{"product_id":"2940013500488","title":"UNDERSTOOD BETSY","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  I    Aunt Harriet Has a Cough\u003cbr\u003e  II   Betsy Holds the Reins\u003cbr\u003e  III  A Short Morning\u003cbr\u003e  IV   Betsy Goes to School\u003cbr\u003e  V    What Grade is Betsy?\u003cbr\u003e  VI   If You Don't Like Conversation in a Book Skip this Chapter!\u003cbr\u003e  VII  Elizabeth Ann Fails in an Examination\u003cbr\u003e  VIII Betsy Starts a Sewing Society\u003cbr\u003e  IX   The New Clothes Fail\u003cbr\u003e  X    Betsy Has a Birthday\u003cbr\u003e  XI   \"Understood Aunt Frances\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eILLUSTRATIONS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUncle Henry looked at her, eying her sidewise\u003cbr\u003eover the top of one spectacle-glass    Frontispiece\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElizabeth Ann stood up before the doctor.\u003cbr\u003e\"Do you know,\" said Aunt Abigail, \"I think\u003cbr\u003eit's going to be real nice, having a little girl\u003cbr\u003ein the house again\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe had greatly enjoyed doing her own hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh, he's asking for more!\" cried Elizabeth Ann\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBetsy shut her teeth together hard, and started across\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What's the matter, Molly? What's the matter?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBetsy and Ellen and the old doll\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had fallen asleep with his head on his arms\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever were dishes washed better!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBetsy was staring down at her shoes, biting her\u003cbr\u003elips and winking her eyes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAUNT HARRIET HAS A COUGH\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen this story begins, Elizabeth Ann, who is the heroine of it, was a\u003cbr\u003elittle girl of nine, who lived with her Great-aunt Harriet in a\u003cbr\u003emedium-sized city in a medium-sized State in the middle of this country;\u003cbr\u003eand that's all you need to know about the place, for it's not the\u003cbr\u003eimportant thing in the story; and anyhow you know all about it because\u003cbr\u003eit was probably very much like the place you live in yourself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElizabeth Ann's Great-aunt Harriet was a widow who was not very rich or\u003cbr\u003every poor, and she had one daughter, Frances, who gave piano lessons to\u003cbr\u003elittle girls. They kept a \"girl\" whose name was Grace and who had asthma\u003cbr\u003edreadfully and wasn't very much of a \"girl\" at all, being nearer fifty\u003cbr\u003ethan forty. Aunt Harriet, who was very tender-hearted, kept her chiefly\u003cbr\u003ebecause she couldn't get any other place on account of her coughing so\u003cbr\u003eyou could hear her all over the house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo now you know the names of all the household. And this is how they\u003cbr\u003elooked: Aunt Harriet was very small and thin and old, Grace was very\u003cbr\u003esmall and thin and middle-aged, Aunt Frances (for Elizabeth Ann called\u003cbr\u003eher \"Aunt,\" although she was really, of course, a\u003cbr\u003efirst-cousin-once-removed) was small and thin and if the light wasn't\u003cbr\u003etoo strong might be called young, and Elizabeth Ann was very small and\u003cbr\u003ethin and little. And yet they all had plenty to eat. I wonder what was\u003cbr\u003ethe matter with them?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was certainly not because they were not good, for no womenkind in all\u003cbr\u003ethe world had kinder hearts than they. You have heard how Aunt Harriet\u003cbr\u003ekept Grace (in spite of the fact that she was a very depressing person)\u003cbr\u003eon account of her asthma; and when Elizabeth Ann's father and mother\u003cbr\u003eboth died when she was a baby, although there were many other cousins\u003cbr\u003eand uncles and aunts in the family, these two women fairly rushed upon\u003cbr\u003ethe little baby-orphan, taking her home and surrounding her henceforth\u003cbr\u003ewith the most loving devotion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey had said to themselves that it was their manifest duty to save the\u003cbr\u003edear little thing from the other relatives, who had no idea about how to\u003cbr\u003ebring up a sensitive, impressionable child, and they were sure, from the\u003cbr\u003eway Elizabeth Ann looked at six months, that she was going to be a\u003cbr\u003esensitive, impressionable child. It is possible also that they were a\u003cbr\u003elittle bored with their empty life in their rather forlorn, little brick\u003cbr\u003ehouse in the medium-sized city, and that they welcomed the occupation\u003cbr\u003eand new interests which a child would bring in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut they thought that they chiefly desired to save dear Edward's child\u003cbr\u003efrom the other kin, especially from the Putney cousins, who had written\u003cbr\u003edown from their Vermont farm that they would be glad to take the little\u003cbr\u003egirl into their family. But \"ANYTHING but the Putneys!\" said Aunt\u003cbr\u003eHarriet, a great many times. They were related only by marriage to her,\u003cbr\u003eand she had her own opinion of them as a stiffnecked, cold-hearted,\u003cbr\u003eundemonstrative, and hard set of New Englanders. \"I boarded near them\u003cbr\u003eone summer when you were a baby, Frances, and I shall never forget the\u003cbr\u003eway they were treating some children visiting there! ... Oh, no, I don't\u003cbr\u003emean they abused them or beat them ... but such lack of sympathy, such\u003cbr\u003eperfect indifference to the sacred sensitiveness of child-life, such a\u003cbr\u003estarving of the child-heart ... No, I shall never forget it! They had\u003cbr\u003echores to do ... as though they had been hired men!\"","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079507951856,"sku":"2940013500488","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013500488_p0.jpg?v=1763582263","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013500488","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}