Aunt Madge's Story

Here you sit, Horace, Prudy, Dotty, and Flyaway, all waiting for a story. How shall I begin? I cannot remember the events of my life in right order, so I shall have to tell them as they come into my mind. Let us see. To go back to the long, long summer, when I was a child:
There once lived and moved a little try-patience, called Margaret Parlin; no more nor less a personage than myself, your affectionate auntie, and very humble servant. I was as restless a baby as ever sat on a papa's knee and was trotted to Boston. When I cried, my womanly sister 'Ria, seven years old, thought I was very silly; and my brother Ned, aged four, said, Div her a pill; I would!
He thought pills would cure naughtiness. If so, I ought to have swallowed some. Pity they didn't div me a whole box full before I began to creep; for I crept straight into mischief. Aunt Persis, a very proper woman, with glittering black eyes, was more shocked by me than words can tell. She said your grandma spoiled me by baby-talk; it was very wrong to let little ones hear baby-talk. If she had had the care of me she would have taught me grammar from the cradle. No doubt of it; but unfortunately I had to grow up with my own father and mother, and ever so many other folks, who were not half as wise as Aunt Persis.
They called me Marg'et, Maggie, Marjie, Madge; and your grandpa's pet name was Totty-wax; only, if I joggled the floor when he shaved, it was full-length Mar-ga-ret.
I was a sad little minx, so everybody kindly informed me, and so I fully believed. My motto in my little days seems to have been, Speak twice before you think once ; and you will see what troubles it led me into. I never failed to speak twice, but often forgot the thinking altogether. Margaret means Daisy; but if I was like any flower at all, I should say it was the lady in the bower. You know it, Prudy, how it peeps out from a tangle of little tendrils? Just so I peeped out, and was dimly seen, through a wild, flying head of hair. Your grandma was ashamed of me, for if she cut off my hair I was taken for a boy, and if she let it grow, there was danger of my getting a squint in my eye. Sometimes I ran into the house very much grieved, and said,—