As I look back upon those make-believe days, naughty recollections spring up as fast as dust in August.
Ruphelle seems to me like a little white lily of the valley, all pure and sweet, but I was no more fit to be with her than a prickly thistle. I loved dearly to tease her. Once she had some bronze shoes, and I wanted some too, but there were none to be had in town, and to console myself, I said to dear little Fel, "I'd twice rather have black shoes, bronzes look so rusty; O, my! If I couldn't have black shoes I'd go barefoot."
Fel did not wish me to see how ashamed this made her feel, but I could not help noticing afterwards that she never wore the bronze shoes to church.
I pined and fretted because I could not have nice things like her. She had a coral necklace, and a blue silk bonnet, and a white dress, with flowers worked all over it with a needle. Did my best dress have flowers worked over it with a needle? I should think not. And I hadn't a speck of a necklace, nor any bonnet but just straw. I did not know that Squire Allen was one of the wealthiest men in the state, and could afford beautiful things for his little daughter, while my father was poor, or at least not rich, and my mother had to puzzle her brains a good deal to contrive to keep her little romping, heedless, try-patience of a daughter looking respectable.
Once, when I was about six years old, I did a very naughty thing. Why, Fly, what makes your eyes shine so? Can it be you like to hear naughty stories? Queer, isn't it? Ah, but this story makes me ashamed, even now that I am a grown-up woman. Wait a minute; I must go back a little; it was the parasol that began it.
When Fel and I were going home from school one night, we stopped to take some of our make-believe slides. Not far from our house, near the river-bank, were two sloping mounds, between which a brook had once run. These little mounds were soft and green, and dotted with white innocence flowers; and what fun it was to start at the top of one of them, and roll over and over, down into the valley. Somehow, Fel, being a lady-child, never stained her cape bonnet, while mine was all streaks; and she never tore her skirts off the waist; but what if I did tear mine? They always grew together again, I never stopped to think how.
This time, as we were having a jolly roll, Madam Allen rode along in the carryall, with Tempy Ann driving.
"Stop, and let us see what those children are doing," said she; and Tempy Ann stopped.
Fel and I danced upon our feet, and started to run to the carryall, but of course I tumbled down before I got there. While I was picking my foot out of the hole in my frock, I heard Fel exclaim, joyfully, "O, mamma, is it for me? What a beauty, beauty, beauty!"
"Yes, dear, I bought it for you, but if you are going to be a gypsy child, I suppose you won't want it."