_CONTENTS_
I. A MUSTARD SEED 9
II. THE SCHOOL-TEACHER 27
III. A NEW ROAD 47
IV. COMPANIONS 67
V. BLACKBERRIES 87
VI. THE WHITE APRON 105
VII. PATTY'S LETTER 125
VIII. A TRIP TO TOWN 143
IX. A VISIT TO PATTY 161
X. RUNNING AWAY 179
XI. A LETTER'S REPLY 199
XII. THE CHRISTMAS TREE 217
_CHAPTER I_
_A Mustard Seed_
The cat and kitten were both eating supper and Marian was watching
them. Her own supper of bread and milk she had finished, and had
taken the remains of it to Tippy and Dippy. Marian did not care very
much for bread and milk, but the cat and kitten did, as was plainly
shown by the way they hunched themselves down in front of the tin
pan into which Marian had poured their supper.
In the next room Grandpa and Grandma Otway were sitting and little
bits of their talk came to Marian's ears once in a while when her
thoughts ceased to wander in other directions. "If only one could
have faith to believe implicitly," Grandma Otway said.
"If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, and should say to that
mountain, be ye removed," quoted Grandpa Otway.
Marian sighed. They talked that way very often, she remembered, and
she herself had grown to consider it quite as difficult as did her
grandmother, to exercise complete faith. She had made numberless
mighty efforts, and yet things did not come out as she supposed they
ought. She sat gravely watching the cat and kitten lap up the last
drop of milk and carefully clean the sides of the pan in a manner
quite inelegant for humans, but no doubt entirely a matter of
etiquette in cat society, and then when Tippy, having done her
duty by the pan, turned her attention to making Dippy tidy,
Marian walked slowly away.
The sun was setting behind the hills, and touching the tops of the
trees along their base; further away the mountains were very dark
against a yellow line of sky. Marian continued her way thoughtfully
toward the garden, turned off before she reached the gate and
climbed a ladder which leaned against the side of the old brick
wall. From the ladder one could reach a long limb of a scraggy apple
tree upon which hung early apples nearly ripe. Marian went up the
ladder very carefully, taking care not to catch her frock upon a
nail or a projecting twig as she crept along the stout limb to
settle herself in a crotch of the tree. From this spot she could see
the distant sea, pinky purple, and shimmering silver.
