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.