.
The boys are larger and older, and they read aloud in the evening by the
light of the lamp. The girls are younger, and cannot read yet; though
Lucy, the eldest of the four girls, is now going to school.
The girls have found out a nice way for seeing for grandma. They take a
spool of cotton and a paper of large needles. They thread every needle
and leave it hanging on the spool. This saves their grandmother's eyes.
All she then has to do is to put away the needle when she has used
all the cotton. Then she takes another, and another, till the whole
twenty-four are used.
Then the girls thread the twenty-four again. In this way they "see for
grandma."
Grandma makes clothing for the poor. She can see enough to sew, but not
enough, even with glasses, to thread her needle.
--R. W. LOWRIE.
[Illustration: 0056]
[Illustration: 0057]
````Such a little woman,
````Busy little fingers,
`````Gravely shelling beans,
`````Eyes of sweetest blue;
````Kitty looks as she would say,
````"Don't you bother, kitty,
`````"Tell me what it means!"
`````I have work to do.=
````"You may sit and watch me
`````While I'm shelling beans;
````I am helping mother,
`````That is what it means."=
--LUCY R. FLEMING.
[Illustration: 0058]