Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/327



, in spite of her thoughtful name, her dimples, and her cheerful disposition, was a most exasperating young person to live with, for she never knew the time of day. She was generally late to meals, tardy at school, behind time at the dentist’s, and, as her brother Bob put it, could not be depended on to catch even a freight train.

The different members of the family, knowing Prudence’s failing, had presented her from time to time with clocks of various shapes and sizes, but seemingly to no purpose. Timeless Prudence wound them faithfully at night, but forgot to look at them in the morning. The little enameled watch that gave her so much pleasure on her sixteenth birthday helped matters until the novelty, but not the enamel, had worn off; but matters did not stay helped. Prudence was soon winding her watch precisely as she wound her collection of clocks, merely from force of habit. She put this little timepiece on in the morning and took it off at night just as she did her frock, and it troubled her as little throughout the day. Moreover, none of her timepieces was ever right—association with Prudence was enough, seemingly, to demoralize any clock or watch.

When her troubled family remonstrated, as I am sorry to say was frequently the case, Prudence, with all her dimples showing, would say:

“You would n’t wish me to be like Cousin Octavia, would you?”

The family, reminded of Cousin Octavia, who was not only distressingly prompt herself, but insisted upon making every one else conform to her hours, always shuddered and involuntarily exclaimed, “Oh, no.”

There finally came a moment, however, when even Prudence realized that time and punctuality are to be prized, She was entertaining a California cousin, a girl of about her own age, who went into raptures over the snow—the first she had ever seen. Prudence lived in northern Michigan, where snow is anything but a novelty. When Grace arrived, just before the holidays, the ground was well covered, but not with the