THE LADY CHILD.
They say I grew very troublesome. Ruthie thought I was always "under foot," and nothing went on, from parlor to kitchen, from attic to cellar, but I knew all about it. There was not a pie, particularly a mince pie, that I didn't try to have a finger in.
But I could not have been in the house all the time, for Abner declares I was always out of doors. My little shoes were generally thick with mud, and my little frocks ready every night for the wash-tub. If there was a spoon or a knife missing, Abner often found it in the ploughed field, where I had been using it as a kind of pickaxe to dig my way through to China. No matter how muddy or slippery the walking, I begged to go out. I had a feeling that I wanted to skip like a lamb, fly like a bird, and dart like a squirrel, and of course needed all out doors to do it in.
"Don't fall down," cried mamma from the window; "look out for the ice."
And I answered back from under my red, quilted hood,—
"Well, if I do fall down and break me, mamma, you mus' pick up all my little bones and glue 'em togedder. God glued 'em in the firs' place, all but my tongue, and that's nailed in."
Not nailed in very tight: I could move it fast enough.
And when the snow and ice were gone, I liked to wade ankle-deep in the mud. Father had to buy me a pair of rubber boots, and that is the first present I remember. They filled my soul with joy. When I said my prayers I had one on each side of me, and when I slept it was with both boots on my pillow. At first I could think of nothing else to wish for; but one day I said,—
"I wish I was a pussy-cat, mamma, so I could have four yubber boots!"
Brother Ned and I were great friends. Partly to keep his eye on me, and partly because he enjoyed my conversation, he would say in the cool spring days, "Come, Maggie, dear, bring your cloak, and I'll wrap you up all so warm, so you can sit out on the woodpile while I chop my stint."