82 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
I shall give you every chance to ask questions and tell 
anything that you have noticed about birds or such little 
wild beasts as we have hereabouts, for you know it is a 
very one-sided sort of meeting where one person does all 
the talking. 
“T may be a sober-minded Gray Lady, but I very well 
know how tiresome it is to sit still for a couple of hours, 
even if one is listening to something interesting. I think 
that one can hear so very much better if the fingers are 
busy. So, with Ann Hughes’ help, I am going to give the 
girls some plain, useful sewing to do, patchwork, gingham 
cooking-aprons, and the like. This plain sewing will be 
Friday work. On the Saturday mornings that you come 
to me you shall have something more interesting to work 
upon, — that is, as many of you as prove that they know 
a little about handling a needle. You shall learn to dress 
dolls and make any number of pretty things besides.” 
“T haven’t got any thimble,” said little Clara Hinks, 
called ‘‘Clary”’ for short, in a quavering voice. ‘‘Grandma 
is going to give me a real silver one when I’m eight, but 
that won’t be until next spring, and now I have to borrow 
my big sister Livvie’s when I sew my patchwork, and it’s 
too big, and it wiggles, and the needle often goes sideways 
into my finger. Besides, she wouldn’t let me bring it to 
school, ’cause it’s got her ’nitials inside a heart on one side 
of it, and George Parsons gave it to her, an’ anyways she’s 
using it all the time, ’cause she’s sewing her weddin’ things 
terrible fast.’ 
Gray Lady had great difficulty to keep from laughing 
outright at this burst of confidence, but she never hurt 
any one’s feelings, and her lips merely curved into a quiz- 
