“Before you die,” she said, “it will be easier.”
I thought then that she meant that I would grow used to it. Now I know that she meant what I meant when I woke that night, and remembered my dolls lying out in the grass and the dew, and was not sorry, but glad: Glad that the time was almost come—for real playthings.
XII
BIT-BIT
At the Rodmans’, who lived in a huge house on a hill, some of the rooms had inscriptions in them—or what I should have called mottoes—cunningly lettered and set about. Some of these were in Margaret Amelia’s and Betty’s room, above the mirror, the bed, the window; and there was one downstairs on a panel above the telephone. The girls said that they had an aunt who had written them “on purpose,” an aunt who had had stories in print. In my heart I doubted the part about the printed stories, and so did Mary Elizabeth, but we loved Margaret Amelia and Betty too well to let this stand between us. Also, we were caught by the inscriptions. They were these:
FOR A CRADLE[A]
I cannot tell you who I am
Nor what I’m going to be.
You who are wise and know your ways
Tell me.