Aunt Madge's Story

ing went on, from parlor to kitchen, from attic to cellar, but I knew all about it.

e wash-tub. If there was a spoon or a knife missing, Abner often found it in the ploughed field, where I had been using it as a kind of pickaxe to dig my way through to China. No matter how m

d mamma from the window

ck from under my

up all my little bones and glue 'em togedder. God glued 'em

tight: I could mo

that is the first present I remember. They filled my soul with joy. When I said my prayers I had one on each side of me, an

at, mamma, so I could h

yed my conversation, he would say in the cool spring days, "Come, Maggie, dear, bring your clo

After I got there, and was having a good time, he often

shouldn't take pains to wrap up a sp

apped up for comp'ny," retorted I, rubbing my

ed for a little brother, and I longed for a little sister. He liked to hear me talk grandly about "my

looked up to him as a superior being, except when I was angry with him, which was about half the time. I told Ruphelle Allen he was a

ig enough to shake hands. She had beautiful brown eyes, and straight, brown h

ir had of running wild, and the way my frocks had of tearing, she didn't mind s

nd jokes, I was rather unhappy about this; but concluded I had been

a "cupalo" on top, where you could look off and see the whole town, wit

white peony. There was a saucy brother Augustus, whom I never could abide, and a grandpa, who always said and did such strange t

irring it with a pudding-stick, or rolling out doughnuts, which she called crullers, and holding up a fried image, said to be a little sailor boy with a tar

ey, who often led me into mischief, but always before

ears old. My birthday came the first of May, and very proud was I when mother led me up to a lady visitor, and said, "My little girl is four years old to-day." I thought the people "up street" would ring

I go to school, then somebody comes that's a teach

then little Fel can go too." I was willing to wait, for Fel was the other half of me. In three we

skets. This was one of the greatest trials in the whole world; for, do you see, he had a pair of ears which heard altogether too much, and when we said anything which was not remarkably wise, he had a habit of crying "Pooh!" which was very provoking

be a skurrel

h!" sai

long enough to know how they feel. Once there was a boy,

a whoppe

d him a trial? But Fel didn't mind him much, for he was good to her, and never laughed at h

rm and pat our sun-bonnets, and call us "Juno's swans." We had never seen any swans, an

tones on the back, the like of which was never seen before in this world. Nobody else ever asked for the knife but us two litt

one may have the kn

ays now she was very proud of us. I think she was, for I remember how she showed us off before the committee men. We could soon read in the Second Reader, and Fel always cried about the poor blind fid

school-house, with the hacked-up benches, where we learned "rithumtick" by laying buttered paper over the pictures in Emerson's First Part, and drawing blackbirds, chairs, and cherries all in a row! Fel had a long wo

it, and peeping in to see if her hair was smooth when she expected the committee men! How afraid we were of those committee men, and ho

l-house! No other hall of learnin

r little heads, till our mothers found it out and forbade it? Didn't

r, grass'

some m

en fly

at pebbles in the

o make

o pre

o go sl

-in-t

tting as we ate, and deciding every day anew that Tempy Ann made the

father took me on h

isper any

ay my face

ispers

Totty-wax

d, and put my fi

or I began to have a dim idea tha

some of our long chats at school, that older sisters were not such blessings as one might suppose. So far as I knew anything about them, they enjoyed scrubbing your face and neck the wrong way with a rough towel, and making you cry

kes. She was such a strong, large woman too, she could hold Fel and me at the same time; and after we w

f going to Italy to give concerts when we grew up. I never saw but one fault in Tem

ow the boat, whe

in's door; the

re, so skip

en, a very lik

door, and knoc

Parlin, is Miss

to have any great boys about. If Gust should want to marry me, and ride in our gilt-edged concert-c

had some reason to suspect she went and told Madam Allen my objectio