She stopped in
dismay, looking at the shapeless, battered heap of butter before her and
holding out her hands as though they were not part of her.
Aunt Abigail laughed, took up the paddle, and after three or four passes
the butter was a smooth, yellow ball. "Well, that brings it all back to
me!" she said? "when _I_ was a little girl, when my grandmother first
let me try to make a pat. I was about five years old--my! what a mess I
made of it! And I remember? doesn't it seem funny--that SHE laughed and
said her Great-aunt Elmira had taught her how to handle butter right
here in this very milk-room. Let's see, Grandmother was born the year
the Declaration of Independence was signed. That's quite a while ago,
isn't it? But butter hasn't changed much, I guess, nor little girls
either."
Elizabeth Ann listened to this statement with a very queer, startled
expression on her face, as though she hadn't understood the words. Now
for a moment she stood staring up in Aunt Abigail's face, and yet not
seeing her at all, because she was thinking so hard. She was thinking!
"Why! There were real people living when the Declaration of Independence
was signed--real people, not just history people--old women teaching
little girls how to do things--right in this very room, on this very
floor--and the Declaration of Independence just signed!"
To tell the honest truth, although she had passed a very good
examination in the little book on American history they had studied in
school, Elizabeth Ann had never to that moment had any notion that there
ever had been really and truly any Declaration of Independence at all.
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