Under mamma’s guidance I once laboriously and secretly sewed “over and over” a gray and striped “comfort bag” for a birthday gift to papa. It was modelled on the bags made for the soldiers in the Union army when my mother was a girl. We made a special trip to Hollister to buy its contents, black and white thread, coarse needles, buttons, wax, blunt scissors, and to top off, pink and white sugary peppermint drops. That bag remained in service for twenty years, going always in father’s satchel whenever he went away. It came to my rescue once when I had torn my skirt from hem to band. As he sewed up the rent for me with nice big stitches, first on one side and then on the other, he told me it was a shoemaker’s stitch and had the advantage of bringing the edges together just as they had been originally, without puckering the cloth. Mamma used the same stitch to mend the torn pages of books and sheet music, in those days before Mr. Dennison invented his transparent tape.
Time went by slowly, slowly, as it does when one is young. All day there was play, except for the occasional stint of patchwork, or the reading lesson,—every day but Sunday, with its church in the forenoon and stories and walks in the afternoon. Mamma would say, “When I was a little girl in Maine,” until to me Maine meant Paradise. In that country there was a brook where one could wade, and the great river, on whose banks in the woods children could picnic and hunt for wild berries,—what a charm in the words, “going berrying!” Even the nest of angry hornets with their sharp stings did not lessen my enthusiasm. At San Justo there were no Martha and Susan, no Julia and Ella for me to play with,—just boys, (who seemed to answer very well for little tom-boy Sallie when Maine was not in mind).
When I heard of snow and sleighs and sleds and the wonderful attic with its cunning low curtained windows and the doll colony who lived there, I forgot the charms of the ranch and the boy play. It was nothing to me that there were horses and cows, ducks, geese and chickens. It was nothing to me that Dick and I could make figure-four traps, and, walking beyond the wool-barn, set them on the hillside for quail; that once we had the excitement of finding our trap upset, our captives gone, and great bear tracks all about. The long sunny days of freedom with the boys, the great herds of sheep that came up for shearing, the many rides with my father through the lovely valleys and over the hills were commonplace, just what I had always known. No, life in California was very tame compared with the imagined joys of Maine.
CHAPTER III
DOWN IN MAINE
Twice mamma took me to Maine to see grandmother and grandfather and Aunt Martha, once when I was two-and-a-half years old and once when I was nearly five. In each case we stayed about six months so that I became acquainted with New England in all its varying seasons.
Perhaps it was the being there just when I was forming habits of speech that has fastened upon me an unmistakable New England way of speaking, however much the pure dialect may have been corrupted by my usual western environment.
My aunt tells me that when she first saw me she could think of nothing so much as a little frisking squirrel, my dark eyes were so shining and I darted about so constantly. I couldn’t wait after my arrival at the strange place even long enough to take off hood and coat before demanding scissors with which to cut paper dolls. When the outer wraps were removed, the interested relatives saw a slender little girl, with straight yellow hair, brown eyes and a smooth skin, tanned by wind and sun.
Evidently there was much excitement attendant upon reaching grandmother’s, for when I was tucked away for a nap, with a brand new book purchased the day before in Boston to entertain me until sleep should come, I occupied myself with tearing every page into pieces the size of a quarter. I have no suggestion to offer as to why I did it. When the situation came to adult attention, papa sat down on the trunk beside the crib and gave me the only spanking he was ever known to bestow upon his family. The rope was behind the trunk. I saw it while lying across his knees.
The ill-fated book was not the only purchase made in Boston. Mamma and I had our pictures taken, and bought clothes for the cold winter ahead. I had a bottle-green dress and a bottle-green coat to match, also stockings and bonnet. They put me up on the counter to try the things on me, and I was glad when mamma chose the velvet bonnet with a white ruche and little pink roses, for I liked it best of all. Then there were kid gloves, dark green and white, both of which I hated, because my poor little fingers buckled when they were put on. When I was taken to call on the cousins in Beacon Street, I was dressed up in all the regalia, even to the white gloves. Alas, there was a coping beside the steps, just the right height for a hand-rail for me, and unfortunately, dust is black even in Boston. Missy was in disgrace when she reached the front door. She was better adapted to play in mud pies than formal calls.
Even if I liked dirt and freedom, I also liked clothes well enough to remember those I have had, so that now I would venture to reconstruct a continuous series of them, extending back to babyhood. An early favorite was of scarlet cashmere, cut in “Gabrielle” style, with scalloped neck, sleeves and hem, buttonholed with black silk, and on the front an embroidered bunch of barley, acorns and roses. With this dress went a little white fur overcoat, cap and muff, all trimmed with a narrow edge of black fur. So much for clothes. They were ordinarily buried under aprons.