I have other memories of that fire-place. Once, during the first visit, mamma left me for a few days in the care of my inexperienced aunt, of whom I took advantage. I assured her that my mother every night rubbed my chest with camphorated oil and gave me a spoonful of Hive’s cough syrup. Evidently I had recently enjoyed a cold. So every night I got my oil rub and the sweet sticky dose, and, wrapped in an old shawl and called a “little brown sausage,” was rocked during some blissful minutes of story-telling. Mamma was shocked when she returned to find the empty bottle and to know the whereabouts of its contents.
Still another fire-place memory,—papa was taking care of me in this room, and was having so good a time reading and smoking that I thought I would do the same. I climbed up and took from the mantel a pretty twisted paper lamp-lighter, then seated myself beside him, put my feet as high as I could on my side of the fireplace, adjusted my newspaper, lighted my cigar, and in mouthing it about, managed to set my front hair on fire. That attracted papa’s attention to his job.
Soon the time approached for us to be starting west again. Hardly had we reached Chicago when there was a dangerous fire in the business section; it was not so long after the great fire that people had forgotten the terror and panic of it. So we must flee the hotel, although papa kept saying that if men would tear up the carpets and wet them and hang them outside the building they might save it. Mamma dressed me and packed the trunk as fast as she could, and I went out into the hall and looked down the elevator well, where the door had been left open. It was the first chance I had ever had to see what a deep hole it was, but mamma called me to come back, and I thought she was frightened to see me leaning over and looking down. We went away in Uncle Jo’s buggy through streets filled with pushing shouting people, and, as we looked back, all the sky was red with fire. We went to a small boarding house over by the lake, and all there was in it was a red balloon, many mosquitoes and a wonderful talking doll that the dear uncle brought me.
San Francisco came next, a few days at the Grand Hotel, a ride on the octagonal street car that diagonaled off from Market Street, a visit to Woodward’s Gardens, and then home by train and stage. It was good after all to get back to California. Here was our own sitting-room, with its white marble mantel, its dainty flowered carpet and its lace curtains. On the wall were colored pictures of Yosemite and a Sunset at Sea, and engravings of L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, all hanging by crimson cords with tassels. I liked the dancing girl better, but mamma preferred the sad one.
I was also glad to get back to my old toys, my book about Ten Little Indians, and the boy cousins who lived at the other end of the house. And here, soon, came little sister, who was the cunningest baby that ever was. They rolled her up so close in blankets that Aunt Francina was afraid she would be smothered. I didn’t want her to be smothered. What a long time it does take for a baby to grow up enough to play with a person born three years ahead of her!
Two years later mamma took me and little Anne back again to Maine, for she had had letters telling her that grandmother was very ill. It was a harder trip with two children and so my mother planned to simplify it in every possible way. She invented for us traveling dresses of a medium brown serge, with bloomers to match, a whole generation before such dresses came into general favor for little girls. With these, fewer bags and satchels were necessary, and we looked as well dressed at the end as at the beginning of the journey; and, moreover, I was able to stand on my head modestly, whenever I felt like it. I am glad that I did not have to be mother of restless me on such a long, confined trip; I am also glad that restless I had a mother who could cut out such fascinating paper boxes and tell stories and think of thousands of things to do. Perhaps having two children to take care of kept mamma from grieving so much about her mother.
I realized little about the illness, because, except for a daily good-morning call, we children were kept out of the sick room, usually playing out-of-doors. We rolled down the grassy slope in the south yard, or drove about in the low basket phaeton along the winding, shady roads. Sometimes we had a picnic,—I remember especially the one on my fifth birthday. Georgie Hill, who helped Aunt Martha with the house work, made a wonderful cake, which contained a button, a thimble, a penny, and a ring; in some very satisfying way, the section containing the ring came to me. I had always wanted a ring. I was happy, happy, and then the very next day I lost it, making mud pies with Annie Allen. I never had another ring until I was grown up, not even a bracelet, which might have consoled me. But if I had had either I probably would have had to suffer the sorrows of separation, since it was my habit to lose my treasures. My gold pins are sowed up and down the earth; my sister still has every one she owned. Perhaps it was in recognition of my capacity to mislay things, and to encourage stoical acceptance of the situation, that led grandfather to write in my autograph album:
“My little grand-daughter,
Just do as you ought to,
Neither worry nor fret