Charles has the opportunity to earn $50 by helping run new telephone lines for 30 days. While he's away, Laura and Albert's time is used up with doing extra chores. Caroline is also busy and doesn't have time to deal with Carrie, so she is sent off on her own with some trivial job to do. She goes to pick some strawberries, but when she sees how little they are, she figures it will take her all day to pick enough for a pie. She falls asleep and dreams that a beautiful girl who looks just like her, named Alyssa, takes her to a world where there are strawberries as big as she is along with other fruits. But, then she is awakened because she dreams there is a huge angry bug chasing her on that fruit. She goes home. The next day, she is sent to go fishing and Alyssa takes her to Heaven to see their old dog Jack. The next day she has decided to use her Christmas penny to buy some licorice to share with Pa who should be coming home soon, but she drops the penny in the field, so she dreams that Alyssa makes it big enough for her to sleep on so she can find it easily. She wakes up with it in her hand. Carrie has trouble deciding if Alyssa is just her fairy tale friend or if she is real.
—Anonymous