



Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
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                              GROWING UP

                      A Story of the Girlhood of

                           JUDITH MACKENZIE


                       By JENNIE M. DRINKWATER


                     "Each year grows more sacred
                     with wondering expectation."

                                 --Phillips Brooks.


                         A. L. BURT COMPANY,
                        PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.




                           Copyright, 1894,

                        By A. I. Bradley & Co.




CONTENTS.

    I. The Horn Book
    II. Square Root and Other Things
    III. Was this the End?
    IV. Bensalem
    V. Daily Bread and Daily Will
    VI. The Best Thing in the World
    VII. A Small Disciple
    VIII. This Way or That Way?
    IX. The Flowers That Came to the Well
    X. The Last Apple
    XI. How Jean Had an Outing
    XII. A Secret Errand
    XIII. The Two Blessed Things
    XIV. An Afternoon with an Adventure in It
    XV. "First at Antioch"
    XVI. Aunt Affy's Experience
    XVII. The Story of a Key
    XVIII. Judith's Turning Point
    XIX. A Morning with a Surprise in It
    XX. Judith's Afternoon
    XXI. Marion's Afternoon
    XXII. Aunt Affy's Evening
    XXIII. Voices
    XXIV. "I Always Thought You Cared"
    XXV. Cousin Don
    XXVI. Aunt Affy's Faith and Judith's Foreign Letter
    XXVII. His Very Best
    XXVIII. A New Anxiety
    XXIX. Judith's Future
    XXX. A Talk and What Came of It
    XXXI. About Women
    XXXII. Aunt Affy's Picture
    XXXIII. Nettie's Outing
    XXXIV. "Sensations"




                              GROWING UP




I. THE HORN BOOK.


    "I remember the lessons of childhood, you see,
    And the horn book I learned on my poor mother's knee.
    In truth, I suspect little else do we learn
    From this great book of life, which so shrewdly we turn,
    Saving how to apply, with a good or bad grace,
    What we learned in the horn book of childhood."

                                            --Owen Meredith.

Judith's mother sat in her invalid chair before the grate; she looked
very pretty to Judith with her hair curling back from her face, and
the color of her eyes and cheeks brought out by the becoming wrapper;
the firelight shone upon the mother; the fading light in the west
shone upon the girl in the bay-window, the yellow head, the blue
shoulders bent over the letter she was writing.

"Judith, come and tell me pictures."

About five o'clock in the afternoon, her mother's weariest-time,
Judith often told her mother pictures.

The picture-telling began when Judith was a little girl; one afternoon
she said: "Mother, I'll tell you a picture; shut your eyes."

It was in this very room; her mother leaned back in her wheel-chair,
lifted her feet to the fender, shut her eyes, and a small
seven-year-old "told" her "picture."

Telling pictures had been the amusement of the one, and the rest of
the other, many, many weary times since.

As the child grew, her pictures grew.

"Yes, mother," said the girl in the bay window, "I've just finished my
letter; I've written Aunt Affy the longest letter and told her all you
said."

"Read it to me, please?"

Standing near the window to catch the light, Judith read aloud the
letter.

At times it was quaint and unchildish; then, forgetting herself,
Judith had run on with her ready pen, and, with pretty phrases, told
Aunt Affy the exciting events in her own life, and the quiet story of
her mother's days.

"We are coming as soon as spring comes," she ended, "mother is coming
to get strong, and I am coming to help you and learn about your
village. Beautiful Bensalem. Mother says I am learning the lessons
taught out of school; but how I would like to go to school with Jean
Draper in your big, queer school-room." As she turned towards her
mother, the firelight and the light in her face were all the lights in
the room.

The home of these two people was in two rooms; one was the kitchen,
the other was bed-room, school-room, parlor. It was a month since her
mother had walked through the two rooms; several times a day Judith
pushed the wheel-chair through the rooms. She called these times her
mother's excursions. Last winter her mother wiped dishes, sewed a
little, and once she made cake; this winter she had done little
besides teach Judith. The child was such an apt scholar that her
mother said she needed no teacher--she always taught herself.

Judith loved housekeeping; she loved everything she had to do, she
loved everything she was growing up to do; her mother she loved best
of all.

She lived all day long in a very busy world; the pictures helped fill
it.

"Now, mother, shut your eyes," she began, gleefully.

[Illustration: "Now, mother, shut your eyes," said Judith gleefully.]

The eyes shut themselves, the restless hands held themselves still;
there would not be many more weary days, but Judith did not know that.

Judith waited a moment until she could think.

"Mother, how do pictures come?"

"Bring me that paper Don brought last night; I saw something to show
you, then forgot it."

Her mother turned the leaves of the paper and indicated the paragraph
with her finger. Judith read it aloud:--

"Some years ago I chanced to meet Sir Noel Paton on the shores of a
beautiful Scottish loch, all alone, with an open Bible in his hand. He
put his finger between his pages, as he rose to greet me, and still
kept it there as we talked. Supposing he might be devoting a quiet
hour to devotional reading in the secluded spot, I made no remark on
the nature of his studies; but after a few minutes he observed, with a
glance downwards, 'You see, I am getting a new picture.' He then
proceeded to explain that it was his habit, before settling down to
his winter's work, to walk about in the neighborhood of his summer
residence, wherever that might be, with his Bible in his hand, seeking
for an inspiration. Sometimes the inspiration came almost immediately;
at others, he was weeks before he could please himself. The following
spring appeared 'The Good Shepherd,' one of the finest of his works."

Her