Chapter THE SEVENTH: The School Room

The morning business being finished, Miss _Lydia_ and her Mamma set out, accompanied by little _Edwin_. They found the good woman in an exceedingly neat, comfortable room, surrounded by a number of little forms, on which sat about twenty very orderly children, among whom were her own little boy and girl. The little girl was marking a sampler, and the little boy looking at the alphabet in a spelling-book. At the sight of the lady and her children, they all rose up, and Mrs. _Brush_ would have sent them away, as school was almost done; but Miss _Lydia_ and her Mamma both begged they might sit down again. They looked at their works, examined their books, and Miss _Lydia_’s Mamma asked Mrs. _Brush_ many questions about her own children, and her scholars, while the little girl was very busy looking over _Sally_, and seeing her make words upon her sampler. _Edwin_ employed himself in admiring a parrot which hung in the corner of the room, and which repeated b, a, ba, c, a, ca, d, a, da, and so on, as he had learnt by hearing the children; and was indeed an apter scholar than some of them. Upon a hint from her Mamma, Miss _Lydia_ presented to Mrs. _Brush_ the books she had brought, which were _The good Child’s Delight_, _Short Conversations_, and _Familiar Dialogues_, together with the books before-mentioned, which her Mamma had brought.

For the little girl Miss _Lydia_ reserved _First Principles of Religion_, a book which her Mamma esteemed very highly indeed, and preferred to any other book of the kind, but which she did not put into her hands till she had altered some few passages; which, though written with the best intention in the world, appeared to her to speak of the Deity in words too free to be put even into the mouth of an ignorant child. _Lydia_ had not forgotten the little boy, to whom she gave the _Universal Shuttlecock_. You may be sure these presents were received with many thanks; and Mrs. _Brush_ afterwards asked her visiters to walk in her garden, showed them a nice brood of chickens, and gave Miss _Lydia_ some cabbage to feed two rabbits that were in a hutch: she then took them to her bee-hives, where the little bees were all in a cluster at the door, or buzzing about and sipping sweetness out of the flowers, to make honey for their winter provision.

I have heard my sister, said _Lydia_, repeat some verses about killing the poor bees and taking their honey.

I do not kill them Miss, said Mrs. _Brush_, I have been taught to use some fumes which will stupify them for a time, and then I take their honey, only leaving them a little to live upon, and they soon revive; and if, in the winter, when there are no flowers, I cannot spare them honey enough, I feed them with sugar and water. The greatest part of my honey I have sold; but when we go in, if you please, you shall taste the remainder.

The young people were permitted to take a little of the offered honey, which was nicely spread on a thin bit of home-baked bread. The lady made a present of some money to the good woman, and they then took their leave of Mrs. _Brush_ and the children.