The sun ascended meanwhile, from the edge of a little pond covered with water-lilies. I was intoxicated with joy. The feeling of that morning is as fresh to-day as when I related this to my father. I know I walked till I got fairly tired, and we reached a solitary house beyond the park.
Probably fatigue took entire possession of me, for I remember nothing more till we were on our way home and the sun was setting. Then I begged for some large yellow plums which I saw in the stores. My father bought some, but gave me only a few. I had a desire for all and stole them secretly from his pockets, so that when we reached home, I had eaten them all.
I was sick after I went to bed, and remember taking some horrible stuff the next morning (probably rhubarb), thus ending the day which had opened so poetically in rather a prosaic manner.
When I repeated this, my parents laughed and said that I was only twenty-six months old when my father’s pride in his oldest child induced him to take me on this visit, and that I walked the whole way—a distance of about nine miles.
These anecdotes are worth preserving only because they indicate an impressionable nature and great muscular endurance.
It is peculiar that between these two events and a third which occurred a year after, everything should be a blank.
A little brother was then born to me, and he lay undressed upon a cushion, while my father cried with sobs. I had just completed my third year and could not understand why, the next day, this little thing was carried off in a black box. From that time I remember almost every day’s life.
I very soon began to manifest the course of my natural tendencies. Like most little girls I was well provided with dolls, and on the day after a new one came into my possession I generally discovered that the dear little thing was ill and needed to be nursed and doctored.
Porridges and teas were accordingly cooked on my little toy stove, and administered to the poor doll until the papier mâché was thoroughly saturated and broken, when she was considered dead and preparations were made for her burial—this ceremony being repeated over and over again.
White dresses were put on for the funeral; a cricket was turned upside down to serve as the coffin; my mother’s flower pots furnished the green leaves for decoration; and I delivered the funeral oration in praise of the little sufferer while placing her in the tomb improvised of chairs.