{"product_id":"2940012760494","title":"THE POTATO CHILD \u0026 OTHERS","description":"Contents\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     The Potato Child\u003cbr\u003e     A Story That Never Ends\u003cbr\u003e     A Nazareth Christmas\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Potato Child\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was certain that Elsie had a very hard and solitary life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Miss Amanda had selected her from among the girls at \"The Home,\"\u003cbr\u003ethe motherly matron felt sorry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"She is a tender-hearted little thing, and a kind word goes a great way\u003cbr\u003ewith Elsie.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMiss Amanda looked at the matron as if she were speaking Greek, and said\u003cbr\u003enothing. It was quite plain that few words, either kind or unkind, would\u003cbr\u003epass Miss Amanda's lips. But \"The Home\" was more than full, and Miss\u003cbr\u003eAmanda Armstrong was a person well known as the leading dressmaker in\u003cbr\u003ethe city, a person of some money; not obliged to work now if she didn't\u003cbr\u003ewish to. \"If cold, she is at least perfectly just,\" they all said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo Elsie went to work for Miss Amanda, and lived in the kitchen. She\u003cbr\u003ewaited on the door, washed the dishes, cleaned the vegetables, and\u003cbr\u003eset the table (Miss Amanda lived alone, and ate in the kitchen). Every\u003cbr\u003eFriday she swept the house. Her bed was in a little room in the back\u003cbr\u003eattic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen she came, Miss Amanda handed her a dress and petticoat, and a pair\u003cbr\u003eof shoes. \"These are to last six months,\" she said, \"and see you\u003cbr\u003ekeep yourself clean.\" She gave her also one change of stockings and\u003cbr\u003eunderclothes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Here is your room; you do not need a light to go to bed by, and it is\u003cbr\u003enot healthy to sleep under too many covers.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt wasn't so much what Miss Amanda did to her, for she never struck her,\u003cbr\u003enor in any way ill-treated her; nor was it so much what she said, for\u003cbr\u003eshe said almost nothing. But she said it all in commands, and the loving\u003cbr\u003elittle Elsie was just driven into herself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe had had a darling mother, full of love and tenderness, and Elsie\u003cbr\u003ewould say to herself, \"I must not forget the things mama told me, 'Love\u003cbr\u003ecan never die, and kind words can never die.'\" But she had no one to\u003cbr\u003elove, and she never heard any kind words; so she was a bit worried.\u003cbr\u003e\"I shall forget how kind words sound, and I shall forget how to love,\"\u003cbr\u003esighed the little girl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe used to long for a doll or cat or something she could call her own\u003cbr\u003eand talk to. She asked Miss Amanda, who said \"No.\" She added, \"I have\u003cbr\u003eno money to give for such foolishness as a doll, and a cat would eat its\u003cbr\u003ehead off.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMiss Amanda had been blessed with no little-girl time. When she was\u003cbr\u003eyoung, she always had been forced to work hard, and she thought it was\u003cbr\u003eno worse for Elsie than it had been for herself. I don't suppose it was;\u003cbr\u003ebut one looking in on these two could not but feel for both of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElsie would try to talk to herself a little at night, but it was\u003cbr\u003echeerless. Then she would lift up her knee, and draw the sheet about it\u003cbr\u003efor a hood, and call it a little girl. She named it Nancy Pullam, and\u003cbr\u003ewould try to love that; but it almost broke her back when she tried to\u003cbr\u003ehug Nancy. \"Oh, if I had something to be good to\"! she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo she began greeting the ladies, when she opened the door, with a\u003cbr\u003echeerful little \"Good morning\" or \"Good afternoon.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I wouldn't do that,\" said Miss Amanda, \"it looks forward and pert. It\u003cbr\u003eis their place to say 'Good morning,' not yours. You have no occasion\u003cbr\u003eto speak to your betters, and, anyway, children should be seen and not\u003cbr\u003eheard.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne day, a never-forgotten day, she went down cellar to the bin of\u003cbr\u003epotatoes to select some for dinner. She was sorting them over and laying\u003cbr\u003eout all of one size, when she took up quite a long one, and lo! it had a\u003cbr\u003elittle face on it and two eyes and a little hump between for a nose and\u003cbr\u003ea long crack below that made a very pretty mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElsie looked at it joyfully. \"It will make me a child,\" she said, \"no\u003cbr\u003ematter if it has no arms or legs; the face is everything.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe carefully placed it at the end of the bin, and whenever she could\u003cbr\u003eslip away without neglecting her work would run down cellar and talk\u003cbr\u003esoftly to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut one day her potato-child was gone! Elsie's heart gave a big jump,\u003cbr\u003eand then fell like lead, and seemed to lie perfectly still; but it\u003cbr\u003ecommenced to beat again, beat and ache, beat and ache!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe tried to look for the changeling; but the tears made her so that\u003cbr\u003eshe couldn't see very well; and there were so many potatoes! She looked\u003cbr\u003eevery moment she had a chance all the next day, and cried a great deal.\u003cbr\u003e\"I can never be real happy again,\" she thought.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Don't cry any more,\" said Miss Amanda, \"it does not look well when you\u003cbr\u003eopen the door for my customers. You have enough to eat and wear; what\u003cbr\u003emore do you want?\"","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47158354411760,"sku":"2940012760494","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012760494_p0.jpg?v=1763571993","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012760494","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}