ΤΟ

MARY, EMILY, NELLIE, AND CHARLOTTE

AND ALL MY LITTLE GIRL FRIENDS

Here is Pussy WILLOW in a book, just as I have promised you she should be. I send her to you as a CHRISTMAS and NEW YEAR'S PRESENT, and I hope that you will all grow up to be nice good girls like her, with bright healthy faces and cheerful hearts, and the gift of always seeing

The Bright Side of Everything

Your loving friend

H. B. STOWE

83

LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW.

I.

Na retired town of New England was a certain little green hollow

among high hills; and in this

little hollow stood an old brown farm-house. It was built two stories high in front, but the roof sloped a long way down behind, till it came so near the ground that anyone of you might have jumped off from it without frightening the most anxious mamma.

As I have said, this house stood in a little hollow formed by ever so many high hills, which

B

rose around it much as waves rise around a little boat in stormy weather; they looked, in fact, like green waves that had been suddenly stopped and hardened into mountains and hills. Upon their sides grew forests of pines, besides chestnut, hickory, ash, and maple trees, which gave them a charming variety through most of the months of the year. The rocks, too, in many places were perfectly veiled and covered with the bright, glossy green leaves of the rose-laurel, while underneath, the crevices were full of fern, saxifrage, rock-columbine, and all sorts of lovely things, which were most charming to explore, if one had energy enough to hunt them up.

The house had no yard round it, but stood on a smooth green turfy knoll, and was shaded by a great elm-tree, whose long branches arched over, and seemed like a broad, leafy sky. In summer this was pleasant enough, for the morning sun sent straight arrows of gold hither and. thither between the boughs and branches, and