That settled the matter. Father Underhill did not care to give her up anyhow, and he was best pleased with this plan. Mrs. Underhill imagined she had so many things to do, as mothers of households did in those days, and somehow she did not like to hurry Hanny about as she had Margaret. There really was not so much sewing. Joe insisted upon ordering his shirts made; and Margaret had sent Ben half-a-dozen for Christmas. Then Barbara was very efficient, and, with true German thrift, improved every moment. She insisted on darning the stockings and knitting the woollen ones for winter. She was also a very neat hand at sewing.
Mrs. Underhill had learned another lesson in her city life. There were a good many poor people who really needed work, and she found it a much wiser plan to give them employment and pay them for it, and advise them to lay in coal and various other matters for winter. She was not a stingy woman; but she did not believe in confirming people in indolent habits.
Martha came often to see them; and at times she felt almost jealous of Barbara. But she had a very pleasant home, and her stepchildren proved tractable. She did a good deal of church work, and through her Mrs. Underhill heard of really worthy poor people.
Hanny wasn't a bit enthusiastic about going to West Farms.
"Janey and Polly seem so childish," she said to her brother Joe.
"And you are getting to be a little old woman. We don't want you to turn old and grey before your time, and have to wear spectacles and all that."
"But I can see the least little thing," protested the child, earnestly. "And if I do go, can't I take my 'Queens of England' with me? I had so many lessons that I couldn't read them as I wanted to."
Margaret had sent the volumes to her for a birthday gift. She had just skimmed through them, and was saving them up for her leisure time. Everybody was talking about them, and recommending them to girls. Miss Strickland certainly knew how to interest readers.
Doctor Joe shook his head, with a sort of mirthful regret which couldn't help but soothe the disappointment a little.
"I don't want you to read or to study, but just run out in the sunshine and get fat. If we have such a poor pale little thing in our family, people will wonder if I really am a good physician."