Circulating Decimals by Pansy

IF you please, now, go back with me to the early summer in which the first spasm of interest in regard to the library took hold of the young people. The new superintendent, unwittingly, perhaps, set the ball to rolling, by remarking that the library had been closed and locked by vote of the executive committee of the school, until such time as there were found to be any books worth giving out. Then, among those who had looked at each other and shaken their heads in disapproval of such a state of things, were the young ladies in Mrs. Jones's class,-ten of them. They occupied the corner down by the door, between the door and the east window; a corner that was cold in winter and warm in summer; a corner that other classes shunned. Perhaps that will give you a hint in regard to Mrs. Jones's class. They were young ladies belonging to a certain clique. None of them wealthy, none of them even well-to-do, in the sense which you probably mean by that term. They represented comfortable homes, where the fathers worked hard, daily, for daily needs, where the mothers took their share of daily burdens, where the daughters did what they could to help lighten the burdens of both.

For instance, one was a sewing girl, and went every day among the fine houses on the fashionable streets to do plain sewing. Another was a milliner's apprentice, and in the busy season worked over bonnets from seven o'clock of a Monday morning often until twelve o'clock of a Saturday night. The fact was, she knew some of the Penn Avenue Sabbath-school teachers who had their bonnets sent home in the gray dawn of the Sabbath morning, because they must have them for that day's worship. Another managed the entire culinary and kitchen department for a large family, in order that the mother might sit all day, and sew (on the many garments which were brought to her, to cut and fit, and repair and make). Still another was clerk in a fancy store, and knew much about the pretty things that less busy girls than she were fond of making. Two were teachers in the graded school and spent their Saturdays in helping with the family ironing, to relieve an over-burdened mother. Workers they were, every one; not a drone in the hive. By common consent they were almost entirely counted out of the "fancy department," as they had named the young ladies' society. They had not time for fancy work, neither did they move in the same circle with the fancy workers. Oh, they attended the same church, and were on friendly enough terms with the young people, at least with those whom they knew sufficiently to exchange bows when they met on the street; they met nowhere else save in church. I am sure you know all about those subtle, oftentimes mysterious, yet plainly defined, society distinctions. They are to be found in every village, however small, as well as in our largest cities.