The
picture of Johnny bending over his patchwork, his serious little face
puckered into an anxious frown, as he tugged at the thread with
awkward fingers, is one of the ways they love best to think of him.
They still laugh heartily over the time when he rolled under the sofa,
work-basket and all, to escape the eyes of a gossipy neighbour, who
had knocked unexpectedly at the side door, and who stayed so long that
he fell asleep and snored loudly.
The following Saturday morning, Mrs. Marshall, going out to the barn
for a hatchet, heard voices on the other side of the partition.
Peeping through a crack, she saw a sight that confounded her.
Every boy in the neighbourhood seemed to be there, and every one was
making patchwork. One boy was dangling his feet over the manger,
several were perched on a ladder, and one was sitting cross-legged on
a huge pumpkin. Johnny was going around as Grand Inquisitor from one
to another. If a seam was puckered, he gave the unlucky seamstress
what they called a "hickey,"--a tremendous thump on the head with his
thumb and middle finger. If the stitches were big and uneven, he gave
two hickeys and a pinch, and one boy got half a dozen, because Johnny
said his dirty hands made the thread gray.
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