But when a little later my world grew larger, and knowledge increased, I found that this precious aunt of mine did not belong entirely to us as I had supposed. She had another world in which she moved and had her being when she went from us from time to time; or when at certain hours in the day she shut herself within a room that was sacredly known as a "study," and wrote for a long time, while we all tried to keep still; and in this other world of hers she was known as "Pansy." It was a world that loved and honored her, a world that gave her homage and flowers, and wrote her letters by the hundreds each week.
It was not long, too, before I had learned to preen myself like a young peacock because I "belonged" to her, and I am afraid I felt a superior pity and contempt for the thousands of other children who read her paper called "The Pansy" which she edited, but who did not "belong" to her. They could only write letters to her, while I could often be with her every day, sometimes for weeks, and could talk with her all I pleased.
As I grew still older and learned to read I devoured her stories chapter by chapter. Even sometimes page by page as they came hot from the typewriter; occasionally stealing in for an instant when she left the study, to snatch the latest page and see what happened next; or to accost her as her morning's work was done, with: "Oh, have you finished another chapter?"
And often the whole family would crowd around, leaving their work when the word went around that the last chapter was finished and it was going to be read aloud. And now we listened, breathless, as she read, and made her characters live before us. They were real people to us, as real as if they lived and breathed before us.
She was at the height of her popularity just then, and the letters that poured in at every mail were overwhelming. Asking for her autograph and her photograph, begging for pieces of her best dress to sew into patchwork; begging for advice how to become a great author; begging for advice on every possible subject, from how to get the right kind of a husband, to how to stop biting one's nails.
And she answered them all!
It was a Herculean task. Sometimes she let us help her when she was very much rushed, but usually she kept her touch on every letter that went out—and they were thousands.
Then there was the editorship of "The Pansy," a young people's paper which was responsible for more thousands of letters from the children who had joined the Pansy Society, and who wrote to her about their faults and how to give them up, "For Jesus' Sake," which was their motto.
Sometimes I look back on her long and busy life and marvel what she has accomplished.
She was a marvelous housekeeper, knowing every dainty detail of her home to perfection; able to cook anything in the world just a little better than anybody else—except my mother and her—; able to set fine stitches in patches and darning that were works of art; able to make even dishwashing fun!