A Yankee Girl at Shiloh

								

most little girls never learn; so now she examined the wheel with so
serious a face that Mrs. Bragg looked at her in amazement.
“If I had a screw-driver and an oil-can I believe I could fix it,” she
declared.
“Fer the land’s sake!” muttered Mrs. Bragg. “We never saw a
screw-driver, but there’s a broken knife that’ll twist a screw mighty
fine.”
“Perhaps that would do,” Berry responded gravely, and Mollie ran off
to find the broken knife, while Berry peered under the wheel-bench to
make sure that she understood the simple movement of the wheel.
Mrs. Bragg watched Berry as the little girl carefully loosened and
adjusted the axle on which the wheel turned, until it would move, but
it did not move smoothly.
“It needs a drop of oil!” Berry announced.
But the Bragg cabin could furnish nothing better than a bit of melted
tallow, and Mrs. Bragg declared that far superior to oil, and hastened
to prepare it, and at last, to the amazement and delight of Mrs. Bragg
and Mollie, and to Berry’s great satisfaction, the big wheel revolved
as swiftly as ever.
“I reckon you know ter do sich things, Berry, on account of being a
Yankee girl,” Mrs. Bragg declared admiringly. “Steve says folks up
North prides theirselves on workin’, an’ on inventin’ ways ter make
work. I declar’ to it, I’ll have ter rest a spell,” and Mrs. Bragg
sank down on a wooden bench near the door.
“Maw, tell Berry that story you tole me ’bout the selfish mouse,” said
Mollie. “Maw kin tell gran’ stories, Berry,” the little girl continued
eagerly. “W’en we wus off up in the mountains she used ter tell a new
one mos’ every night.”
Berry’s face brightened at the prospect of a story, and Mrs. Bragg
said she would tell it as nearly as she could remember it.
“It’s ’bout a mouse that jes’ was set on gettin’ all he could fer
hisself,” she explained. “This mouse lived with his mother an’ four
brothers in a fine cabin whar thar was a big cupboard. Thar was cakes
an’ cheese an’ nice white bread, an’ cold meat; an’, like as not, thar
was raisins an’ nuts in that thar cupboard. But the door was allers
kep’ shut tight, an’ thar was a big white cat that, seemingly, was
allers lurkin’ roun’ that pantry door. So Mother Mouse warned her
children to be satisfied with the crumbs they could pick up ’roun’ the
kitchen. But one day one of the little mice found that the door was
open and he slipped in, an’ ’twa’n’t a minute afore that little mouse
found a big round cheese an’ began to nibble it; an’ he was so busy
and so happy that he didn’t hear the cupboard door shut, or notice
that ’twas dark.
“Wal, Mother Mouse didn’t miss him fer a considerable spell, bein’
busy collectin’ grain jest outside the cabin. But when it began ter
get dark she calls fer the young ones so’s to settle down fer the
night, an’ she finds one of ’em don’ come. The first thing Mother