?:'< 
 
 7, 

 
 fancy j-Hotiirr liUrs best ttir toorfe slir cannot Do 
 tijat i0 tfje toorb sffje must bo (tofjateber 
 it be) tiors not appeal to tier imagination. 
 
 page 43
 
 QF CiLIP. LIBR1HY, LOS ANGELES 
 
 ij) ^tn) g'urA
 
 Copyright, 1910, by 
 Dodge Publishing Company
 
 TO 
 THE MASTERFUL ONE 
 
 2138071
 
 Facing Page 
 
 I fancy Mother likes best the work she cannot 
 
 do Title 
 
 You were not especially cordial with your 
 
 Mother 10 
 
 "Sure!" replied the charwoman 12 
 
 Aunty Catharine is Mother's lovingest sister . . 16 
 
 The two spots 18 
 
 A red-headed girl drove up to us 
 
 I was wind-milling at the time 24 
 
 I never wanted to be anybody's mother! 28 
 
 We've had a guest to-day 32 
 
 But you swing with your whole little weight . . 38 
 
 I've done the best I could, Mis' Carr 
 
 I don't mind the short spasms of temper 52 
 
 Father was evidently displeased 68 
 
 The lovely lady is my Father's Mother 
 
 We've had such a wonderful spin 76 
 
 Where shall we go? 86 
 
 The day after Mother broke the Sabbath .... 98 
 
 7
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Oh, dear girl, you know what I mean! 1 20 
 
 Chicken winking 1 34 
 
 Bent upon their favorite game of yelling 1 42 
 
 Some silk-lined lady comes to call on us 148 
 
 And pulled the cloth off the table 1 52 
 
 I turned to her a tear-stained little face 1 54 
 
 It is very wonderful out-of-doors here 1 58 
 
 Daddy came back and found me too much . . 1 66 
 But the down-stairs lady pretended she had 
 
 never met Mother ....." 1 76 
 
 Daddy has made me a sand-pile 1 80 
 
 They let me out to roam the neighborhood . . 1 82 
 
 How is Martha, these days? 1 86 
 
 It does everything you do 1 92 
 
 Each bites the other 1 96 
 
 Daresay the sand man is one of the same lot . . 1 98 
 
 I took a fall out of that duck 202 
 
 Breakfast was a chokey sort of an affair 210 
 
 A kiss for the kid 222 
 
 Our physician glanced over the wreck 228 
 
 "Son!" this often comes from Father 262 
 
 I have also a large nudging acquaintance among 
 
 the newsboys 266 
 
 The new home has a yard 268 
 
 They almost choked her off the census 270 
 
 Mother and I went for a walk to-day 282 
 
 I like the China-boy who takes our washing . . 284
 
 The LIFE OF ME 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DEAR me! Everything has been in such con- 
 fusion that only now am I able to think. I 
 am in the "Private Patients' Nursery" in a 
 tiny white iron bed, and I am dressed in a hospital 
 uniform that looks a bit coarse to me. On my left 
 wrist I notice a tag on which is neatly printed the 
 word "Carr." Can? I imagine that may be my 
 name, but I don't see why they feel they must label me. 
 Surely, I don't look like an Izenbaum, an Andro- 
 votsky, or a Cofferini! 
 
 I just glanced up to see bending over me a lady 
 with floating black clouds on her hat and a white 
 ruche next her face. With her was a good looking 
 gentleman who said brokenly, "Sonny?" Strange he 
 could not read Carr on my tag. The lady seemed 
 to be sobbing to herself. They both touched me 
 gingerly, as though I might fade away into a mem-
 
 10 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m ^ 
 
 ory if they patted me too firmly. Just then in came 
 the Head One of the Big White Aprons and the 
 Little White Caps; and grabbing my skirts, she drew 
 me onto her left hand as one might do with a rag 
 doll. Rudely snipping the palms of my hands with 
 her strong fingers, she exclaimed right out loud and 
 before everybody, quite as if I were accustomed to 
 large noises "Wake up here, you young rascal! 
 Say how-do-you-do to your father and your cousin- 
 once-removed." She did not mention what the cou- 
 sin was removed from. Soon they all left me. Per- 
 sonally, I think I should enjoy something to eat. 
 
 One of the young White Aprons just brought me 
 back from a visit with an ill, dreamy sort of lady, 
 who looked up from her pillows wearily as I was 
 unearthed from a bundle of flannels, and said, "Is 
 this it?" 
 
 "It certainly is!" briskly answered the White 
 Apron. "This is a fine boy a regular prize-fighter 
 of a baby." 
 
 The dreamy lady looked pained when I yelled,
 
 "|9ou toere not especially corotal tottfj pour 
 fflotfjer, poung man." page 1 1
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 11 
 
 but she did not make any comments upon me, or 
 take the trouble to start a conversation; she just cried 
 and cried and cried. I was glad enough when 
 the White Apron took me away, scolding me severely 
 thus: "You were not especially cordial with your 
 mother, young man!" 
 
 My Mother the dreamy lady? I seem to be 
 quite rich. I have a Father, a Mother, a Cousin 
 and a tag-once-removed. But I would trade them 
 all for something to eat. This hospital smells so 
 clean, I fear I shall take cold. Here comes the Head 
 One with a big man dressed in white linens! 
 
 "Isn't our new private patient splendid, Doctor?" 
 she observed. If I am so terribly "private," I wish 
 they would let me alone for a while. 
 
 "Fine pup," replied the medical giant, poking 
 all of his huge fingers into me near my poor little 
 empty stomach. Wouldn't you suppose a physi- 
 cian would know better than to be so un-gentle, 
 considering I am not his size? The "professional 
 touch" may have its advantages, but I call it rough. I
 
 12 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 have gathered from fragments of talk that the big 
 man is the head doctor of the hospital. If he waits 
 for me to return his call before coming here again, I 
 have already seen the last of him, which pleases me. 
 
 I fancy I must be somebody in particular, so many 
 people have dropped in to see me to-day. The 
 elevator boy just stuck his head in the door and peeped 
 at me. It is well the Head One did not catch him. 
 All the White Aprons and the White Caps have been 
 in. Most of them think me pretty. Possibly I am, 
 but I feel a bit wrinkled and red in the face. If I 
 ever get anything in my stomach, it may help to tone 
 down the flush. 
 
 "How different he looks from the babies in the 
 Free Patients' wards, doesn't he?" flatteringly asked 
 a tall, thin White Apron. 
 
 "Sure!" replied the charwoman, who stood in 
 the doorway with a bucket of water when she should 
 have been washing down the stairs. "Sure, ye'd 
 know in a minnit he wasn't a Dago!" It is a good 
 thing the Head One did not catch her!
 
 ffeft! iqinw tmw
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 13 
 
 And what bad manners all these people have to 
 be talking about me before myself this way! Do 
 they imagine that because I am a sort of foreigner 
 with no ability to speak their language, I don't under- 
 stand it? One visitor to-day has interested me great- 
 ly. I awoke from a nap to see a stunning young man 
 at the foot of my crib, gazing down at me intently. 
 He has a wonderful smile, and a fine head, too, and 
 amber eyes that twinkle and are deep set. "Hello, 
 old man!" he said to me pleasantly and as though 
 he respected me (different from the rest). "It is a 
 hot day, isn't it?" I did not speak, so he went on in 
 the most friendly way, "How goes the great big 
 world with you? My! but I was glad to hear you 
 cry this morning you scared me to death for a while!" 
 
 Why do you suppose everybody is so aggressively 
 glad to hear me cry? I will do all the crying they 
 want to listen to, if they just give me time. I won- 
 der who this nice man is the one with the real man- 
 ners? He is not very old, and he looks foot-ballish 
 to me. He touched my cheek with the back of
 
 14 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 rag Era 
 
 ESs""" BS 
 
 his forefinger sweetly, and with the consideration due 
 one gentleman from another (for which I am grateful, 
 after the choppy-sea handling I have had so far!), 
 he said, "Bye-bye, old chap I'll see you to-morrow!" 
 
 What is to-morrow? Oh, yes I think I know. 
 
 I have found out who he is he of the amber eyes 
 and blue serge. All I had to do to find out was to 
 wait. He is Mother's Special Physician. He calls 
 me "Bill" and he can make his straw hat go round 
 and round on his finger. Very nice. I heard some- 
 one say my real name is Richard, but that I am to 
 be called Dicklet. But Bill suits me very well as 
 the Doctor says it. 
 
 There is a sameness to hospital life, and after many 
 days that could not be told apart from other days, 
 we are leaving this afternoon. 
 
 Like most well-regulated hospitals, ours is in the 
 Slums, and when we came out to get in the carriage 
 that Father had waiting for us, we found gathered 
 on the steps and about the horses dozens of little 
 Slumists, all eyes and curiosity. Cousin Martha
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 15 
 
 carried me (I found out she is Mother's cousin), and 
 I caught several remarks upon how interesting she 
 looked in her deep mourning with the wee white 
 bundle of me in her arms. Everybody turned out to 
 say goodbye, and we drove off in style, let me tell you. 
 
 Rumor must have got in ahead of us at the apart- 
 ment house. They say that rumor often gets in ahead 
 of one. The hall boys and the janitor and his family 
 were all hanging around the entrance to the building, 
 ready to look us over, and to extend a welcome if 
 we came up to their expectations. 
 
 "He sure is a fine baby, Mis' Carr, and we sure is 
 glad to see you-all back!" said Charley, as he sent 
 his car flying to the seventh floor. 
 
 In our apartment, Blanche had everything just 
 shining to greet Mother, who seemed to appreciate 
 it in her tired way, remarking sadly that she felt as 
 though she had been gone a thousand years. I 
 like Blanche! She is a loving little darky. "Pud- 
 dins!" she confided to me affectionately, "we-all is 
 goin* ter be so happy!"
 
 16 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 [ffij [ffij 
 
 The janitor has just been up to call on me, all beams, 
 in spite of the fact that the tenants are not expected 
 to have babies dogs and children not being allowed 
 in this building. 
 
 Aunty Catherine and her brand new husband are 
 in New York on their honeymoon, and they came 
 here to-day. Aunty Catherine is Mother's lovingest 
 sister. We were all delighted at seeing them, but 
 we got too excited, and when they were gone, Mother's 
 Special Physician leaned forward on the brass rail- 
 ing at the foot of Mother's bed, and with the amber 
 eyes narrowed a little and the strong jaw set in an- 
 noyance, he said, "I think it advisable you should 
 go a little slow on society for awhile, Mrs. Carr!" 
 
 "Yes, Doctor," Mother replied, meekly. 
 
 Naturally, I do not pretend to know my Mother 
 very well, for we haven't been friends long, but I 
 venture to say that my Mother is not meek with many 
 people.
 
 tf.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THERE has been so much going on dear me! 
 Our little apartment where we have been but 
 a week or so, now is filled up with trunks and 
 we seem to be going somewhere for the summer. 
 Cousin Martha and Father keep telling my Mother 
 not to worry. They urge her to lie down and trust 
 them to see that everything is all right. I should 
 judge from the two purple-red spots on Mother's 
 cheek bones that she finds it hard to lie down and 
 trust someone else; and from her almost pathetic 
 effort not to say anything sharp, I should infer that 
 Mother argues it is a mistake to leave one's packing 
 until three hours before train time. Our Special 
 Physician came in this morning, and stepping over 
 boxes and around packing cases, he found his way 
 to the foot of Mother's bed. The two spots on 
 
 Mother's cheeks did not escape his practiced eye. ^ 
 
 17
 
 18 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 "Why don't you stop worrying, Mrs. Carr?" he 
 demanded, with what I felt to be a flattering intima- 
 tion he knew Mother very well. I thought he might 
 well have applied his excellent suggestion to himself, 
 for he looked worried too. 
 
 As for me, I did not move. I am glad enough to 
 stay still when they will let me. You see, Cousin 
 Martha has been bathing me for the last few days, 
 and it is nervous work for us both. In the first place 
 we have a rubber tub that shuts up, and the ladies 
 have not yet learned how to fasten the legs so that I 
 may be spared the uncomfortable feeling that each 
 minute the tub is going to collapse and drown me, 
 flood the floor, sink the ceiling of the apartment be- 
 low, and prove the last straw to my tired Mother. 
 
 Cousin Martha cries all night instead of sleeping 
 I know, you see, because I wake up at queer times 
 and see the light in her room. She isn't used to little 
 people like me, and she seems to think I am going to 
 vanish, or crack, or stiffen out and die on short notice. 
 Really, there isn't anything peculiar about persons
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 19 
 
 of three weeks' age, except that we are indefinite, 
 limber, and in consequence, slippery. The Big 
 White Aprons handled me most pronouncedly, and 
 at the time I did not like it, but on the whole it is 
 safer treatment than being handled as though one 
 were an intangible nightmare, or an egg with a shell 
 as thin as a breath. Especially so where wabbly 
 bath tubs and real water are concerned. 
 
 Our daily sieges usually end in Mother's falling 
 back into the pillows, exhausted, in my clinging to 
 whatever rigging is available, and in poor little 
 Cousin Martha's having a fit of hysterics. I sup- 
 pose they get me clean. I hope it repays them. 
 Personally, I would as soon be left in the degrada- 
 tion of my soft and slightly crumpled gown. When 
 I am older and get a good deal of real dirt and jam 
 on me, and I need baths, I probably shall not be getting 
 more than two a week. 
 
 Such a confused day this has been! Here it is 
 the middle of the night, and I lie in my little white^ 
 canvas bed that they brought from town and hitched
 
 20 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 onto the side of Mother's bed, in a house that stands 
 by much water that beats upon cliffs and sands, 
 making even more noise than New York beating 
 upon itself with its own life. Mother's hand just 
 found mine and it recalled the worried expression of 
 Mother's Special Physician's eyes when he saw the 
 purple-red spots on her cheeks. I presume it must 
 have been very trying to Mother to take that wild 
 drive we had in making the train. Why, that drive 
 almost excited me. The way we flew around among 
 the traffic, cut over tracks, and shot under the very 
 frown of complaining automobiles, was a caution. 
 Father held his watch and said they had done a fine 
 job to get ready in time, while Cousin Martha held 
 me tight. There seemed to be strength in her grasp, 
 but it was a kind of automatic strength, for I felt the 
 spirit of her to be very far off somewhere, suffering. 
 Mother formed a dejected heap of pains of various 
 kinds, and I could feel that she was more or less numb 
 her hands moving only when necessary, and her 
 mind working not at all.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 21 
 
 m ^ 
 
 Finally we got out of the carriage and walked to 
 the boat, and it was a long way for all of us, except 
 me. The responsibility of me lay heavy in Cousin 
 Martha's arms. And Father was distressed because 
 no invalid chair could be found for Mother, who 
 showed in her expression that the world was slipping 
 out from under her. I began to howl, and Cousin 
 Martha carried me up and down the ladies' cabin, 
 utterly oblivious of the stares of the other passengers, 
 who openly showed their interest in her. Some of 
 them whispered things about what a shame it was 
 for her to have been left with a tiny baby on her 
 hands! This revived Mother sufficiently to feel a 
 touch of jealousy, for she got no notice at all and 
 she was the Mother of me. 
 
 If the New York station seemed long to us, there 
 are no words to express the feeling of length that 
 came to us, as we trudged the Staten Island sheds 
 to the funny little local train. I was concerned about 
 Mother, who was walking like a machine. Seeing 
 into her mind as I do, and having my own private
 
 22 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Kza rag 
 
 BS GSJ 
 
 method of reading it, even better than she does her- 
 self, I was aware that she was practically unconscious. 
 
 We passed many real rocks and saw several real 
 trees, and got a whiff of real air now and then, in 
 spite of the smoke that came into the car. They 
 kept the cinders out of my blinking eyes, which gave 
 them an opportunity to enjoy my eye-lashes, which 
 they told each other, were long and dark. My eyes, 
 I think are blue, though so long as one can see with 
 his eyes it would seem as though the color ought to 
 make no difference. Also, I don't look so "goopy" 
 as some persons of helpless age, and I can hold 
 up my own head, which signifies that I am either 
 lighter on brains than most persons so young, or that 
 I am smarter than the average. 
 
 Well, after many jarrings, we got out at our station, 
 where a red-headed girl drove up to us with a limping, 
 sluggish, old horse and broken-down surrey. The 
 prominent ribs of the horse indicated to me that his 
 food was not properly pasteurized. As we drowsily 
 ambled past the village saloon which was run by the
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 23 
 
 father of Miss Red Hairs, the old man sang out, 
 "Ach Mina ! you drife dat horse easy on dis hot day, 
 py Gott!" The cloud in my Mother's eyes drifted 
 a little to one side. I think she would have smiled, 
 if she could have freed herself from the conviction 
 that she owed it to the others to do so. But that 
 poor little smile, having stood for an instant by the 
 side of duty, died right there. I fancy my Mother 
 does not like duty. 
 
 And now we are in a house that has been shut up 
 for days in the damp sea air, and it is cold and musty. 
 My Mother is fretting, and there seems to be a fire, 
 a very large, wild fire starting in her soul. I fear she 
 may not be able to get up in the morning. I cannot 
 see my Mother, but I feel those purple-red spots on 
 her cheeks, only now they are redder and more purple 
 than they have been before. And there is great 
 pounding of the waters against the shore, and there are 
 still greater poundings in my Mother's brain. Every- 
 body but Mother and myself is fast asleep. 
 
 This morning I heard my Mother say to Cousin
 
 24 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Martha, quite calmly, that she thought she was going 
 to die. But I don't believe she is, because the mo- 
 ment Father went in haste to telephone for her 
 Special Physician, she lost the sinking sensation 
 that was so strong in her that it upset me, too. 
 And an hour later Mother remarked that she pre- 
 ferred her pink negligee to her blue one it was more 
 .becoming. I was very glad there was some mo- 
 mentous question such as this for my Mother to decide 
 I believe it just averted a crisis. While all the excite- 
 ment was going on, a big black thing with four legs 
 came up to my canvas bed, and sniffed right in my 
 face. I was wind-milling at the time (throwing my 
 arms around, you understand, and kicking out to get 
 a bit of exercise), and I daresay I frightened the beast, 
 for, after a few more sniffs, he walked off, disgusted 
 that he had been effectually bluffed, no doubt. This 
 was another thing that helped to pull my Mother 
 back to a safe hold on Life. "Blanche!" she called, 
 feebly, "Blanche, you must keep this rented dog 
 out of here I cannot abide dogs!" I inferred that
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 25 
 
 our inventory included a dog possibly we could not 
 have got the place without him. 
 
 Blanche came in, grinning as usual, and grabbed 
 the cur by the collar, saying, "Mis' Carr, de groc'y 
 man do say dis here dog am a reg'lar debble of a 
 dog, an' named Bill. He already done killed off 
 ev'y cat fer miles, an' all de neighb'hood dogs is tore 
 up more or less, an' peddlers am plum scared to def 
 of him!" Mother was too weak to reprove Blanche 
 for her use of a swearing word, and anyway, she 
 wouldn't have had time, for Blanche rattled on, 
 "Mis' Carr, dey am a great big hat up in de attic. 
 Kin I borrer it, please mam? You see, a person 
 gits so dark walking out in de hot sun ob dese here 
 roads!" 
 
 From odd bits of things, I have gathered two 
 items: that in renting this cottage we rented also a 
 dog named Bill, and that all the water has to be 
 hand-pumped from a well under the kitchen to a 
 tank in the attic. Blanche has at this early date 
 given it out that "she ain't-a-goin-ta pump no mo*
 
 26 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 E%| ' | 
 
 water she promised St. Paul she wouldn't!" I 
 was relieved to hear this, for it gave me hope of 
 getting rid of my bath. But no! Cousin Martha 
 went down herself and pumped up water enough, 
 getting her muscle in good shape before taking it 
 out on me. I was terrified at her vehemence, and I 
 clung to her black waist with my little desperate 
 wet hands, while she called out to Mother, "How 
 soon do you suppose we can take this child into the 
 ocean?" You ought to have heard me yell at that 
 suggestion! 
 
 In a few days they got Mother up and helped her 
 down onto the big porch, for my Artist Uncle was 
 coming, and Mother was giving signs of serious bore- 
 dom at being kept in bed. Besides, although she 
 did not mention it to anyone, still I knew she could 
 no longer endure the sound of the motor boats that 
 chug-chugged by all the time the beating noise 
 they made reminded her of the way the chloroform 
 beat in her head not long ago. The similarity 
 seemed to fill her with horror and she could not stand
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 27 
 
 it in the close quarters of her room. And so my 
 Mother went to the porch and fell into a big chair 
 next to my carriage. She felt more old than ever, 
 but still she appreciated the lovely colors of the waters 
 and the sky, after the sun was gone, leaving its only 
 light on a sail miles out at sea. The bay as it looked 
 then recalled a painting of my Artist Uncle's and when 
 he arrived (and had acknowledged that I compared 
 favorably with his own son of helpless age), Mother 
 told him that only now while sitting here had she 
 been able to realize that anything so lovely as his 
 picture, "Evening" ever existed in reality. 
 
 "You will find," drawled my droll Artist Uncle, 
 "that every once in a while Nature gets around to 
 Art!" 
 
 But even this little bit of diversion was too much 
 for Mother, and she lay awake all night long, while 
 her nerves tortured her to the verge of insanity, and 
 there was great pain at the base of her brain. I 
 was awake wind-milling, myself, much of the time, and* 
 I, too, could hear the heavy waters beating upon the
 
 28 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m ii 
 
 rocks and the sands. I, too, was conscious that as 
 the waters beat, so also beat waves of pain in my 
 Mother's soul. I could hear her thoughts, and if 
 she had not been an ill lady, I should have been 
 shocked and greatly hurt. 
 
 "There is no use trying to deceive myself!" some 
 wicked spirit was saying in her mind. "I am not 
 happy I can never be happy! I never wanted to 
 be anybody's mother! It does not run in our family 
 to care for our mothers. There has been war be- 
 tween the mothers and the children for generations, 
 and it will be so always. This never should have 
 come to me. It is a merciless trial to both the child 
 and myself, and it is all wrong. I wish I were dead. 
 I wish I wish I could wake in the morning to find " 
 Just here I stopped breathing and lay still, it was so 
 awful. "I wish," that evil spirit was whispering 
 to my Mother again, "I wish God hear me! I 
 wish I should wake in the morning to find that this 
 child was gone!" 
 
 I went on wind-milling once more. Everything
 
 II 
 
 ipetler ti)a:j)ie<l iojfc jWWS 
 
 C^^
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 29 
 
 was painfully quiet, except for the waters pounding 
 on the rocks and the sands, and the suffering pounding 
 in my Mother's brain. I was too sorrowed for my 
 Mother to feel hurt for myself, but as I have not yet 
 learned the up-growns' ways of communicating with 
 each other, I hardly knew how to express my sym- 
 pathy for my crying Mother. 
 
 At last it occurred to me to cough very gently, 
 which I did. Instantly her eyes stopped their wild 
 staring into the night, and she turned to my canvas 
 bed with difficulty. Tenderly, she sent her sensitive 
 hand all over me to see that the little blankets were 
 well up, and then she got one of my hands. I went 
 on wind-milling, except for this one hand which 
 I let her have in hers. I let it lie there peacefully 
 and lovingly, while the rest of me wriggled and tossed 
 and kicked and wind-milled. It was far too dark 
 to see, but I feel more than most up-grown persons 
 ever see, and so it was that I knew scalding tears 
 were falling on the purple-red spots on my Mother's, 
 cheeks.
 
 30 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 And after a while the night outside the east window 
 turned to hopeful tints of gray, and then to many 
 and marvelous shades of blue. Soon there were 
 daring lights of gold and red streaking the blues, and I 
 heard a little land bird sing, and something flew by 
 in a hurry I think it was a sea-gull. And my 
 Mother was asleep.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THERE seems to be a good deal of "snooping" 
 going on in this place. The edict has gone 
 forth that I am to be put in my bed and let stay 
 there, howling or no howling; but I have remarked that 
 Mother comes up stairs at odd moments to see if I 
 am covered, and through the open windows I some- 
 times catch Cousin Martha's voice saying she thinks 
 she will run up to her room for her handkerchief 
 but really, it is only an excuse to come in here to see me. 
 When they are at dinner, I often hear the bell rung 
 twice for Blanche, who is supposed to be in the 
 kitchen, but who has sneaked up here to kiss my 
 hands. Not infrequently the odor of tobacco can be 
 detected on my cheeks, which, by some persons, 
 might be regarded as damaging circumstantial evidence 
 against Father. And several times lately, I have* 
 
 been waked by rays of delight radiating from three 
 
 31
 
 32 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 faces that were leaning over my bed before going to 
 sleep themselves. There seem to be endless fresh 
 air arguments, too. Mother thinks I ought to be 
 hardened, but Cousin Martha maintains that I should 
 not be subjected to "regular typhoons," as she calls 
 the soft sea air that sifts into the room in a straight 
 line sometimes. Father generally ends the discussion 
 by saying he would appreciate it if the ladies would 
 give him a rest. I am sure Father and I are going 
 to be very congenial. But in the meantime I wager 
 I am blown out of this bed some evening! 
 
 We've had a guest to-day who says I am a fair 
 looking kid, but he'd rather have me set to work 
 at that everlasting pump than to be broken in him- 
 self. Father says he is going to ask all the men he 
 knows to visit us, and having got his victim in a 
 bathing suit which is cool and comfortable, he is 
 going to suggest that they limber up their muscles on 
 the pump before taking a dip. He has succeeded 
 in having the tank filled by this scheme three times 
 so far, but I am wondering if his acquaintance is large
 
 <*U Li 
 
 wew had a <w<
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 33 
 
 H li 
 
 enough to admit of his bringing a man home with 
 him each time the tank runs dry. Judging from the 
 hard breathing of the visitors, I doubt if the same 
 man ever comes twice. 
 
 When Mother and I were on the porch together 
 this afternoon, we saw a beach-combing gentleman 
 filling a sack with drift wood from our private sands 
 which, incidentally, seem to be about as private 
 as I was when we lived at the hospital. Bill saw 
 him first, and dashed for him, growling, snarling and 
 threateningly showing his teeth. The only escape 
 the infuriated, menacing animal allowed the panic- 
 stricken wood-picker was the open sea, which exit 
 did not seem to appeal to him. He struck at the dog 
 and threw sticks, and tried to protect himself by a 
 kind of South Sea dance behind his sack. At last 
 he caught sight of Mother and called to her, "Say, 
 lady, can't you yell to this dog?" 
 
 "I could," Mother sang back in friendly tones, 
 "but it would not do a bit of good he never, 
 obeys me."
 
 34 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m & 
 
 "Does he bite?" screamed the man. 
 
 "The people who know him best say he does, I 
 believe," sweetly replied Mother. 
 
 At this scant comfort the beach-combing gentle- 
 man dropped his wood, and making a leap past the 
 dog, he tore for the village, uttering broken language 
 to whom it might concern, as Bill helped himself 
 to a flying trip on one trpuser leg. 
 
 This is the first time I have seen my Mother smile. 
 The smile was a revelation. My Mother looked 
 young, and I have been thinking of her as being of a 
 thousand years' age. Possibly I can persuade her 
 that I am worth while, though, frankly, until to-day I 
 have been discouraged. But things are more hopeful 
 now my Mother can smile. 
 
 We heard to-day from the fish-peddler who al- 
 ways telephones over to find out if Bill is at home, 
 (if so, where?), before appearing himself, that the 
 owner of our cottage never got out for less than a hun- 
 dred dollars a year to the veterinary surgeon, and this 
 only covered Bill's own disfigurements. He never
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 35 
 
 assumed any responsibility for the rest of the wounded. 
 Cat and chicken funerals are common within a radius 
 of five miles of where Bill lives, and most of the dogs 
 in the neighborhood limp, and are pretty well trade- 
 marked. But Bill is friends with me. He snoops 
 up to see me as often as the others do, and lays 
 his face against me so that I can feel his breath. 
 Mother isn't especially pleased with having a rented 
 dog, but Father says anything is better than hav- 
 ing inadvertently become affiliated with a rented 
 pump. 
 
 Mother went in bathing to-day, and Blanche 
 took me down to the sands where we sat on a log 
 Blanche on the log, and me on Blanche and watched 
 her. She does not swim, and deep water is danger- 
 ous for her. It was high tide and the waves came 
 in with much force. One of them took Mother out 
 beyond her depth, and she shrieked in fright and 
 fought the water at random. She called for Blanche, 
 
 . 
 
 but Blanche seemed thick of comprehension and I, 
 an unspeaking person of helpless age! Blanche seemed
 
 36 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 to have no idea of the situation, and joyously called 
 back, "Say, Mis' Carr, don't you-all go out like 
 dat! I'd come along in now, if I was you cause 
 / ain't no good ter you!" 
 
 The next wave brought Mother back, struggling 
 and choking and pale. But I don't think the shock 
 was good for her, because to-night she lies awake 
 again, talking with me in imagination. No words 
 pass between us, but we converse just the same. 
 
 "Once I had a dream," she said to me, in thought. 
 "I dreamed that all the hard things of Life, all the un- 
 kind things I have ever said and done, all the cruel, 
 horrible things I have ever heard, and all awkward- 
 nesses, together with all my disappointments and 
 failures, were made into a great, heavy black cloak 
 that completely covered me. I dreamed that I wore 
 this cloak for years and years, suffering under the 
 weight of it, until one day I truly loved Life when, 
 all of a sudden the strangling iron buckle at the throat 
 gave way and the godless garment fell off of me, and 
 I stood out in a lovely white gown free!" After
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 37 
 
 this she lay very quiet. I hoped she had gone to 
 sleep, but no! 
 
 "Oh!" she sighed. "I am afraid that the freedom 
 is the dream part of my fancy, and the cloak is actual! 
 To-night, I am sure the wrap is made of lead, painted 
 black, and it weighs tons, tons tons! and I stagger 
 under it. There is no love in me at all I don't 
 love Death even, and I have always thought I did. 
 To-day Death and I came near to each other, and I 
 fought to live. I wonder why? I do not want to 
 live! I have you, and I do not want you. You 
 have upset every plan I ever made; you have ruined 
 my health and left me full of agony; you have rev- 
 olutionized my every theory you have changed 
 my feeling for everything and everybody in the world. 
 I think I am insane. I tremble from head to foot 
 when I hear the grocery-man's wagon on the road 
 to our place, I hate the grocery-man so. I have never 
 seen the grocery-man, I have only heard his voice. 
 And I hate being anybody's mother! I don't hold 
 it against you I have sense enough left for that. But
 
 38 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 tja raja 
 
 B& Bss 
 
 you swing with your whole little weight from my 
 throat, and your little hands cling to that iron buckle 
 that holds me in slavery. I wish you and I would 
 never wake up!" 
 
 Poor lady! I thinks she believes all this, and it 
 hurts her. I don't see how she can get well if she 
 never sleeps, and evil spirits haunt her. And there 
 is Cousin Martha coming into our room each morning, 
 looking a thousand, too, and referring to having no 
 future, having been pelted all night with nasty little 
 what-might-have-beens in her restless dreams, until 
 she tells us she does not know what keeps her from 
 walking off the breakwater into the sea! And worse 
 yet, is my Father's cheerfulness! He tries to be 
 funny and cheer the ladies after his long, hard hours 
 in the sweltering city, and his two hours of tiresome 
 travelling at each end of the day. And when he 
 gets all through with his anecdote, one of the women 
 looks up, absent-mindedly, and says, "I beg pardon, 
 Richard, what was that you were saying? Oh yes! 
 How amusing!"
 
 pou sluing; ujiti) pour tuholr little tunglrt from 
 mp tforoat P a ge 38
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 39 
 
 If anyone were to consult me on the subject, I should 
 be inclined to say that, in my opinion, having a baby 
 is just about as rough on the Father, as anybody. 
 And Blanche is as discontented as anything! She 
 roams up and down the dusty road and says, "Lordy! 
 Elf it wasn't fer Bill, I bet I'd jes nat'ully die in dis 
 here place! Ain't noffin goin' on none ob de time 
 not even a hurdy-gurdy nowhere! An* de skeeters 
 near-about eat me alive!" 
 
 It seems a strange situation to me. I think they 
 like me why else would they snoop? But every- 
 body is so upset, and the joy of me seems quite lost 
 in distress and boredom. Perhaps the fault lies with 
 the age. Tiny persons are no longer taken in as a 
 matter of course, all in the day's work. Maybe 
 some people receive us politely, but I don't believe 
 anybody asks for us, while janitors and others posi- 
 tively don't allow us! I heard Mother say to Cousin 
 Martha that if anybody else got off the time-honored 
 comment, "Well, doesn't he pay for it all?" she was 
 not going to make any further effort to get well. But
 
 40 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 I don't hold it against Mother. Heavens, think 
 how she feels toward the grocery-man! 
 
 All great changes are hard for some people, especially 
 those who have planned their own lives carefully, 
 deciding in advance what pain they will endure and 
 what pain they will not; what responsibilities they 
 will assume, and what ones they will not; and having 
 it clearly understood with themselves what they will 
 stand for, generally speaking. Persons of helpless 
 age break into all well-established egotism hard at 
 least, I have! But I shall try to cultivate an imper- 
 sonal point-of-view in the matter, and let all of my 
 energies bend themselves in the direction of that 
 black buckle at my Mother's throat. Truly I should 
 enjoy unfastening that clasp and, under the circum- 
 stances, it would seem the least one could do for 
 his Mother. 
 
 At last there has come a time, when, with the 
 sweetest will in the world, my Father and Cousin 
 Martha have become a little automatic in their in- 
 quiries for my Mother's health. Mother is not used
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 41 
 
 to being ill, and she is even less accustomed to having 
 anybody automatic with her. I am undecided which 
 annoys her the more, continual pain, or watching 
 the family take it as a matter of course. Anyway, 
 Mother had a long talk with herself on the subject 
 in the night, coming to the conclusion that something 
 had to be done besides just standing things. She 
 resolved to go to town to see her Special Physician. 
 
 She told me all about the visit when she came 
 home no, not exactly then, for she was dreadfully 
 disturbed when she first arrived. She started to pick 
 me up from my bed, then dropped me back, saying 
 aloud, fiercely, "No not now. I might crush him!" 
 This was our first separation, you see, and the hours 
 she was gone must have made her feel a little fond- 
 ness for me, or something. I am sure I understood 
 her mood. She would have not crushed me because 
 she hated me, but rather because she had been so 
 long gone. And probably she would not have crushed 
 me at all. 
 
 She went out on the sand for an hour until she was
 
 42 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 ^ m 
 
 tamer, and then she came back and took me up. 
 We sat and rocked and looked out to sea ever so long, 
 although it is quite against the rules for anybody to 
 rock me. I was surprised at this treat. I gathered 
 from her firm hold on me that she needed me, and 
 that to-morrow or next Christmas would not do. I 
 was interested in her account of this trip to town, for 
 I had been so amused seeing her grow stronger and 
 stronger as she planned to go; and then as she con- 
 sidered what she should wear, and finally as she 
 adjusted her most becoming veil, and for the first 
 time in weeks, actually went out somewhere. 
 
 I should have pronounced her cured before she 
 started, yet she is not a poser. She is ill I know 
 she is. Well, Mother told me that by the time she 
 reached the elevated station at the Battery, she was 
 so weak she wasn't sure she had good sense, and she 
 asked the guard at the station if the train standing 
 there was going north, or south. He replied, indul- 
 gently, not meaning to be impertinent at all, "North, 
 lady. If we was to go south, we'd be getting pretty
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 43 
 
 dog-gone wet everything south o'here being ocean!" 
 Mother told me it struck her as being humorous. I 
 wish I had seen her smile. 
 
 On the way up town, Mother says she saw every- 
 body working. The tenement windows were all open in 
 the heat, and the sweat-shop people were working, 
 working, working not having a single moment to 
 watch her go by, or even to be glad that it was possible 
 for her to go to town alone! Mother had almost 
 forgotten how wonderful it is to be able to work, 
 she says. I fancy Mother likes best the work she 
 cannot do that is the work she must do (whatever 
 it be) does not appeal to her imagination. I sup- 
 pose some persons consider it work to run a house and 
 bring up children, but I think Mother would doubtless 
 use another word for this occupation, and reserve 
 the word "work" for something she thinks interesting. 
 She told me once that she had always made isolated 
 little efforts that never got anywhere, and that she 
 longs for work that throbs with united purpose. But, 
 believe me, if she counts me in with the other "little
 
 44 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m fi 
 
 isolated efforts" and already classes me a fizzle, I 
 think I shall take the trouble to surprise her! Wouldn't 
 you if you were I? 
 
 Mother eventually arrived at the Doctor's office, 
 to continue her story. And there was her Special 
 Physician looking as much of a college boy as ever, 
 his amber eyes twinkling which twinkle always 
 did tease my Mother. 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Carr," he began, "will you please 
 tell me how anybody looking as well as you do, 
 has the nerve to come here and take up my time?" 
 And he showed all of his nice, white teeth. I am 
 crazy about his teeth. I have no teeth, myself. 
 Sorry. 
 
 "I am ill, Doctor," Mother said, seriously. "I 
 have a pain at the base of my brain, day and night 
 it wakes me, if I ever do get away from it in sleep. 
 I see things that are not before me. I hate the gro- 
 cery-man. I have no strength, physical or spiritual. 
 I enjoy hurting people. I exist in a state of mad 
 depression. I wish the baby was "
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 45 
 
 He whirled about in his chair, and faced her, 
 saying quickly, "The boy dear little chap! I'm 
 glad you mentioned him, for he is the solution of all 
 trouble for you. The cure for you is to love the boy!" 
 
 "Love the boy?" Mother repeated. "I love nothing 
 on earth! There is no love in me. And I think I 
 have gone insane at least, I should hesitate to have 
 a nerve specialist examine me!" 
 
 The Doctor turned back to his desk, and tapped 
 his inkwell with his pencil until Mother felt the sus- 
 pense of their silence. Finally, with his brows 
 knitted, and his voice stern, he remarked offhand, 
 rather, as though the matter were of merely 
 casual interest "Mrs. Carr, it has always impressed 
 me as being a decided pity that any woman with 
 a naturally good mentality, should deliberately allow 
 herself to degenerate into a hypochondriac." 
 
 Mother was stunned. As soon as she could, she 
 left, coming home like one in a dream hurt to the 
 soul and her pride burning within her, burning like 
 all the hells. To get this from the only person on
 
 46 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 gi m 
 
 earth who understood how actual were the causes of 
 her suffering this from her Special Physician, was 
 almost the end. Dear Mother! If only I had been 
 able to speak the words of the up-growns, I might 
 have soothed her a little. I might have told her 
 that this was a hard thing for her Special Physician 
 to do. It was a clever blow though I would not 
 have ventured this idea, perhaps. It showed wonder- 
 ful insight into her character. Her case was not one 
 for medicine alone, but one for patience and time. 
 He knew best and it was no easy task for him of 
 the amber eye. 
 
 Daddy came home by the next train, and found us 
 rocking together. He was much concerned over a 
 new mosquito bite I had acquired in his absence, 
 and his whole outward attention was concentrated 
 upon me, as he sweetly, but impersonally, said to 
 Mother, "How did you stand the trip to town, dear, 
 and how are the nerves this evening?" 
 
 "Oh very well, thank you," replied Mother in 
 studied, commonplace tones.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 47 
 
 "Good!" said Father, pleasantly, never question- 
 ing the truth of her statement, nor attempting to pursue 
 the matter further. And the while I could feel the 
 vicious pounding in my Mother's brain, and the pain 
 in her reacted in me, it was so strong. 
 
 Then Cousin Martha dropped in, and leaning 
 over me tenderly, she sort of purred, "You little 
 darling! Cousin Martha wants her baby now 
 it's her turn, so it is!" Then, without glancing at 
 Mother, she affectionately asked, "What did the 
 Doctor say, dear?" 
 
 "Oh," replied Mother, with just the right degree 
 of studied indifference in her inflection, "he said I 
 was getting on very well indeed." 
 
 "Fine! I'm glad to hear it!" exclaimed Cousin 
 Martha, never questioning the truth of the statement, 
 nor attempting to pursue the matter further. And 
 the while I could feel the wicked pounding in my 
 Mother's brain, and the pain in her hurt me, it was 
 so strong. 
 
 I did wish that Mother's Special Physician might
 
 48 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 FS23 Eg] 
 
 have seen the hopeful result of his master stroke. I 
 call it splendid to cure a raging case of temporary 
 insanity in one sentence! But if I might be granted 
 a comment, I should say that if I were a Medicine 
 Man with a twinkly amber eye and a manly way 
 of making a merry-go-round of my hat on my fore- 
 finger, I should call it taking awful chances with 
 gratitude to be quite so successful!
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOW time flies! Here we are back in town, 
 and Blanche gone a way, and another darky 
 installed! The new domestic is an uncertain 
 quantity in our household. I think Mother took her 
 because we were desperate, and she is keeping her 
 because she lacks the courage to discharge her. Al- 
 though Miss Clara Cummins, as she calls herself, 
 has a formidable eye, still I am sure she means well. 
 Anyway, when Mother told her to polish up the 
 bronze candlesticks, she worked two hours, and then 
 appeared in the doorway of the sitting room looking 
 quite wilted, saying, "I done the best I could, Mis' 
 Carr, but I jes nat'ally can't get all this stuff off!'\ 
 The "stuff" she referred to was the Tiffany finish. 
 
 Oh, Mother was pleased! 
 
 49
 
 50 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 I am glad Clara has entered our life, even if Mother 
 is reduced to the point of fainting when she hears 
 the Negress asking the hallboy if he has any letter? 
 for "Miss Clara Cummins, care of Carr." Clara 
 is a starchy nigger she dresses up in the discarded 
 (or indefinitely borrowed) finery of the various actress 
 ladies she has worked for, and she walks out after 
 her day's work is done, just as one fancies the queen 
 of some South Sea Island might deport herself. Then, 
 although Mother does not know it, Clara Cummins 
 came very near killing some new tenants in my be- 
 half. 
 
 I was asleep in my carriage on the roof, when the 
 new tenants shook out their rugs so that all the dirt 
 blew in my face; and when Clara ran up to see how 
 I was, she found me choking in the dust. Her remarks 
 to the new tenants savored of Billingsgate done over into 
 East Side New York with a Down South accent, 
 and while Miss Cummins' comments pained my 
 sensitive ears, I must say her talk was very much to the 
 point sufficiently so to provoke the new tenants
 
 C
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 51 
 
 m m 
 
 into saying they meant to see that she was put out 
 of the building. 
 
 Clara and I agreed that in all probability the new 
 tenants would drop the matter where they dropped 
 their rugs; and we should hesitate to worry Mother 
 with the row. Besides, Clara's conversation in 
 Mother's hearing is exemplary. When one lives in 
 a small apartment and has to put up with a-home- 
 going-at-night servant, one can't be too fussy or 
 one has no maid at all. Then, Miss Cummins lets 
 me play horsey with all the window shades in the 
 apartment. I pull hard on the strings and cluck 
 (we are very proud of my new accomplishment), 
 and bye-and-bye the shade gets too frisky, and shoots 
 up. I have heard Father saying he could not see 
 why the curtains were out of order all the time. Miss 
 Cummins and I say nothing. Miss Cummins won't, 
 and I can't. 
 
 I have many toys, but people don't seem to under- 
 stand persons of helpless age as well as they ought, 
 considering that we have been a popular calling for
 
 52 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 so long a time. They give one toys which are too 
 big and heavy for little hands, and we shriek when 
 we are offered these tiresome things. Miss Cummins 
 knows many things in Life, among them things she 
 ought not to know, and things in common with little 
 children. Clara sees Mother safely out to the eleva- 
 tor door, then hurries back and gives me the tiny 
 silver clock on Mother's desk. Mother has said 
 several times lately that her clock is behaving queerly, 
 and I'm not surprised. We drop it every day, some- 
 times quite hard. Miss Cummins won't tell, and I 
 can't. 
 
 There are other little things about that one is not 
 supposed to cut teeth on, but Clara lets me have 
 them until she hears the elevator slam at our floor. 
 I don't mind the short spasms of temper that follow 
 these away-takings, because she feeds me wee bites 
 from the edges of lumps of sugar to stop the noise, 
 which, of course, Mother and Mother's Special 
 Physician would not allow if they knew. Miss 
 Cummins does not mention things which would dis-
 
 im
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 53 ^ 
 
 turb them, and I can't. I prefer little things of 
 Mother's to big toys of mine. 
 
 Miss Cummins is extra black, and when she is all 
 gotted-up, she wears a sort of small horse's tail pinned 
 on the back of her head over the short kinks that 
 grow there. To-day Miss Cummins and I washed 
 this tail, and we tried to dry it over the biggest burner 
 of the gas stove. But instead of slowly drying it, 
 we inadvertently quickly sterilized it. Mother came 
 in shortly after we got the blaze out, and in answer 
 to her sniffing, Miss Cummins smartly volunteered 
 the comment that if the janitor didn't quit burning 
 the garbage in the steam heating plant, she was 
 going to think very seriously of going back to Cin- 
 cinnatta! 
 
 We are fairly well crowded at our house, now that 
 the wee rooms intended for a gentleman and his 
 wife are obliged to accomodate besides the original 
 list, a cousin, a baby and a maid. We use one room 
 as a sitting room, library, drawing room, nursery 
 and dining room. At one end of the place is an old
 
 54 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 mahogany table with one leaf against the wall, and 
 on it are some flowers and a pair of quaint candle- 
 sticks. When it is dinner time, Clara Cummins 
 comes in in her black dress with her big white apron 
 and her small white cap with the big black bow on 
 it, and lifts the table into the middle of the floor. Then 
 she puts on it many things, most of which I should 
 greatly like to get hold of. Sometimes when I am 
 ready for bed I am allowed to watch her for a moment. 
 She is not permitted to speak except when necessary 
 in this room, the place already being full enough 
 without being further crowded by remarks from her. 
 But she makes funny eyes at me and takes bites out 
 of my hand, in passing. They are not real bites. 
 
 Then they put me in my new bed, which I now 
 have because my old white canvas bed fell down 
 too often with me in it, and Miss Cummins said too 
 much on the subject. She said so much, in fact, 
 that it got to the point where Mother had to discharge 
 her to preserve her self-respect, which she did but 
 it did not take. Clara came back just as though
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 55 
 
 gl H 
 
 nothing had been said about dismissal. So Mother 
 bought an up-standing bed to stop her voice. I 
 never got hurt in the old bed, but I might have. 
 But I might fall out of the seventh story window, 
 for that matter, as Miss Cummins and I frequently 
 sit in the open, screenless window when Mother is 
 at the market, although Clara has it understood with 
 Mother that she simply cannot wash windows so 
 high up it makes her dizzy. The janitor washes 
 our windows. Miss Cummins is not dizzy when I 
 am with her, although Mother might be, if she saw 
 us which she never will, so long as Clara's hearing 
 remains as good as it is. We can smell a latch-key 
 before it gets within a foot of the keyhole. 
 
 Mother continues in her fresh air habits, just as 
 she did in the country, and I heard Miss Cummins 
 telling the janitor down the dumb-waiter shaft that 
 if our flat was going to be kept so darn-cold on the 
 floor all winter, she was going to do her feet up in 
 hay. And she thinks it is rough on me, too, and she 
 says when she is an old "lady" and I am a big man,
 
 56 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 RC] ESI 
 
 83 w 
 
 s\ie is going to say, "Why, Mr. Carr, did you act'ally 
 
 live through it?" I had a fine, long, large, comforting, 
 juicy suck on a piece of raw bacon this afternoon. 
 Nobody knew, but Miss Cummins and myself. 
 Miss Cummins would not think of reporting it, and I 
 can't. The things Mother feeds me are pasteurized; 
 the things that Miss Cummins feeds me, are not. 
 But I am pulling through^ in spite of both of them. 
 
 Father says something has to be done to liven up 
 this household. I think he is right. Cousin Mar- 
 tha is looking all worn out, and she never sleeps, 
 while Mother is lashing most of her energy into 
 trying to be true to her silent resolve not to acknowledge 
 the pain in her brain. Why, she has even gone to 
 such lengths as to call on our Special Physician and 
 to give as her excuse the statement that she felt so 
 well and happy she thought he would like to see her, 
 as most of his visitors went to him in distress! I don't 
 know what he of the amber eye really thinks, but I 
 heard he once said he had given a good many years 
 of his life trying to understand women, and that each
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 57 
 
 H Hi 
 
 year he discovered he knew less of them than he 
 thought he knew the year before! But I don't think 
 women are hard to know, do you? My Mother is 
 not hard to know. 
 
 However, I think my Mother is somewhat better, 
 because our town grocery-man does not inspire so 
 much hatred in her as our country one did. 
 
 Father went on to say that yesterday he ran onto 
 an old friend of his a grocer. (Mother jumped at 
 the word). He had asked him to dinner, and he 
 suggested to Mother that as his friend was very 
 sensitive just now, it might be nice of her to write 
 him a note. 
 
 Mother at once said in a puzzled way, "A grocer, 
 dear?" And in her mind there hopped up the pic- 
 ture of a spotted, tired looking man in shirt sleeves 
 (brushing away a streak of flour from his cheek and 
 tucking his pencil behind his ear, all in one trip of 
 his hand), while he asked, mechanically, "Any- 
 thing else? Got coffee enough for over Sunday?" 
 
 "A grocer," repeated Father. "Rather an in-
 
 58 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 n n 
 
 teresting man. He asked you and me to go to the 
 theatre with him sometime, and I thought if he first 
 met Martha here with us, he might ask her, too. We 
 must do something to get the poor girl out of herself." 
 
 "But Martha never knew any grocers, except on 
 business," Mother went on. 
 
 "Time she did!" said Father. 
 
 "Well, tell me something about him a gentleman, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 "I suppose," said Father, smiling. "At least he 
 has always ranked as such in college and in society. 
 To-day I met him again, and he told me that for 
 months he has not been able to face happiness, but 
 that he would try to come to our house if you wanted 
 him. I am sure you do want him." 
 
 Mother wrote the note, and she and Cousin Mar- 
 tha braced themselves against the possibility of a 
 shock, and we all awaited the meeting with Father's 
 grocer friend who could not face happiness. Cousin 
 Martha remarked she hoped the list of dinner guests 
 would not get out to Park Hill, where, until she came
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 59 
 
 to us in sorrow, Cousin Martha was "one of the leaders 
 of our select social circles," to quote the Sunday paper. 
 And Mother said she was glad that Cousin Martha 
 had spoken because that reminded her that it would 
 never do to have canned soup for dinner, because the 
 professional taste would detect it in a minute! 
 
 A day, and then came a special messenger with 
 a huge box of flowers and a note from the grocer. 
 "Any nutmegs get in by mistake?" sweetly in- 
 quired Cousin Martha. But Mother was too busy 
 observing the coat-of-arms at the head of the paper, 
 and the beauty of the flowers, to notice such sauciness. 
 The grocer had expressed himself as being delighted 
 to dine with them on the morrow. 
 
 "Does your friend speak English, or talk shop?" 
 asked Cousin Martha of Father. 
 
 "That will do for you!" retorted Father. 
 
 "But a grocer, Richard!" (Mother jumped at 
 the word). 
 
 "You two women make me tired!" was all they 
 could get out of Father.
 
 60 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 ffl g| 
 
 Miss Clara Cummins made a good dinner, and 
 brightened up the silver with an extra flourish in 
 honor of the first guest since our return to civilization. 
 The sitting-room library nursery drawing-room 
 dining-room never looked prettier and less crowded 
 than it did that evening at seven to the dot, when 
 the elevator door slammed at our floor. Mother 
 and Cousin Martha had got themselves up rather 
 more than usual Mother in a white evening gown, 
 and Cousin Martha in her very softest, blackest dress, 
 with a white ruche at her throat and a pearl brooch. 
 They exchanged teasing glances, so that Father 
 might know the mental picture of their guest was 
 amusing them. But they quickly came to order, as 
 Clara opened the door to the gentleman and took 
 his great fur coat, his topper, his gloves and his stick. 
 In another instant he was approaching the sitting- 
 room door. I got all this from Mother's mind later 
 on you see. 
 
 In walked the dinner guest, faultless in his dress 
 as a fashion plate slender, serious, polite fascinat-
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 6! 
 
 ing. And there was no noticeable aroma of dill 
 pickles about him. 
 
 Mother walked to meet the gentleman, and shook 
 hands cordially, saying, "Mr. Ludlow, I want you 
 to know my cousin, Mrs. Burnham!" 
 
 Mr. Ludlow held Cousin Martha's hand a frac- 
 tion of an instant longer than was necessary, bowing 
 over it, deferentially, and saying nothing. I fancy 
 this delicately done bit of flattery was the first light 
 thing that had hovered near dear Cousin Martha in 
 a very long time. The time, really, was but short, 
 although Cousin Martha regarded it as a great many 
 years, and she felt very middle-aged indeed, although 
 she and Mother are pretty much the same time old, 
 which isn't so very old when my Mother smiles. I 
 used to wonder in the summer which of them was 
 the older Mother with the pain in her brain, or 
 Cousin Martha with the empty place in her 
 heart. 
 
 Well, from this little thing and that little thing I 
 heard and felt, I got the picture of this dinner well
 
 62 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 ii Si 
 
 printed in my imagination. I know, too, that it went 
 on record under the heading of "Mother's consolation 
 party." They were only just seated when so Clara 
 Cummins' mind told my mind, later when the 
 man who could not face happiness began making 
 dreadfully depressing remarks about Death and what 
 the human soul had to live through in its loneliness. 
 It was a strange thing for him to do, considering Cou- 
 sin Martha's black dress. Mourning is supposed to 
 be a protection, but it is usually a provocation. So 
 on he plunged with mystery and isolation and other 
 cheerful topics, until Mother grew nervous lest they 
 should have a scene with Cousin Martha, who was 
 very raw as to nerves just now, and emotional always. 
 Mother saw her struggling under the persistent pound- 
 ing of sad comment and doleful theories, and she 
 glanced appealingly at Father, who undertook to 
 change the tide of the talk, while he carved. 
 
 But a jolly lot of good it did! One might as well 
 have tried to change the current of the Gulf Stream. 
 Father's humorous story never even disturbed Mr.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 63 
 
 Ludlow's admiring glances at Cousin Martha all 
 it did was to stop his remarks for the moment. Father 
 waited with his carving knife in the air, for the others 
 to add some anecdote along the same lines, and maybe 
 he would have been waiting yet, except that just 
 here Mother told something funny, which nobody 
 followed sufficiently well to smile at in the right 
 spot. Cousin Martha did not hear it at all, because 
 her whole being was concentrated on not allow- 
 ing herself to get out of control and have hysterics. 
 Father glanced at Mother with an O Lord! sort of 
 expression, and signalled for help. Mother tried again 
 to break into the painful magnetism generated by 
 the failure of everybody present to have a good time, 
 and ventured, apropos of her desperation, "Mrs. 
 Burnham is from Park Hill. She likes New York, 
 however!" And the plucky little effort had all of 
 the spontaneity of a doll's "Mama!" when you poke 
 it in the right place. 
 
 Doubtless this was a sort of tin-foil weapon with 
 which to slay the gloom that had settled over the table,
 
 64 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 for Mr. Ludlow apparently did not hear her; he kindly 
 paused until her voice had ceased, and then went 
 on, "But there must be something after this life 
 there must be something to make it worth while to 
 have gone through the horror of the most common- 
 place human experiences! Birth life death what 
 are they all for?" 
 
 This came near being too much for Clara 
 Cummins, who dashed out of the room at the first 
 opportunity. The funny side of it, unfortunately 
 struck both Father and Mother at the same time, 
 and Mother nervously tittered, as Cousin Martha 
 fumbled for her handkerchief. "We must not think 
 of such things, Mr. Ludlow!" she exclaimed, deci- 
 sively, and she smiled, though it seemed a very 
 foolish time to smile. Father bit his lip, as he realized 
 how flat it was of Mother to smile. 
 
 *' What Mrs. Carr says is quite true! " echoed Father, 
 inanely, although Father is seldom inane. "We must 
 be happy, as my wife suggests! Will you have light 
 meat, Ludlow, or dark?"
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 65 
 
 "When I first realized that I had to face life square- 
 ly face it with no possible future " 
 
 "Did you say second joint, Ludlow?" Father cut 
 in, as Mother's prayerful signal reached him, and 
 Cousin Martha acted as though she had forgotten 
 the exact location of the fire-escape. 
 
 "Anything at all, old man," replied the guest who 
 had been asked in to take Cousin Martha out of her 
 wretched self for a moment. "What I eat does not 
 interest me any more. And as I was going to say 
 about the tragedy of loneliness, when I first " 
 
 "Ah! Mr. Ludlow, excuse me, do, for interrupt- 
 ing, and changing the subject abruptly, but I I " 
 
 "Don't apologize, dear Mrs. Carr! Nothing really 
 ever interrupts my train of thought. I don't think 
 anything could, when one has been through the ex- 
 periences I have." 
 
 Things looked dark indeed. Mother felt temper, 
 almost, for it seemed abnormally selfish of this stranger 
 to go on persistently in this minor key, when there 
 was present someone who had lived through bitter
 
 66 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 sra Era 
 
 Ess as 
 
 trials, herself, and who was trying to take a broad 
 view of it all an impersonal view, if such a thing is 
 possible. But try as she might, there was no changing 
 the tone of things. Mother's attempt to cheer Cousin 
 Martha was such a farce that it took the greatest self- 
 control not to be overcome by "the shallows." 
 
 But eventually the dinner ended, and Miss Cummins 
 converted the dining-room into a drawing-room by 
 setting the table back against the wall, while the party 
 gathered together in one corner the library. Here 
 Mr. Ludlow took a new tack, and began making re- 
 marks which showed him to be interested in Cousin 
 Martha's character. He boldly asserted his belief 
 that from the way she used her hands, the toilet 
 articles on her dressing table were all arranged in 
 formal sequence. Cousin Martha did all she could 
 not to look as pleased as she was. As a rule Cousin 
 Martha's dressing table looks like the memory of a 
 whirlwind, but for once it was most orderly, and Mr. 
 Ludlow was permitted to stick his head in the door 
 to see what a remarkable reader of character he was!
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 67 
 
 Mother and Cousin Martha were uncomfortably 
 amused, but they kept their faces straight, of course. 
 
 But it must have been a strenuous evening, for 
 when at last Mr. Ludlow was helped into his great 
 fur coat by Father, and Clara Cummins importantly 
 handed him his stick and gloves and topper, and 
 everybody said goodnight the second time, and he 
 was actually gone, the whole family fell in a heap 
 two on the couch and one in a chair. Father was 
 the first to be able to speak he whistled a long, soft 
 whistle. Then Cousin Martha found breath to remark 
 that they might overlook Father's grocer friends 
 (Mother jumped at the word) upsetting all tradition 
 by appearing like Russian princes, but she did wish 
 they weren't so dismal! Mother hadn't any words 
 she just smiled at the situation, and said they must 
 be sure to give some more little dinners and liven 
 themselves up! 
 
 When she and Father came into my room, I heard 
 Father say, "Well, what do you think of my friend 
 Ludlow?"
 
 68 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 0EJ rarj 
 
 as as 
 
 "I think he is going to marry my cousin," replied 
 
 Mother, quick as a flash. 
 
 "My dear!" reproved Father. "I think your idea 
 shows very bad taste under the circumstances!" 
 
 "I am not trying to be funny," Mother said in her 
 own defense. "I mean what I say. I believe he 
 made up his mind the moment he looked at her." 
 
 Father was evidently displeased. "This shows 
 how much you women know!" he protested. "Here 
 is a man crushed absolutely unable to think of a 
 woman; and here is a woman in the saddest frame of 
 mind and you try to say that oh! a lot you women 
 know!" 
 
 "On the whole I think you will find that women 
 know just as much along some lines as men ever 
 know," dryly remarked Mother, upon which Father 
 complained again of her taste. 
 
 "When it comes to marriage," Mother went on 
 courageously, "I think the whole matter is an affair 
 of fate, rather than of taste." 
 
 As there was no more said on the subject that
 
 Jfatfjcr toas ebtbcntlp bispleaseb. 
 ijolu muci) pou toomcn fenoto. 
 
 stfjotosf 
 
 page 68
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 69 
 
 night, I inferred this subtle shot concerning the possible 
 reason for Mother's having married Father, was 
 enough to silence him for a while: although I saw a 
 smile around the edge of his mouth when he leaned 
 over to kiss me good-night. And when he reached 
 up to put out the light, I was sure it was a large smile.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A LOVELY lady comes to see us often. Be- 
 hind her is a faithful maid who says, "Yes, 
 Mrs. Carr?" to our visitor, just like a nice, 
 neat little machine. The lovely lady is my Father's 
 Mother, who is the understandingest admirer I have. 
 She brings me little things to play with and soft shoes, 
 which she kindly suggested I would soon be untying, 
 myself. I have had a most entertaining time since 
 this idea was put into my head, sitting on the bed and 
 struggling with the bows. I get the shoes off fre- 
 quently. This game is not particularly amusing 
 to the up-grown who keeps putting them on again. 
 
 My delightful Grandmother makes a wonderful 
 springboard, for she is large and comfortable. As 
 she holds me, I jump and jump and jump almost 
 out of her arms. She is more satisfactory in this 
 capacity than her maid would be, for Jane is thin 
 
 70
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 71 
 
 m n 
 
 and distinctly unbouncing. My Giandmother wears 
 two sets of eye-glasses on one hook in the lace of 
 her gown. Very thoughtful of her. I have charm- 
 ing times with the tiny gold chains, which survive 
 some pretty big yanks. "De bootifuls" my adorable 
 Grandmother calls me. This is about all the baby- 
 talk I ever hear. It is warming. I like it. 
 
 My Mother says such things to me as, "Dicklet, 
 I wish this fretting stopped, instantly!" It stops. 
 She says she appreciates that her actual words mean 
 nothing to me, but she is sure I understand her tone. 
 I do. "De Bootifuls," therefore, is refreshing. You 
 would realize this, if you were I. 
 
 Poor Mother! She still fancies herself unrecon- 
 ciled to the changes I have brought into her life. It 
 disturbs her not to be able to work twenty-four 
 hours a day, for work is her favorite diversion al- 
 though it wasn't, when she had the time. I don't 
 believe she ever worked very much, myself. I am 
 her excuse for not working now. As a girl she chose 
 her own excuse. This is probably the difference,
 
 72 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 [n m 
 
 but she does not see, and I cannot speak. If I knew 
 her language I might point out this fact to her, gently. 
 I am sometimes sorry I cannot speak. Yet, some plea- 
 sure is to be got out of misery, it would seem. What 
 is my Mother going to do by way of fun, I wonder, 
 when she becomes so well that her sense-of-humor will 
 no longer let us call on our Special Physician? 
 
 We enjoy talking with our Physician over the tele- 
 phone very much, thank you. We have to consult 
 him every few days about my food, or something. 
 He gave us a little book called "The Care of Children" 
 with the idea, no doubt, of having his wire free once 
 in a while, so that some of his other patients might 
 have a chance to bother him. But the book is better 
 for our purposes than his, because the repeated ad- 
 vice of this little volume is, "If, however, these symp- 
 toms seem serious, lose no time in consulting a good 
 physician." We never lose any time. Certainly 
 not. And wasn't it sweet of the Special Physician 
 to give us this book, himself? 
 
 But as yet we have refrained from giving our Doc-
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 73 
 
 tor any "grateful patient" presents. I hardly think 
 that Mother will ever make him any carpet slippers 
 or give him an umbrella, for once he said in our 
 hearing that he never minded losing umbrellas he 
 always got six or eight every Christmas. I feel con- 
 fident that Mother will never do anything any more 
 uninteresting than to send him a print (special deliv- 
 ery), of every photograph I have made, which may 
 hold his attention a moment, of course, if she care- 
 fully labels each one with my name, so he may know 
 which one of his little boys I am. 
 
 I have about decided that when I grow up, I shall 
 choose a vocation with a view to having my bene- 
 factors realize that my interest in them is professional, 
 not personal. It must be tiresome to be a successful 
 physician. Large quantities of gratitude heaped 
 upon one for doing no more than his duty, must be a 
 sort of continuous anti-climax. Yet, if I ever do 
 become a physician, I suppose I can show the busi- 
 ness sense to run an umbrella shop in connection with 
 my medical work?
 
 74 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m M 
 
 Like so many sensitive persons, Mother inflicts 
 almost as many wounds as she receives. To-day 
 she spoke sharply to Cousin Martha for accepting 
 an invitation to go automobiling with our recent 
 guest, Mr. Ludlow whose violets arrived before 
 Cousin Martha was awake this morning; whose tele- 
 phone call interrupted her breakfast; whose books got 
 here by eleven and whose machine has been sighted 
 hurrying past our front entrance, on the chance of 
 seeing somebody go out, several times within the last 
 hour. Mother seems to think that Cousin Martha 
 ought not to encourage admiring gentlemen just yet. 
 Cousin Martha seems to think that the little which 
 is endurable in her life, ought to be accepted thank- 
 fully. There you are gratitude again! She is un- 
 consciously grateful to a man who wants her off 
 motoring, all to himself, where nobody can interfere 
 with the flow of his sufferings by any irrelevant remarks 
 about cheerfulness or light or dark meat off where 
 he can make her weep for him off where she will 
 naturally not have the nerve to mention her own
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 75 
 
 ERJ cga 
 
 cxS as 
 
 troubles. Indeed, it must be thrilling to be an up- 
 grown man and have all the ladies grateful to you 
 for the wrong things! I have hopes of trying it, 
 some day, myself. 
 
 Well, off Cousin Martha would go, and as a re- 
 sult Mother's nerves began to nag her until, in des- 
 peration, she went out for a lonely walk. Miss 
 Cummins and I were left together, and we put in the 
 time agreeably calling at the various apartments, 
 where I got bites of everything I should not have had, 
 but pie. I howled for pie at one lady's house, but 
 I made a miscalculation and stopped howling too 
 soon, getting only some of the browned snow on 
 the top of it, when it was the hardwood floor in the bot- 
 tom that I really wanted. We did not get the silver 
 cleaned, but we squared ourselves with Mother, for- 
 tunately, by Miss Cummins reporting that I had had a 
 dreadful pain all the time she was away, a pain so 
 bad that it necessitated her walking the floor with 
 me the entire afternoon. 
 
 Just after Mother came in, Cousin Martha returned,
 
 76 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 csa pga 
 
 Os ^^BS 
 
 all the black clouds on her hat being blown off to 
 one side, her cheeks pinker than usual, her eyes a 
 bit heavy from tears, or the effort to restrain them, and, 
 in a word, looking between five and six hundred 
 years younger than I had ever seen her. 
 
 "We've had such a wonderful spin away up into 
 Westchester County!" she said, lightly. Mother 
 was silent, so Cousin Martha rippled on, "Where 
 were you this afternoon, dear?" ignoring Mother's 
 disapproving manner. 
 
 "Why why, I was I was out!" Mother en- 
 lightened her. Cousin Martha's mind was not on 
 the subject when she asked the question, so she did 
 not notice that she did not find out what she wanted 
 to know. Miss Cummins was not altogether satisfied, 
 however. She hated not to know things. She had 
 the kitchen door open a crack now. 
 
 But the little tilt was too much for Mother. In 
 bed to-night she has tossed and tossed about, saying 
 to herself, "If only I had the strength to work, other 
 people's affairs would seem less important to me, I
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 77 
 
 (30 fggl 
 
 BS~^ ES 
 
 suppose. Oh! what a tragedy it is to have one's 
 work taken away! I have longed for a piano and 
 another chance at amounting to something, but Life 
 pushes this ambition farther and farther from me 
 with every day! I have to be somebody's mother, 
 and it takes all the time, all the health and all the 
 money there is. And I am left with nothing to sing 
 about my own life ended before I was ready to give 
 it up!" 
 
 This is what I have to deal with every time my 
 Mother is too tired. It is a sad thing for one of help- 
 less age. I did not mean to make anybody unhappy! 
 I could not stand this, if Mother directed her ravings 
 at me directly, but she does not, quite they seem to 
 be aimed at the scheme of things, generally speaking, 
 but they get off the track, sometimes, and hit me, 
 and I am still little. I wish it were not so. 
 
 Evidently, when Mother married, she must have 
 told herself that marriage was a good incident to a 
 career. Mother should not talk to herself so much, 
 it is not good for her, really. I just wish I could speak
 
 78 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 her language! I would try to make her see that the 
 whole responsibility of me does not lie entirely with 
 her. I am an individual, if I am small, and I am 
 responsible for myself, and willing to stand by it! 
 
 But Mother will not have it so. The weight of 
 that black cloak made of all the things she hates, 
 is killing her, and the iron clasp has a way of tighten- 
 ing itself at her throat. 
 
 I knew no other method of breaking into Mother's 
 mood, than to sneeze, which I did. She forgot her- 
 self instantly, and leaped to a sitting posture so that 
 she could lean over my new bed to see that I was 
 covered which I took particular pains not to be. 
 I was cold, so she lifted me and hugged me tight to 
 her, which gave me the opportunity to run my hand 
 over her throat. 
 
 There was no iron buckle there at all! Her throat 
 was a little hard where the sob was hiding, but there 
 wasn't anything else there, I tell you. Is it not very 
 extraordinary?
 
 I DISLIKE talking so much about myself, but 
 my taste in this particular is being contaminated 
 by hearing myself incessantly discussed by those 
 about me. "Hasn't he wonderful eyes?" each lady 
 says, as though she had made an original discovery. 
 By the way have I mentioned that my eyes are no 
 longer blue? No, they are a sort of hazel. Changing 
 the color of one's eyes is not as bad form in babies and 
 cats, as changing the color of one's hair is in lady up- 
 growns. 
 
 I have now reached the age when my Mother 
 thinks I am sufficiently irresistible to have my photo- 
 graph taken with her. Cousin Martha ran the risk 
 of being late to look over some books with a friend 
 of hers at Brentano's I wonder who? and she and 
 Mother took me to the photographer's. I was sorry 
 
 to disappoint them, but I was suffering from a 
 
 79
 
 80 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 @ m 
 
 bad humor, and could not have smiled, if I had been 
 willing to which I wasn't. The snap-shot gentle- 
 man impressed me as being a harmless kind of a luna- 
 tic, who got off a lot of tootsey-wootsey talk and 
 hung onto a tiny bulb on the end of a small hose, to 
 keep from jigging himself off his balance. He fran- 
 tically waved a squeaking duck, which was too large 
 for one of helpless age to care to examine. I 
 did not encourage his gyrations by even so much as 
 appearing to be alive. I stared at the foolish person 
 blankly. The situation was trying for Mother, who 
 could not control her facial muscles well enough to 
 have a likeness made of anything but teeth, while 
 Cousin Martha suddenly flew out of the room. Pos- 
 sibly she had a pain somewhere. I cannot say. 
 
 All the while the active snap-shotist was speaking 
 to the atmosphere, like a monkey chattering on a 
 cold day to keep himself from freezing to death. 
 And the way he over-exercised the duck, was a 
 matter that ought to have been investigated by the 
 Society for the Prevention of Roughness to Toys.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 81 
 
 "Laugh, little boy, laugh!" he cried out now and 
 then between hops. I assure you there was nothing 
 whatever to laugh at. My one thought was that 
 the man was in agony, for no Ute Indian on the war- 
 path ever indulged in such goings-on. Had I looked 
 human, he might have made a dash for my scalp, 
 and I haven't enough hair to be getting careless with, 
 and I would not have given it to such a person, if 
 I had. Eventually they all became un-excited again, 
 and the man mopped his brow and said he feared 
 he had got a sad picture, and he was usually so 
 successful, too, as a rule. Very glad to hear it, I 
 am sure. 
 
 It was good indeed to get back to private life and 
 Miss Clara Cummins, who took me eagerly from 
 Mother the moment we appeared, as though Mother 
 had kept me longer than she had any intention of 
 allowing me to be out. And I took Clara's hand 
 and put it on the sugar can, meaning, of course, that 
 I wanted some sugar. I always put the nearest up- 
 grown hand on whatever object I want it saves a
 
 82 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 KSH rawi 
 
 Eg a 
 
 lot of trouble, as I speak Actions better than English 
 which, to be accurate, I do not speak at all. 
 
 "I suppose the brown paint on the can attracts 
 him, Clara," Mother suggested. But Miss Cummins 
 did not feel a call to enlighten Mother, and I couldn't. 
 
 Cousin Martha and her friend must have looked 
 over a great many books, for Cousin Martha did not 
 come home until dinner time, and then surprised 
 Mother by saying she was dining out. 
 
 "Martha!" Mother said, appealingly, "Martha, do 
 go a little slower! What do we know of this man, any- 
 way, except that he is a grocer and doesn't look it?" 
 
 "It is no discredit to be a grocer, especially in this 
 country! Besides, he is quite the biggest grocer and 
 the best grocer in New York!" snapped Cousin 
 Martha. 
 
 "Oh!" gasped Mother, doubtless noticing a slight 
 change in Cousin Martha's point-of-view. "But," 
 she argued further, "think of yourself, if you won't 
 think of the groceries! Would this not shock them all 
 in Park Hill just now you understand?"
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 83 
 
 "What is Park Hill?" demanded Cousin Martha, 
 grandly. "What is it anyway, but an overgrown 
 village full of narrow-minded, empty-headed, coun- 
 try bumpkins, I should like to know? Why Court- 
 ney says I mean, Mr. Ludlow says you have no 
 idea of the true value of these provincials until you 
 meet them in New York!" 
 
 "Was he speaking of you?" softly ventured Mother. 
 
 "Certainly not!" she stormed. "He thinks me 
 very different from the average!" 
 
 "Provincials" Mother harked back. "Hum! 
 You seem to forget that these are our people he is 
 speaking of people he has never met, except, possibly 
 on business, and who ' 
 
 "I doubt if he cares to meet them in any other way 
 than on business!" Cousin Martha retorted. 
 
 Something was wrong, somewhere. Mother be- 
 gan to think. Was this new tone in Cousin Martha 
 due to three telephone calls a day, too many flowers, 
 too much candy or what? Mother was particu- 
 larly struck by the significance of Cousin Martha's
 
 84 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 PS , 6S3 
 
 Esa^ SS 
 
 accidentally making use of our acquaintance's Chris- 
 tian name. She hardly felt she could shut her cou- 
 sin up in her room and feed her bread and milk until 
 she came to her senses, although she would have 
 been glad to do so. It seemed best to drop this sub- 
 ject and take up that of a letter asking Cousin 
 Martha to go out to a Long Island place for a few 
 days. 
 
 "You'd best go, Martha," Mother urged. "You 
 need the change, and we can't do much to amuse 
 you here in these cramped quarters. Do telephone 
 that you will be there on the four-thirty train to- 
 morrow!" 
 
 Cousin Martha expressed herself as being un- 
 attracted by the country in winter; besides, being in 
 mourning she could not go anywhere. It would be 
 just a stupid time sitting around the house, at best. 
 But Mother kept at Cousin Martha until she saw her 
 safely off on the Long Island train the next afternoon, 
 and had got her promise not to encourage Mr. Lud- 
 low's going down there among friends who might make
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 85 
 
 273 GS3 
 
 as as 
 
 criticisms. Cousin Martha agreed with Mother that 
 
 this would be a social mistake. And the train started 
 up with Cousin Martha blowing Mother a nice little 
 kiss through the car window, Mother nodding back, 
 sweetly and Mr. Courtney Evanston Ludlow in 
 the smoking car though we did not know about 
 it at the time. 
 
 Mother was worried. She wondered what the 
 family would say, for Cousin Martha had always 
 walked so carefully within the rigid little lines that 
 Society draws for ladies. But things would right 
 themselves. Cousin Martha was out of town, and 
 would, no doubt, come to herself. Also, the tele- 
 phone at our house would now have a chance to 
 cool off, and not get a hot-box. Our apartment was 
 so full of flowers that one would suppose, at a glance, 
 everybody was dead and the papers had announced 
 that it was requested by the relatives that no floral 
 tributes be sent. Also, we knew that if Miss Clara 
 Cummins ate any more of Mr. Courtney Evanston 
 Ludlow's chocolates, she would be sick, and we
 
 86 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 should then have to turn to and do the work our- 
 selves. 
 
 But we had grown used to Mr. Ludlow's nice voice 
 at the telephone, and so, when three days after Cou- 
 sin Martha left, we heard him calling us, we were 
 pleased. He wanted to know if Father, Mother and 
 I would not like to go out automobiling on 
 Sunday. This was very thoughtful of him, and 
 Mother expressed herself as delighted to accept 
 for us all. 
 
 Sunday came, bright and beautiful as one could 
 wish, and we were got up warmly, special care being 
 taken to do me up well and then deposit me in a 
 large flannel bag. Mother wore a gorgeous coat 
 of fur, belonging to Mr. Ludlow, as did Father, too. 
 Mr. Ludlow never did things by halves if, as his 
 guest you needed fur coats, he saw that they were at 
 your disposal. Rather more thoughtful than most 
 grocers, who are generally late with the goods, es- 
 pecially if you need the eggs right away. 
 
 "Where shall we go?" asked Mr. Ludlow, turning
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 87 
 
 round to us, as the chauffeur cranked up the great 
 machine. 
 
 "Why, I don't know, I'm sure," answered Mother. 
 "Anywhere you like. You are more familiar with 
 the good roads than we are." 
 
 "To the ferries, Banks!" he ordered. 
 
 We got almost as much interest as we hoped for 
 from the janitor and all passers-by, and soon were out 
 of town, where many leafless trees and barking dogs 
 and farm houses were skipping past us. All of a 
 sudden (Mr. Ludlow does things more or less sudden- 
 ly, always,) our host turned again and politely said, 
 "When do you expect your cousin home, Mrs. Carr?'* 
 
 "In a few days, I think, Mr. Ludlow, although I 
 want her to stay as long as she will, as she needs the 
 rest." 
 
 "Wouldn't you like to drop in and see how she is?" 
 Mr. Ludlow suggested this with the air of one wishing 
 to confer a favor upon his guests. "We shall be going 
 very near her place, and it won't take us far out of 
 our way."
 
 88 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m m 
 
 I wish I had been older I might have nudged 
 Mother, or something, for she is a peculiar person 
 when you take her unawares; she seems to lose all power 
 to say no. If Father had asked her to marry him, 
 over the telephone, it would have saved a lot of 
 trouble. But I was helpless. And the next instant 
 my Mother was saying, "Why, why, I had not 
 thought of it, but I suppose we might stop a moment.'* 
 
 "The road to the left, Banks, when you reach the 
 big stone house," ordered Mr. Ludlow. He seemed 
 perfectly familiar with the neighborhood, we all 
 decided at once, though no one said so in words. 
 
 Mother could have scolded herself soundly the 
 jnstant after this, for here she was, responsible for 
 their going to look up Cousin Martha, when she had felt 
 and spoken so strongly against it! It was a joke on 
 her. And what could she do, after once having 
 given her sanction to it? Well, she argued, it would 
 make no difference, probably, anyway she was, 
 no doubt, a little too strict in her ideas of conventional- 
 ity. Mr. Ludlow would be presented as Father's
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 89 
 
 friend, and everyone would naturally suppose that 
 she and Father, not Mr. Ludlow, had chosen to call. 
 Then Mother told herself firmly that she was over- 
 sensitive and self-conscious, and the world would get 
 on a shade better if she would cultivate the habit of 
 taking less interest in other people's affairs! 
 
 Imagine our surprise, when we were presented to 
 a room full of pleasant persons, to see Cousin Mar- 
 tha with her hat and black clouds all on, her coat 
 on a nearby chair, and her suitcase right out in the 
 hall, in the direct line of our vision! 
 
 "Hello, Martha," Mother said, affectionately, 
 "have you just come in, or are you just going 
 out?" 
 
 There was a good deal of fussing over me, but I 
 noticed that Cousin Martha stammered something 
 indefinite, and her hostess turned, just here, and ex- 
 claimed, "What do you think of her, Mrs. Carr? 
 She said only a few moments before you arrived, 
 that she simply could not live another day without 
 that baby of yours, and to our consternation, she
 
 90 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m m 
 
 appeared down stairs with her luggage and announced 
 she was taking the five o'clock train for home!" 
 
 Although there were three women kissing me at 
 once, I still was able to catch a glimpse of Mother 
 through a crack between them, and her expression 
 would have amused you! She was not convinced, 
 to say the least. She looked at Mr. Ludlow evident- 
 ly trying to discern whether or not he and Cousin 
 Martha were guilty of a conspiracy; but Mr. Lud- 
 low sat idly blowing cigarette smoke through his nose, 
 and ingeniously creating the impression of one who 
 was doing some self-sacrificing thing and trying to 
 be nice about it. He certainly would have been a 
 most attractive model for a painting entitled "Not 
 Guilty." Suddenly (when Mr. Ludlow is not 
 sudden, he is dreaming) recalling himself to the 
 conversation, which, as yet, he had taken no part in, 
 he looked up with another idea. "If Mrs. Burnham 
 is really in earnest, it will give us pleasure to take 
 her back with us in the car," he said, addressing 
 Mrs. Burnham, the roomful, Life in general, Mother
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 91 
 
 HI H 
 
 or anybody who cared to take the suggestion 
 into consideration. Everybody listened of course. 
 
 "I-a wouldn't it-abe crowding you?" shyly 
 asked Cousin Martha. This was pretty well done 
 for a dress rehearsal, too. 
 
 "Not at all!" promptly replied Mr. Ludlow, more 
 to Mother than to Life in general, this time, and with 
 the subtle insinuation of doing what he did only to 
 oblige her. 
 
 But Mother is game, for a woman (being a man- 
 being, I feel I have to modify the word "game" when 
 applied to a woman) and to herself, she acknowl- 
 edged that she had been cleverly trapped into doing 
 the last thing on earth she wanted to do; but to the 
 others she did not intimate that she was anything 
 but pleased by the outcome of the day. And so, off 
 we started with the house-party waving bye-byes 
 the way they try to teach me to wave (but I won't); 
 Cousin Martha, Mr. Ludlow, Father and I in the 
 tonneau, and Mother in front with Banks, whom 
 she found most entertaining.
 
 92 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Banks is nervous and thin, and like all true auto- 
 mobilists, a fatalist. In turning the first comer he 
 came within a breath of catching a man, and he 
 promptly commented, "There's a time for all fools, 
 but I guess his is still coming to him. I thought 
 for a second we'd got him." In Mr. Ludlow's 
 employ, Banks has been reduced to cynicism and one 
 tooth. The doctor suggested once that it would be 
 best for Mr. Ludlow to transfer Banks to one of the 
 wagons, and get a new chauffeur, by way of letting 
 the man down from the awful nervous tension at 
 which he lived. But Mr. Ludlow, not being in very 
 good health himself, never undertook to propose the 
 indignity to Banks. One of the wagons ha! I 
 can just see the sneer that would uncover that one tooth! 
 But had he condescended to the place, I feel confi- 
 dent the butter would have been delivered promptly 
 enough to suit even Miss Clara Cummins. 
 
 It had been Bank's duty for months to drive the 
 great French car fast enough to keep Mr. Ludlow 
 ahead of his own unhappiness. He confided to
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 93 
 
 Mother under his breath that he did not mind the 
 strain, except when Mr. Ludlow undertook to drive 
 the car himself, first remarking that it made no dif- 
 erence what happened to him not to worry about 
 him. Banks wasn't worrying about him, probably, 
 so much as about the car and himself, and he was 
 not especially contented in the tonneau, hanging onto 
 whatever he could find loose, trying to see through the 
 dust, and praying for the best. He told Mother that 
 Mr. Ludlow brooked no interference on anybody's 
 part in anything he decided to do (this characteris- 
 tic was not as surprising to Mother as it might have 
 been!) but that once he was forced to speak to his 
 master, severely. "My God! sir! Don't take a 
 double curve like that, sir!" he exclaimed, and meant 
 it. I know what kind of curve he had in mind it 
 went east, and immediately upon it followed another 
 turn going west, and it must have been a ter- 
 ror or Banks would not have spoken, for he 
 never minded blurring the scenery himself. And 
 he remarked that the dogs and chickens they got
 
 94 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 on one of these occasions, was a warning, and no 
 mistake ! 
 
 Soon we were in town, having made the home- 
 stretch with dash and style, scattering the natives 
 without argument. They put me to bed and then 
 they had something to eat themselves, and I could 
 hear them talking in the next room. 
 
 "How did you happen to think of looking me up? 
 Thoughtful dears!" Cousin Martha gayly asked, 
 with what Mother thought unnecessary pride, con- 
 sidering that she was the winner already. 
 
 But having resolved to flatter the culprits into 
 thinking they had done a rarely brilliant thing, Mother 
 spoke up, brightly, "Oh, this was an inspiration of 
 Mr. Ludlow's. Wasn't it nice of him?" 
 
 Later on, when they got the cigarette smoke aired 
 out of the apartment, and the gasoline smoke had 
 blown off our block, and Cousin Martha had gone 
 to her room, but poorly disguising her amusement, 
 Father and Mother exchanged a few remarks in our 
 room.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 95 
 
 m m 
 
 "Richard," began Mother, "something ought to 
 be done about this flirtation! Some day soon, Mar- 
 tha will be coming in here and telling us she has 
 been married to that man." 
 
 "My dear," Father replied, coldly, "I have known 
 you for years, and this is the first instance in which 
 I have observed you to be ridiculous. I think your 
 comments are shocking, and I wish you would not 
 
 "There you go!" Mother cut him off. "You 
 harp on taste, when we are facing marriage! I 
 insist that something ought to be done to make 
 Martha realize that her affairs are progressing too 
 rapidly!" 
 
 "Oh, my dear girl, it is a wonder you would not 
 bother about the realities of Life, not the possibilities! 
 Heavens and earth! Let the poor, tired little thing 
 alone! Lord, but that man stays late!" 
 
 "That man troubles me," volunteered Mother.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LIFE has taken on a serious aspect for me. I am 
 engaged in an occupation that is taking up a lot 
 of time. You see, my Mother wears some 
 pearl pins that are fascinating to me, and I expend all 
 my energy when in her lap, trying to loosen the tiny 
 pearls from their moorings. I struggle and struggle 
 with my delicate and easily bent nails to get up just 
 an edge of one wee pearl. It is a difficult task, and 
 quite as diverting to Mother as to me. When we 
 had guests the other night, they took me out of bed 
 and carried me into the sitting room to show me off, 
 everybody being requested to speak softly. Mother's 
 Special Physician held me strongly and almost 
 tenderly and offered me his cigarettes to muss up, 
 which I took mild pleasure in doing, although sleepy 
 at the time. Mother told everyone about the pearl 
 pickings we have (will they never realize that I 
 understand them?) so I promptly began the same
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 97 
 
 m m 
 
 thing on the Doctor's studs. It was a pretty party, 
 and I wish they had let me stay longer. 
 
 Mother is very vain about me, and takes me to 
 call on people, doing me up in a white woolly monk's 
 coat with a pointed cap attached to it, and a cord 
 around the waist. Under her other arm, she carries 
 my great white Teddy Bear, and I am undecided 
 whether or not we are quite innocent of the small 
 sensation we create every time we venture out. I 
 am growing old. I am able to kiss, and say in En- 
 glish unmistakable, "Mummah" and "Dadda;" I 
 can pull the cover off the dressing case seven times 
 out of every ten times I am carried near it; and I crawl 
 under my bed-clothes, in the hope of frightening my 
 parents into thinking I must have been kidnapped. I 
 have not heard them mention being alarmed, how- 
 ever. And this morning I woke up early and leaned 
 over and kissed my Mother's cheek, which surprised 
 her. But she did not mind the surprise, I think. 
 
 Mother is all nerves lately, and I often catch her 
 mind saying it is rude of itself, to degenerate into a
 
 98 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 g m 
 
 hypochondriac. So when a friend came in and 
 asked Mother to do something she did not want to 
 do go down to the Yiddish theatre on the Bowery 
 to see some Russian players Mother smiled, and said 
 she would be delighted. Cousin Martha had an 
 engagement to go out in a big French car to where 
 some fine scenery grew which one might see some other 
 time, when not in an automobile. And Father and 
 I were left alone for the first time in our lives. 
 
 I cried hard, in spots, which worried him. But 
 he fed me as directed and bounced me, and felt him- 
 self deciding he would rather be responsible for the 
 financial end of a married life, than the domestic. 
 But we were nearer to each other than we had been 
 before. 
 
 When Mother returned smelling distinctly rag- 
 pickerish, and full of enthusiasm for the leading lady 
 and the "types" they had seen, Father threw up his 
 hands and called out vigorously, *'Take this job away 
 from me quick, and why didn't you leave those 
 pearl pins for him to work on? I should go mad if
 
 -
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 99 
 
 I had this responsibility alone another minute! Why 
 in thunder does that nigger have to go out every 
 Sunday, anyway?" 
 
 The day after Mother broke the Sabbath by 
 going to an East Side theatre, it was Monday all day. 
 Miss Cummins had evidently neglected to get out 
 of the right side of her bed. She was horrid, and 
 showed her disregard for her fellow men by hanging 
 a lot of newly dyed black dress material out on our 
 pulley rope, directly over a nice clean washing that 
 was fanning in the air, three flights down. 
 
 The down stairs maid stuck her head out of the 
 window, and told us (none too politely), that she 
 wanted those dripping black rags taken in so that 
 they would not spoil her clothes. Miss Cummins 
 stuck her kinky head out of our window and told 
 the down stairs "colored-lady" (none too politely) 
 where she might go, if she didn't like the rags. The 
 place she mentioned was one I had never heard of 
 before. It sounded alarming to me. Mother be- 
 ing out, the two ladies had quite a dispute, and I
 
 100 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 feared the police would have to be called in, because 
 the downstairs kinks said they were going to the roof 
 of the building where our aft pulley was fastened, 
 to cut our rope and show us where our black rags 
 would do their dripping! 
 
 Miss Cummins made a few elegant remarks upon 
 what she would do to her, if she cut the rope. And 
 on the whole it was thrilling, and in the confusion, I 
 ate all I wanted of a new pound of butter that lay on 
 the table nearby, incidentally smashing the plate 
 it was on, in getting it to my highchair tray. I was 
 so glad Mother was out! 
 
 This Monday started badly all around, and I could 
 not help but feel that the very air was charged with 
 trouble. 
 
 Somebody had died who belonged to Father's 
 office, and he came home early, to find that Mother 
 was dreadfully disturbed by a scene she had had 
 with Cousin Martha, and so was not as glad to see 
 him as he naturally supposed she would be. They 
 were both depressed, and said I would have to sit
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 101 
 
 in the open window with my things on to get the air, 
 as they would not push a baby cart in the streets, if 
 they died for it. As it was wash-day, Miss Cummins 
 was too busy. So I sat there in my highchair, none 
 too happy, watching the dray horses in the street 
 back of us, and throwing as many toys out of the win- 
 dow as I could, and dumping the rest on the floor, 
 just as fast as ever they picked them up for me. In 
 places, I yelled and was glad of it. 
 
 Miss Cummins looked dangerous, positively. And 
 Father tried to read the paper, saying, "For the Lord's 
 sake, dear! Pretty soon we shall have to nail the 
 furniture down for the wind that blows in here! 
 Where is my heavy overcoat?" And he put it on, 
 rammed his hat down hard, and smoked a pipe with 
 energy. 
 
 Mother was shaking and on the verge of tears. 
 "The child has to have air, I suppose," she plain- 
 tively remarked, as though there were no peace on 
 earth, now that I had come to board with them 
 permanently. There are times when I do feel sorry
 
 102 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 for all the bother I have caused. Possibly they 
 would have been out walking, except for me though, 
 nowadays, Mother has little strength for unnecessary 
 things like that. Oh, they were depressed! I might 
 have taken this occasion to have been sweet and cooey 
 and all that, but one of helpless age always reflects 
 the general attitude about him, when he can't work 
 up a complaint of his own, so I fretted and whined, 
 and settled into a discontented heap in my great 
 monk's coat. Soon Mother began walking the 
 floor. 
 
 "Say!" said Father, irritably, "can't you sit down, 
 or is the breeze too strong to admit of it? You drive 
 me crazy, tramping about. Sit down, dear, and en- 
 joy the air! Why, it's a Kansas cyclone, and a bird 
 what more do you want?" 
 
 "Richard," Mother began, "I have had a dread- 
 ful time with Martha to-day, and I wish you would 
 not add to my distress by trying to be as funny as 
 you can." 
 
 Gracious! I was afraid this would start something
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 103 
 
 serious, so I made believe I intended to jump out of 
 my chair, through the open window. This changed 
 the tone of things for an instant, as they dragged my 
 chair into the room, and made a few comments on 
 New York as a home for poor people and children. 
 
 "What has Martha done now?" demanded Father. 
 "Taken a harmless walk around the corner with a 
 worn-out man who talks Shakespeare and religion 
 to her?" 
 
 "Shakespeare and religion nothing!" stormed 
 Mother. 
 
 "Now see here, little woman!" Father said, with 
 a firm touch, "you are giving yourself a lot of concern 
 over nothing. In the first place, Martha's whole 
 bringing up has been conventional, and she knows 
 just as much about good taste and bad, as you do 
 she ought to know more, as she is older. As for her 
 caring for Ludlow it's all nonsense. She has a 
 notion she can take the morbid point-of-view out of 
 him, and she is having a little fun. As for Ludlow, 
 you don't suppose a man of his experience is going
 
 104 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 SB IS& 
 
 ES3 cro 
 
 to lose his head in two weeks, do you? Rot! Let 
 them jolly each other in peace!" 
 
 "Well, for a man of the world, Richard, you do 
 take the most milk-and-water view of this affair 
 imaginable. I am distressed to death over it, and 
 to-day I had a plain talk with Martha. I tried to 
 point out to her the volley of objection she would have 
 to encounter with the family, if any rumors got back 
 to them, and I went on to say that if, in a moment of 
 temporary aberration, she should enter into an en- 
 gagement with this stranger, it would be known 
 like wild-fire; and just think of the public opinion 
 think of the society column! She is so full of new 
 theories about every life being at liberty to live itself out 
 as it thinks best! Martha is not strong enough to stand 
 all the trouble she may bring upon herself, even if it 
 is presented to her in a rosy light. I tell you, this is 
 a very serious matter, and I told Martha I wanted 
 her to go home." 
 
 "That was hospitable!" dryly remarked Father. 
 
 "It was sensible," Mother defended herself. "I
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 105 
 
 told her to go back to Park Hill, and put in the next 
 few months studying or something, at least until she 
 is out of mourning." 
 
 "What did she say to that?" 
 
 "She said she saw no reason why people should 
 mourn they paid enough for any joy they got, along 
 the way!" 
 
 "Did she get this idea from Ludlow? Fine ex- 
 ample of his own reasoning, he is!" 
 
 "They are both mad." 
 
 "Well, I shall be mad, too, if you don't get me a 
 quilt or a hot water bottle to wrap my feet in." 
 
 "I asked her if I should have her trunks brought up 
 in the morning," Mother went on. 
 
 "That n>as hospitable!" 
 
 "Well, she said yes but that she feared Courtney 
 would not be here when she came back." 
 
 "Here? Where? Is he going to move?" 
 
 "Here on this earth, stupid! She says he is at 
 the end of his endurance; he is a nervous wreck, and 
 he needs her to keep the life in him going. His
 
 106 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 ffl ffl 
 
 doctor says that if some great change does not come 
 to him soon, he cannot go on." 
 
 "What did the doctor get for this speech, I wonder? 
 Well, Martha knows Ludlow has a bad cold, of 
 course, and we can all see he is run-down more or 
 less, but I think he would pull through without her 
 for a little while, a few months," Father thought. 
 
 "Yes but I am trying to tell you that he has got 
 Martha hypnotized into believing that she, and she 
 alone, can save his life." 
 
 "You don't say so! Well, Ludlow always was a 
 clever fellow. Perhaps there is something in what 
 you say, only don't push this going home business 
 too hard." 
 
 "I insisted upon Martha's going back to-morrow," 
 Mother confessed. "She promised to goon the Lim- 
 ited." 
 
 Just here the telephone rang, and Miss Cummins, 
 who made it a point never to miss anything, crossed 
 the hall to the dining room to see that all the spoons 
 were where she had left them. Father went back
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 107 
 
 to his paper, and Mother answered. "Yes?" I 
 heard her say. "What's that? You won't be home 
 to dinner? Oh! What? What! My God!" And 
 she hung up the receiver, and Miss Cummins was 
 obliged to go back to the kitchen without being 
 satisfied at all. 
 
 Mother stood in the doorway, and Father looked 
 up. The expression of her eyes was enough to frighten 
 one, and she was pale. Something of importance 
 was about to be announced, so Father took off his 
 hat, and respectfully waited. 
 
 "Martha is being married to Mr. Ludlow at five," 
 Mother said, calmly. "She telephoned to say she 
 would be glad if I would call up Mrs. James and tell 
 her she cannot come to tea something has come 
 up which it makes impossible for her to keep the en- 
 gagement." 
 
 "Thoughtful of her not to keep Mrs. James waiting," 
 remarked Father, humorously, putting his hat on again. 
 
 "Wasn't it?" echoed Mother, like one in a trance. 
 Then she added, "Martha wants us to come."
 
 108 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 "That's sweet of her," Father replied. "But I 
 don't see how I can go decently considering the deep 
 mourning of both the contracting parties I haven't 
 any black gloves." 
 
 "Isn't it awful, Richard?" 
 
 "I don't know whether it is awful, or simply 
 funny." 
 
 "Oh!" gasped Mother. "Ohl" 
 
 In twenty minutes, Cousin Martha came in, a little 
 nervous, and said the carriage would be at the door 
 at four-thirty. Then she went to her room. It was 
 too late to take any action against the marriage, and 
 perhaps such a move would have been against Cou- 
 sin Martha's happiness, instead of for it, anyway. 
 So Mother put in her time dressing for the street, and 
 wondering what the bride was going to appear in. 
 Father shut the window with a bang, and went into 
 his room to crawl into his frock coat and pet his topper 
 as one strokes a kitty. He smiled as he selected a 
 pair of white gloves. And shortly the three of them 
 silently filed out of the apartment, Miss Cummins
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 109 
 
 utterly at a loss to understand what was going on, 
 and me unable to tell her! 
 
 Cousin Martha looked lovely but sort of tragic, I 
 thought, in her softest black gown with the white 
 ruche at the throat and the brooch of pearls. Cer- 
 tainly she was unique, and the society editor would 
 have been unable to work in any of her stock phrases 
 in making a word-picture of the bride. 
 
 The air was tingling with the reality of Life, and 
 Miss Cummins and I were quiet and moody, and we 
 forgot the episode of the black rags. "Say!" grunted 
 Miss Cummins aloud, as the elevator door slammed 
 at our floor, "y u - a U' s got to show me!" 
 
 Dear me! Monday is such a trying day! 
 
 Father gave the bride away, and during the cere- 
 mony, Mother pulled her gloves half off, unbuttoned 
 if you can imagine such agitation. Everybody 
 wished the bridal couple well, and nobody cried,
 
 110 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 exactly, although Mother almost strangled in not 
 doing so so her mind said to my mind in the long 
 wakeful night that followed. She and Father did 
 not speak for half an hour after leaving Mr. and Mrs. 
 Ludlow. They came home looking aged, and finally 
 the silence was distressing and Father tried to be 
 natural and made some remark about how pretty the 
 decorations were. But this proved to be a failure. 
 Mother sat on the couch staring at nothing at all. 
 
 "The widows of your family make fairly good 
 time," Father ventured, kindly enough, but with 
 more feeling than showed on the surface. "How 
 long have the Ludlows known each other?" 
 
 "Twenty-six days, to-morrow." 
 
 "Whew!" whistled Father. "My dear, when / 
 am gone, I wish you would " 
 
 "When you are gone," answered Mother, grimly, 
 "I promise you that I will retire to a convent and 
 hang firmly onto the habit of the Mother Superior 
 for one year, and if I must speak with a man during 
 that time, I will do so over the telephone."
 
 THE LIFE OF ME til 
 
 "Thank you, darling!" replied Father, with a 
 comic bow. "I should feel a little easier, if you 
 would be so thoughtful!" 
 
 "Poor little Martha!" sighed Mother. "Poor 
 little Martha!" And she cried until I thought we 
 should have to send for her Special Physician. And 
 Father, always gentle and devoted, was more gentle 
 and devoted than ever. He even tried to be super- 
 ficial, remarking that Ludlow would make Martha 
 happy enough no doubt, and that so long as one went 
 in for consolation parties, it was nice to have them a 
 success! 
 
 But really Father was not amusing he was just 
 gentle and devoted.
 
 M 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 OTHER says she wishes she had a good 
 horse and a wilderness at her command, that 
 she might ride off and go and go and go until 
 she and the horse killed themselves with going! And 
 as for the "next incarnation" (what ever that may be), 
 she wants to be a cyclone then, so that nobody can 
 stop her and put her to work! Her thoughts rush 
 on to assure themselves that she believes (but I doubt 
 it!) she was born with a well-defined aversion to 
 everything she ever had to do; and she hates to live 
 a life wherein the individual has no chance of being 
 what he wishes to be a life that is a well-set trap, 
 baited with stuff they call love! For goodness sake! 
 but I am glad specialists on insanity can't see the in- 
 side of her head, as I do! They might lock her up 
 and punish her by reading to her articles on the joy 
 
 of having large families. 
 
 112
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 113 
 
 And the most extraordinary thing about her pe- 
 culiar state of mind is that to me, she is all that one 
 could ask of his Mother. She is never without kisses 
 and little pats and things. I think my Mother loves 
 me, but she does not like changes. She only keeps 
 Clara Cummins because she has a dread of making 
 any change and, perhaps also because Clara is 
 good to me. But one thing is very, very evident to 
 me she never wanted to be any little boy's Mother! 
 
 If Mother's Special Physician had not been smart 
 enough to say the one thing that would have appealed 
 to her, mercy knows what would have become of us 
 all before this! Last night, after Cousin Martha 
 and Mr. Ludlow had shocked us by showing us they 
 could manage their own affairs better than we could, 
 I really did think that if that iron buckle did not 
 strangle her, the godless cloak it holds on her would 
 crush her with its maddening weight. When I am 
 a little bigger, I think I can loosen up that buckle, 
 and when I am quite big, perhaps I can wrench it 
 open. At least, I can try.
 
 1 14 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 "That stuff they call love" is a monster while it 
 is going Miss Cummins tells me. Possibly the 
 Ludlows were victims? Anyway, they have caused 
 all kinds of hysterics, newspaper write-ups, and other 
 excitements known to man! Why, one Park Hill 
 society column was so dressy in its account of the affair 
 that it even took me into the "pen pastel," referring 
 to me as "the heir to the uncertain fortunes of the 
 Richard Carrs!" Wasn't this deliciously descrip- 
 tive of me and Life's struggles, generally speaking? 
 This society reporter was brighter than she knew. 
 Anything can happen, once in a while, even accuracy 
 in reporters. 
 
 Everybody in Park Hill called on the bride's 
 relatives especially those who had kindly stayed 
 called-upon by the bride's family for some seasons 
 before. They all spoke in low tones and did the 
 best they could to conceal their morbid curiosity. 
 In most cases they tactfully proffered consolation- 
 congratulations, which were double-jointed and ca- 
 pable of being taken anyway you liked. The sugar-
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 115 
 
 coated impertinences mostly took the form of making 
 wellbred, casual inquiries into the groom's financial 
 standing, delicate care being taken not to touch upon 
 his occupation. Those who felt convinced that 
 they positively nen> the groom to be a grocer, were 
 particularly tender with the prostrated lady relatives, 
 who, like Du Barry and other old-time fashionables, 
 received the influx of callers while in bed, extending 
 trembling hands, and tear-stained up-turned faces. 
 As was to be expected, exquisite commiseration was 
 shown by all the ladies who had husbands in the dry 
 goods business, or whose father's wealth lay in barrels 
 (together with pickled pigs-feet), or whose fortunes 
 had bubbled up merrily in soda water fountains. 
 
 The men members of Cousin Martha's family, 
 told all pressing newspaper representatives that they 
 had never heard of this especial man named Ludlow, 
 and stated that probably the dispatches from New 
 York were nothing more nor less than one of the usual 
 mistakes. Whether or not this man Ludlow was a 
 grocer, they neither knew nor cared. Good-day!
 
 1 16 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m is 
 
 As soon as she was able to take pen in hand, the 
 lady relative who had had sinking spells over the 
 recent degradation of the family, wrote sobbingly to 
 Mother, saying, "I could have stood her deceiving 
 us, and marrying so soon, if only she had not married 
 a grocer!" 
 
 And then Mother, thinking to comfort the lady, 
 wrote back, "My dear! Why take this so hard? 
 He is a charming man, and in all respects a gentle- 
 man. And you must not forget, dear, that this is 
 not our first shock. Weren't we once slightly mixed 
 up with tin shears? Didn't Grandfather in his youth 
 do an enormous business in pie plates, tin cans and 
 dinner buckets?" 
 
 Back, special delivery, came the enraged reply "I 
 am disgusted by your comparison! Your grand- 
 father was not (thank God) a grocer, neither was 
 he a tinsmith, as you so coarsely imply. For a short 
 time in his early manhood, he was associated with 
 a dignified factory (an office position, purely), where 
 the stock was cut out by machinery in lots of at least
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 117 
 
 one hundred each. Never for one moment, either at 
 this period of his career, or at any other, did he have 
 a single thing on earth to do with a tin can after it 
 had a tomato in it!" 
 
 And here Mother fell over on the couch and re- 
 marked to me that the fine lines of Life were too com- 
 plicated for her! 
 
 It seemed very odd to me that we, who were so 
 ill able to bear it, should be the center of all the con- 
 fusion and contention over Cousin Martha's experi- 
 ment in saving Mr. Courtney Evanston Ludlow's 
 life without first ascertaining if her intentions were 
 pleasing to her friends. It must be very careless 
 for a lady to presume to think she ever reaches the 
 age, or ever attains the position which makes it possible 
 for her to manage her own affairs in peace. The 
 family wrote all sorts of excited, upsetting things to 
 Mother, attacking the situation with epigrams and 
 axes. They all waxed as analytical as a serious 
 lady novelist, and the popular agreement was that 
 "he must have hypnotized her." They all felt he
 
 118 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 UB$J [53 
 
 must be queer and Martha must be crazy. Mother 
 said she knew she would be both, if something did 
 not interfere with the U. S. mail service soon! 
 
 Such friends as wrote Cousin Martha, did not 
 wish her well, of course, until they were prepared to 
 say sweet things, so, no doubt, the honeymoon was 
 more peaceful at the Ludlow end than it was at the 
 Carr end. 
 
 Anyway, it ended in a couple of weeks. And 
 one afternoon, as I lay kicking my heels on the couch, 
 the elevator door was slammed at our floor, our bell 
 rang, and Miss Cummins admitted Mrs. Ludlow. 
 
 In her eagerness to kiss me, she quite ignored 
 Mother, and came at once and knelt beside me, 
 devouring me with her blue eyes. I thought there 
 might be a little awkwardness in the air, so I did the 
 diverting thing in dropping the lid of the talcum pow- 
 der can which I had been fingering, and I took both 
 of Cousin Martha's little pink ears and drew her 
 down so that I could give her an open-mouth kiss, 
 such as persons of helpless age like. Her eyes filled
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 119 
 
 with tears, and she threw off her new furs, and still 
 kneeling, opened her new coat. Then looking at 
 Mother, like one in authority, she asked, "Has he 
 had his three o'clock meal?" 
 
 Her assumption of responsibility, instead of irri- 
 tating Mother, as I feared it might (there has always 
 been a touch of jealousy between them over me), 
 struck her as being humorous, and she replied, re- 
 spectfully, like a well trained nurse, "He has, madam. 
 In fact, he has been fed several times since your de- 
 parture." 
 
 "Oh, dear girl, you know what I mean! I did not 
 mean to I " stammered, Cousin Martha. 
 
 "I understand," said Mother, smiling. "Did you 
 have a good time?" 
 
 "Fine lovely. But tell me is he getting enough 
 air?" 
 
 They had a fairly natural visit, without any ref- 
 erences to anything heavy in hand. Mother agreed 
 to dine with the Ludlows the following evening. 
 But on second thoughts they changed the time to
 
 120 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 this evening, and Mother telephoned Father to come 
 home to dress. Miss Cummins did not hurry back 
 to the kitchen, after letting Cousin Martha out, until 
 she got the gist of things from Mother's end of the 
 wire. Miss Cummins makes it a point of honor not 
 to miss anything, and she is always pleased to have 
 my parents dine out, on which occasions, some one 
 usually dines in, with her. Miss Cummins never 
 gets around to mentioning such items to Mother, and I 
 can't. 
 
 Well, I heard about the first dinner in time, bit 
 by bit. It seems that the Ludlow house is most 
 impressive, having but one marring feature a canary 
 bird. Mother hopes if this bird ever gives out, they 
 won't replace it, because she says she never can as- 
 sociate Martha with a canary bird. But one has to 
 associate Cousin Martha with much that is strange 
 to us who have known her before she acquired this 
 happiness and a funny coat-of-mail that stands in a 
 spooky corner of the hall for guests to run into acci- 
 dentally, like a burglar alarm.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 121 
 
 During the salad course, Mother made so bold 
 as to lean forward and say, "Just what ever possessed 
 you two to do this thing?" 
 
 "We were driven to it," innocently answered Cou- 
 sin Martha. 
 
 "Certainly!" Mr. Ludlow took up the idea Cou- 
 sin Courtney, I mean to say. "There was nothing 
 else for us to do. I would not let her go back to Park 
 Hill; she would not live in a hotel alone here and 
 you frankly told her you did not want her to live 
 with you any more. Therefore, my dear cousin-in- 
 law, we married expressly to oblige tjou, as you 
 forced it! Won't you have one of the cheese-straws? 
 Mary the cheese-straws to Mrs. Carr." 
 
 I can hardly believe it, but my Father and my 
 Mother were both so astonished by such quiet, colossal 
 bluff, that they simply had no words with which to 
 make remonstrances. By the time they had revived 
 sufficiently to make any explanations or defense, the 
 time had passed when it was opportune or even civil 
 to speak again upon the subject.
 
 122 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Thus did the adroit Mr. Courtney Evanston Lud- 
 low do his finest bit of work just as easily as I drop 
 my Mother's clock! In the face of what most men 
 would regard as impossibility, he had done exactly 
 what he wished; and with his own peculiar grace, he 
 had turned the tables on the dissatisfied on-lookers. 
 And he further strengthened his stand by firmly 
 having them appreciate once and for all time that 
 they had accepted his version of the story, without 
 raising a breath of a murmur. It was a marvelous 
 play marvelous! 
 
 When Father and Mother came home, they sat 
 down to think things over. I daresay that Mother, 
 at any rate, was too exhausted to be quick when Mr. 
 Ludlow sprang this upon them, and Father was so 
 sick of it all that he was glad enough to let the whole 
 episode slide along on the surface. By the time he real- 
 ized that this point ought to be fought out to an under- 
 standing, it was too late, too. When he got home, 
 the humor of it was all that he had in mind. The 
 comedy was so delightful, it was almost paining him.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 123 
 
 in m 
 
 "I wish Clyde Fitch would live with us for a while," 
 he remarked. "I should like to see that man get 
 the right material for a good play, once!" 
 
 "Well," drawled Mother from the depth of her 
 defeat, "for a man that can't face happiness, I think 
 Cousin Courtney is doing as well as could be expected. 
 And as a life-saving station, Martha is superb!"
 
 LIFE must be an extraordinary thing I am 
 studying it with interest. How things should 
 happen according to books, I do not know. 
 I know only real things. Our lives are real lives, 
 and a strange thing has come about. Just as Cousin 
 Martha is destined to live here, we are going to Park 
 Hill to live. Cousin Martha thought she would 
 never live in New York, and we thought we should 
 never live anywhere else, all of which goes to show 
 that one should not waste time thinking. 
 
 When Mother told Cousin Martha to-day, two slow 
 tears rolled down her pink cheeks. I got an idea 
 stupidly, that she was doing something to amuse me, 
 so I sat on her lap and chuckled delightedly. But 
 Mother's apparent effort at being commonplace 
 
 brought me to my senses, and I realized that Cousin 
 
 124
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 125 
 
 Martha was full of sadness. Mother, too. But 
 not me exactly. 
 
 When this hard visit was over, in came Grand- 
 mother Carr, whose sorrow at our going was of the 
 tearless kind, which made it even more difficult for 
 Mother to be commonplace. I felt depressed in my 
 own way, also. I don't believe the new relatives I 
 am going to will understand me as well as these in 
 New York, who have known me. They are strangers 
 and probably will give me shoes that I cannot untie, 
 myself. I doubt if they will make good spring boards 
 or have the consideration to wear two sets of eye- 
 glasses on tiny chains which kindly get themselves 
 lost in laces, for me to find and yank. Every person 
 of helpless age is a yankist, and glad of it. 
 
 The packing, boxing and final details are trying. 
 Mother is so hurried, and Miss Clara Cummins is 
 so irritated that when I try to stand alone by hanging 
 onto the couch cover like a ship-wrecked sailor 
 making his last attempt to live, they let me fall and 
 stay fallen. I never before was so lonely.
 
 126 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m gi 
 
 This afternoon I really felt sorry for Mother. She 
 has tried to do too much, lunching and dining with 
 people who could have entertained her any time during 
 the years spent in New York, but who never got 
 around to it until they heard she was leaving. Up- 
 growns amuse me! They so often postpone enter- 
 taining you until you are in some awful confusion and 
 too exhausted to see your way out of accepting the 
 added strain on your raw nerves; and they give you 
 flowers mostly after you are dead, or when you are 
 wildly dashing for a train and already have too much 
 stuff to carry. But, perhaps, if this were not true, 
 there could be no touching little magazine verses 
 entitled, "Alas! too late!" P. S. I got the suggestion 
 for this idea from Mother. 
 
 Well, between trying to be polite to everybody and 
 having to decide on the disposition of every article, 
 personal and household, that belongs to us, Mother 
 is all un-strung again. I do all I can to help by 
 mussing up piles of linens that are stacked ready for 
 the packer, I had just decided to dust up one corner
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 127 
 
 ES3 Gg3 
 
 E83 ESS 
 
 of the room with an embroidered "centerpiece," 
 when Mother, v/ho was standing on a rocking chair 
 (useless wear on the nervous system), unearthed from 
 the top shelf of the closet the bonnet with the white 
 ruche and the black clouds, that was now unneces- 
 sary encumbrance No. 3/6. 
 
 "Good heavens!" she crossly exclaimed,, clinging 
 to the shelf as the chair almost rocked her off her 
 balance. "What in the name of kingdom-come am 
 I to do with this?" 
 
 Suddenly Miss Cummins* kinky head was thrust 
 into the room her feet, which were encased in a 
 pair of Father's shoes that she was in the habit of 
 borrowing unbeknown to my parents, were con- 
 servatively detained in the hall. "Mis' Carr?" she 
 spoke in tones between a plea and a command, "Mis' 
 Carr, say, please mam, don't do nothing to that 
 mournin' bonnet don't throw it away, 1 asks you, 
 Mis' Carr! Give it to me, please mam and some- 
 body will jes have to die!" 
 
 Well, this kind of thing went on for a weeKi until,
 
 128 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 before we could realize it, Cousin Martha and Cou- 
 sin Courtney had said goodbye, and the P. P. C. 
 cards v/ere all posted, and the janitor had carefully 
 looked over all the trash sent down from our apartment 
 on the dumb-waiter (finding, to his disgust, that 
 Miss Cummins had appropriated everything worth 
 while), and a carriage stood at the door of our 
 building. 
 
 Father, Mother, Miss Cummins, luggage, flowers, 
 books, magazines, and myself and my white Teddy 
 Bear all drove to a noisy place which had a glass 
 roof growing over it to keep the smoke in. There 
 were many chimneys there with wheels on them, all 
 of them doing their very best to make the breathing 
 poor. Mother would have had the windows open, 
 had we lived there, while Father would have made 
 remarks. I never breathed such solid air since Miss 
 Cummins and I so unhappily sterilized the horse's 
 tail which formerly constituted the Grecian Bun at 
 the back of Miss Cummins' head. 
 
 Clara held me, and sobbed all the way. By the
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 129 
 
 time we went through the gate to our particular 
 sitting-room on wheels, Clara's face had all run to- 
 gether. She cried so hard and so long that she looked 
 like a composite photograph vague, you know, and 
 pathetic. Even Mother's only decent scissors and 
 my rubber doll and the other little things that nobody 
 ever gave her, but which I knew were in her pockets 
 (she, naturally, would not mention these trifles, 
 and I could not) did not seem to comfort her for the 
 loss of me. 
 
 It was not long until trees and houses were running 
 past us, almost as quickly as they pranced by when 
 we were out in Cousin Courtney's automobile. It 
 would have made the joy keener to have had Banks 
 with us making remarks of disappointment because 
 we never hit anything, but still, even without him it 
 was diverting. Banks' memory was dimmed a little 
 bit by entertaining winks from the Cummins-colored 
 man who wore a white jacket, and who always 
 stayed lost when we rang a button that was worn on 
 the woodwork of our unsteady sitting-room.
 
 130 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m ^ 
 
 I heard them saying that travelling with a baby 
 is most wearing. Perhaps it is but it didn't wear 
 on the baby not this time. I did just as I always 
 do, only more of it. If I wanted to shriek in the 
 middle of the night, I shrieked. Of course. Why 
 not? Wouldn't you have done the same? You 
 don't have to answer! Mother and I know. 
 
 Well, after three days' worth of vacant lots and 
 red water tanks and cities that were so small they had 
 to wear the names of themselves on the railroad sta- 
 tion for fear they would get mixed, we at last arrived 
 at Park Hill, too late for me to be sitting up. I 
 sniffed at the strange people who met us at the local 
 place where the wheeled smoke-stacks live in great 
 numbers but without any glass roof growing over 
 them, this time. 
 
 If any of these relatives had any eye-glasses, they 
 wore them out of sight. They looked unpromising 
 to me, so I sniffed some more. A gentleman with 
 curling gray hair and a fine smile (if one felt like 
 being smiled upon), threw put his chest and said
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 131 
 
 m ; us 
 
 with pride that to be the grandfather of so splendid 
 a child, was the crowning reward of a hard life. 
 Ha! If he thinks his life has been hard up to the 
 present number on the calendar, I just wonder what 
 it will be from now on? They don't seem to feel it 
 necessary to explain these introductions to me, but 
 I imagine that he of the gray hair belongs to my 
 Mother anyhow they both have noses just the same. 
 If he produces some eye-glasses, I will be his little 
 boy perhaps. 
 
 There were an awful lot of them, among whom 
 was a lady with gray hair, too, who kissed me and 
 kissed me. As she seemed to be enjoying it, I let 
 her go on. She cried a few tears over me don't 
 see the point, myself. I have not done anything yet 
 to make her cry. I haven't had time. I suppose 
 she is my other grandmother they say grandmothers 
 act like this. I certainly should be relieved to know 
 where she keeps her eye-glasses. Very annoying not 
 to be English speaking. My vocabulary consists 
 of four words, none of which is eye-glasses. I can
 
 132 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 say, "Mummah," "Dadda," "bye-bye" and "kitty"- 
 but I don't want any of these. 
 
 Mother, who knows me best, hurried me to bed. 
 And, believe me, I was glad of it, for they hadn't 
 stopped hugging me or even got their hats off, before 
 they started in to discuss the grocery business as an 
 adjunct to the family. And if there is a topic that 
 is worn threadbare already, it is the Ludlows. If 
 I have to stand much more of it, I shall scream! 
 
 Besides waking up the next morning to find it 
 daylight, just as it is in the morning in New York, 
 I have become quite interested in my new real friends, 
 and have also found time to have a birthday, whether 
 I wanted it, or not. I am one year old, and have 
 three new Teddy Bears, although I am Mother's 
 real Teddy Bear. I sit on her lap, and she pokes my 
 ribs and squeaks like my toys. The game is fairly 
 amusing when Mother does not over-do the rib- 
 poking part. However, I am for it, if she feels any 
 good comes of it. I got many presents I got but 
 I won't say what I got, because once my Mother re-
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 133 
 
 marked it made her tired to have to hear what people 
 had to eat at parties, or to have them tell her what 
 they got for Christmas when they wrote her about 
 once a year every July or August. Never mind 
 what I got but I liked *em! 
 
 The hose with water pouring out of it on the lawn, 
 is the best thing yet. We didn't have one of these 
 in the New York apartment. I like it better than 
 the dumb-waiter, though it would be good, now and 
 then, to hear Miss Cummins telling the janitor what 
 she thought of the way he sat down on the job of 
 keeping the heat up I should dearly love to hear 
 her voice echoing in the elevator shaft, blending with 
 the larger tones of the janitor's retorts, while Mother 
 was out. But loveliest of all it would have been, 
 if Miss Cummins and I had had this hose and this 
 fresh water up on the seventh floor when the janitor 
 put his face in and yelled up the shaft! I wonder if 
 Life has many might-have-beens that are as joyous 
 thoughts as this? 
 
 We are soon to leave this large family for an apart-
 
 134 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 merit of our own. I shall be sorry, for I like to be 
 talked baby-talk to, and given many things that it 
 is quite wrong I should eat. It reminds me of Miss 
 Clara Cummins. I can't get over the way Clara 
 cried when we parted, it was such a surprise to find 
 that her tears were white, like Mother's. I supposed 
 that the tears of one who was dark brown almost 
 unto blackness, would be tan-colored, at least. Not 
 so, however. 
 
 All these demonstrative persons are enthusiastic 
 over me, but I miss her who used to call me "de 
 Bootifuls," and I haven't discovered an eye-glass in 
 the whole family! I heard him of the curling gray 
 hair asking if anybody had any idea where he had 
 mislaid his and that is the nearest I have come to 
 seeing a pair. Besides, I find we are related to a 
 black, woolly dog, a cat that is not rubber, and 
 chickens that wink from the bottom, up; not from the 
 top, down which is the way my young uncles wink. 
 The chickens we had in New York had had the 
 feather-dusters taken off of them, and were un-wink-
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 135 
 
 ing, and arrived in brown paper bundles. These 
 that are cousins of mine, are different. I often crawl 
 to the wire fence that grows up between them and 
 me, and lying very still, I watch them wink. Chicken 
 winking, while not so significant as up-grown winking, 
 still is fascinating. I wish Miss Cummins could see 
 me here! 
 
 But, with all the baby-talk and unsolicited kisses 
 I am getting free, I must say, if I speak my mind 
 truly, that I believe you can rent more depth of devo- 
 tion than you can inherit. I know that among my 
 new relatives there is no one who would kill a janitor 
 for me, or keep her temper down if I were exasperat- 
 ing, which I have the art of being, often. There is 
 nothing but an omelet back of these chicken's winks, 
 but when Miss Cummins winked at you, you knew 
 it meant you had a friend worth while. 
 
 One of my new aunts has given me a big rag doll 
 which she has called for herself Beatrice. My name 
 for my doll is Miss Clara Cummins. I can't speak Eng- 
 lish, so there are no hurt feelings, but Cummins stands.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 I CANNOT say how great a miscalculation we 
 made in fancying we were fleeing from Ludlow 
 conversations and complications, by leaving 
 New York. Why, the real story lived in the East, 
 was child's play in comparison to stepping into the 
 continuous anti-climax we found awaiting us in the 
 West. Everybody we know in Park Hill is some- 
 one who once was a friend of Cousin Martha's 
 but who isn't now, because she lives too far away 
 to take them flowers when they are ill or give them 
 dinner parties. Cousin Martha is out of favor be- 
 cause she presumed to marry a grocer, without con- 
 sulting her calling list or the calendar. Everybody 
 feels very superior. 
 
 Several silk-lined ladies have been in to call on 
 Mother in our new home, speaking in low, constrained 
 
 tones and radiating the impression that they feel un- 
 
 136
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 137 
 
 comfortable at being seen coming in. One would 
 suppose from the manner of the callers that they were 
 visiting the scene of a murder, and prayed not to be 
 caught at it. All this because Cousin Martha married 
 without telling anyone even Mother did not know 
 until two hours before the wedding, but this item, 
 naturally, would hardly calm the injured acquain- 
 tances. And then some dear friend started the stir- 
 ring report that to her absolute knowledge the bride- 
 groom used to scoop prunes out of a bin, himself 
 so there! And ten to one, he still did it when they 
 were rushed for help on Saturdays but she wasn't 
 sure of this this was just her own theory, to be sure, 
 but the chances were she was more than correct. 
 If, as they said, he had an automobile, it probably 
 was a rented one, and his being a Yale man sounded 
 well, but they'd like to see his sheep-skin. No man 
 who was a graduate of a good college would ever 
 have allowed the woman he loved to treat her friends 
 so that they could not, with self-respect, continue to 
 befriend her and to think of all they had done for
 
 138 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 TO cga 
 
 BS as 
 
 that woman, too! And as for this man Ludlow's 
 having a system of grocery stores all over greater 
 New York and conducting his business from an office, 
 as some one of the more generous-minded persons 
 had given out well, this was nothing short of a cam- 
 paign lie, and they could prove it! 
 
 One of the dames calling on us to-day, cleared her 
 throat twice and then hesitatingly asked, "Urn a 
 a how is Martha?" 
 
 Mother thanked the lady and said that Martha 
 was very happy, having a charming home and a 
 delightful husband. 
 
 But the dame went on, quite recklessly, "Well, 
 well, I am glad I'm sure! But has Martha any friends 
 in New York?" 
 
 "Oh," replied Mother, thoughtfully, "yes if there 
 are any such things in the world as friends, she has." 
 
 "I am so glad," purred the lady softly. "But she 
 she naturally has no social position in New York, 
 has she?" This one of "our select social leaders" 
 as the Sunday paper had classed her for some years,
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 139 
 
 and an old intimate of Cousin Martha's, would probe 
 further! 
 
 Mother looked at her, unruffled, and emotionless. 
 "Well, n-no," she drawled, lightly. "No, she has 
 no position of any consequence she associates with 
 just the same grade of people she always knew here." 
 
 The longer one thinks this over, the prettier it is 
 but I am sorry to see that my Mother reflects the attitude 
 of the women with whom she speaks. If they are 
 cats, she is a tigress, and is quite as sweet as they are. 
 But the sly digs of the claws go awfully deep with 
 her. She re all keyed for insults, having a large 
 piece of kindling wood on her shoulder all the time, 
 although this stick is like the iron buckle at her throat 
 one can't see it. 
 
 This is my troublesome age. I am no longer con- 
 tent to be put down somewhere and stay there. Not 
 at all not for a fraction of an instant, believe me! I 
 crawl everywhere, but I am trying to walk, with the 
 result that I fall down and scream. I fret the whole 
 live-long time because of my teeth and my natural
 
 140 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 inclination. The lady who lives in the apartment 
 under us (and who allows her boy to romp in the house 
 with his puppy until one would think a sham battle 
 in progress,) complains, subtly, of my crying every 
 time her boy has waked me. "Your baby must be 
 ill, Mrs. Carr," she says. "He cries so hard every 
 night about eleven. It does Jiot annoy us f of course, 
 but have you ever tried spanking him?" 
 
 We haven't any Miss Cummins out here Mother 
 does everything for me, and I help her all I can by 
 keeping things constantly mussed up. My Father 
 says he is going to have a flock of hens follow me 
 about to pick up the trail of crumbs I leave behind me, 
 and my Mother says she is going to invent a machine 
 which she can turn on to bring me up one which 
 will say, "No-no, darling don't do that!" But 
 such a machine would not bother me any more than 
 my Mother's tired, persistent voice does which is, 
 to tell the truth, not at all. 
 
 When we passed the down-stairs lady's door to- 
 day, she popped out, as if by accident at that moment,
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 141 
 
 fga SB 
 
 as wca 
 
 and said, "Your baby falls down a great deal, doesn't 
 he, Mrs. Carr? It never would worry me, of course, 
 but did you ever try taking him in your lap and try- 
 ing to interest him in quiet things like pictures?" 
 And just here, the lady's rough little boy of twelve 
 almost knocked us down in his hurry to pass us with 
 his rough little playmates, bent upon their favorite 
 game of yelling and sliding down the public balus- 
 trade, from the top of the house to the bottom. 
 
 But don't think I am the only noise in this build- 
 ing, please! Besides my howling, we have alarm 
 clocks; machines which roar out distressing comic 
 songs through large horns attached to them, so that 
 the neighbors may miss none of the disturbances 
 (the down-stairs little boy has one which we hope 
 will die of over-work soon); pianos, some played by 
 hand and others by foot, but all of them played; 
 beaten biscuit; dogs that are left to bark and whine 
 alone by the hour; other children and their friends; 
 bridge parties at all times; besides all kinds of a row 
 going on next door, where they split the morning
 
 142 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 kindling in the court at twelve at night (Pa always 
 forgets it until just before he turns in, I suppose), have 
 a house full of boarders, an untuned piano and a 
 young lady daughter with a terrible voice but good 
 lungs and an alive duck in the back yard, which, 
 while being fed-up to grow fat for Christmas, is im- 
 proving his last chance by quacking all night, every 
 night. This is a long enough sentence, I hope, but 
 I could not stop until I had told you all the reasons 
 why I am not the only noise living here. I often long 
 for the quiet of a little talk between Miss Clara Cum- 
 mins and the New York janitor! 
 
 Mother's nerves are worse than they have been 
 since we used to live down where the waters beat 
 upon the sands, and we watched it stay night until 
 the land birds began to sing. Her capacity for suffer- 
 ing is remarkable. She gets more pain out of the 
 daily annoyances of Life, both coming and going, 
 than anyone you ever met. She suffers because we 
 are disturbing the down-stairs lady, and she suffers 
 because the lady's down-stairs boy is worrying us.
 
 tkir faVoric c ofjleiiinj 
 ^
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 143 
 
 But she suffers most because she sees what a mistake 
 it is to suffer, and she cannot help suffering. Sorry. 
 
 In this wonderful climate it is not fashionable for 
 persons of helpless age to sleep out of doors, as it 
 is in the less reliable climate of New York, and be- 
 cause I have to take my nap in my wagon on the 
 balcony, one of the boarders next door sent word by 
 the janitor of our building that I was a case that ought 
 to be investigated. He has watched me on cold 
 mornings in my woollens, drag myself to a sitting 
 posture, weaving to and fro in my pathetic effort to 
 torture myself into staying awake, because my Mother 
 felt I needed the sleep, and she needed the rest. 
 
 The down-stairs lady called us on the 'phone to 
 assure us that my shrieking on the balcony did not 
 annoy her (she was driven to the back part of the house 
 as a rule), but did Mother really feel it advisable for 
 a baby to be taking in so much raw air through his 
 mouth? 
 
 I can walk I could walk when I was fourteen 
 months old, but it was wobbly walking. Now I
 
 144 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Ega era 
 
 as as 
 
 am of fifteen months' age, and to-day I walked to 
 the corner to post a letter with my Mother. It was 
 the first time I ever walked out with a lady, and I was 
 very proud. But my Mother is a tired lady, and the 
 letter she carried was a tired letter, full of longing for 
 New York, and a night's sleep. I wanted to crawl 
 up onto a wet, soggy lawn, but Mother could see no 
 reason in this desire. I wanted to sit down on the 
 car track, but this, too, met with lack of sympathy. 
 My Mother sighed. Possibly she was bored no- 
 body had insulted her about her cousin's affairs for 
 nearly a week. 
 
 We went home, and Mother carried me up stairs. 
 She is not strong enough to do this, but I had no in- 
 tention of even trying to be my own elevator. In 
 the house, she made me comfortable, and then dropped 
 on the couch and closed her eyes. But I stood at 
 her head, fretting and crying by turns. I, too, was 
 bored. Mother lay still trying to tell herself that 
 she was quite happy and that I was lovely and that 
 all Life was beautiful! I knew from the damp eye-
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 145 
 
 lashes that this was a day-dream and one which 
 ought to be broken into promptly, so I hurried off 
 and got some nasty, sharp-edged little blocks, which 
 I forced into her ears, and stacked on her face, and 
 with which I struck at her cheeks. The more she 
 brushed them off, the faster I put them back; and each 
 time I put them back, I hurt her a little more than I 
 had the time before. I don't know exactly whether 
 I did this on purpose, or not. All persons of helpless 
 age do such things, especially when constantly thrown 
 into the company of un-playing up-growns. 
 
 My Mother is very un-playing she cannot help it. 
 She wants to be working every moment. She always 
 thinks of the things she ought to be doing things 
 that count for something every time she sits on the 
 floor among my blocks. Does it, or does it not count 
 for something for an up-grown to play with blocks? 
 Both my Mother and I have wondered. And, pray 
 tell me, when toy-makers are putting paint on the 
 outside of blocks, why don't they put a little bit of 
 joy in the varnish just to help one's mother? .
 
 146 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 H) Hi 
 
 To-day, my Mother raised herself rather lumbering- 
 ly from the couch, and sat down on the floor and did 
 the best she could to amuse me. But it was one of 
 my rude days, and I rebelled every time she put one 
 block on top of another. Books did not please me, 
 the top nearly drove me wild, and I threw my rag 
 doll, Clara Cummins, straight in her face! I think 
 she would have cried, if she hadn't been too tired to 
 cry. She just looked me right in the eye, and said, 
 sadly, "I would do better for you, little boy, if I could. 
 I am afraid it is not in me to play you probably 
 feel the lack of spontaneity. I don't blame you. I 
 suppose there isn't anything for us to do, but sit and 
 work it out, together." 
 
 I have often wondered just how old my Mother 
 thinks I am. She talks to me in up-grown English, 
 and leaves decisions with me, quite as though I were 
 Father! Having paid me this tribute in her treat- 
 ment of me, I daresay it is unfair of me to have taken 
 every atom of her strength, in the first place, and then, 
 deliberately to use it against her day in and day out,
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 147 
 
 RH R2a 
 
 as ESS 
 
 night in and night out! But I will be older, someday, 
 and perhaps different. And I am not the only 
 person of helpless age that does these things! 
 
 A little boy comes to our house who is four months 
 younger than I am, better looking than I and con- 
 siderably smarter but just as difficult. They call 
 him "Sonny," and I don't know what his water-on- 
 the-head name is that he got in church. His Mother 
 and my Mother have been friends many years, and 
 I trust that Sonny and I will not break into their 
 sweet relationship, though we are doing the best 
 we can! Sonny does just what I do he gets 
 teeth and keeps his parents up all night, and 
 causes complaints from the other tenants. His 
 Mother, too, is a very tired Mother. 
 
 Sonny and I are rough with each other, but rougher 
 with each other's toys. Our Mothers try to keep us 
 separated, and to spare enough of the playthings to 
 do for the next session, and each says that her boy is 
 at fault. We don't want our own cookies we 
 want each other's, which we snatch, screaming fit
 
 148 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 to call the police. When at last Sonny's Mother has 
 got him in his go-cart, headed for home, the down- 
 stairs lady comes up to see us. "You had a little 
 visitor to-day, didn't you?" she begins as though 
 there could be any doubt about it! "Of course, I don't 
 mind but, seriously, do you think that child's mother 
 shows good judgment in taking him to a place where 
 he is so upset that he is apt to rupture himself crying?" 
 And it not infrequently happens after one of these 
 exciting Mothers' Meetings, that some silk-lined lady 
 comes to call on us, and tells Mother (as though she 
 were conferring a great favor in propounding a new 
 and helpful theory!) that Mother, in all justice to 
 me, ought to have another darling little baby for me 
 to play with. And each lady, in turn, has her elec- 
 tric runabout or her brougham kept waiting, while 
 Mother civilly tells her to stay well within the sanctum 
 of her own province, in her customary answer "I 
 cannot see, dear madam, that it will be any harder 
 for my son to go without a playmate, than it will be 
 for me to produce one for him!"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 I FRIGHTENED them, rather, by having small 
 convulsions in the night. They sent for a phy- 
 sician, but by the time he arrived, I had gone 
 to sleep, spending most of the night in most of 
 Daddy's bed. I allowed him the extreme edge and 
 what was left over of the covers, and in the morning 
 he said it wasn't any worse to sleep with me than 
 with a section of barbed wire fence. 
 
 Father gives me my bath lately. It is an unusual 
 thing, I know, for one's Father to give baths. He 
 and I like the idea, however. It is a game with us. 
 Father gets me wet, and then he gets me dry, but 
 Mother gets me clean! I like to have Father attend 
 to this detail of my life I have more time to play 
 with the soap. 
 
 I did not look as fagged as the rest of the family 
 
 this morning, after our hard night. However, owing 
 
 149
 
 150 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 in m 
 
 to having turned greenish-ashen and threatened to 
 die last evening, I was allowed to hold a tiny, stuffed 
 ducklet that was given me my first Easter by a lovely 
 lady, but between which and me, my Mother ever 
 stands. I always want to pick out the glass eyes, 
 but Mother is trying to save the duck until I am older 
 and more considerate. Personally, I feel that the 
 duck's destiny is a doomed one, anyway, and I might 
 as well have him one time as another. They are so 
 charitable about ducks, especially the alive one next 
 door. I was not permitted to hold my treasure, un- 
 watched. It is hard for a little boy to have the child's 
 natural interest in finding out what grows inside of 
 things combined with a Mother who anticipates him! 
 I find that the Park Hill doctors indulge in that 
 same contemptible practice of taking the food away 
 from sick babies, which I had heretofore supposed 
 originated and ended with Mother's Special Physi- 
 cian. And yet, I hear the up-growns saying now and 
 then, that in some ways the West is broader than the 
 East! Possibly but this is not one of the ways.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 151 
 
 A stuffed duck that one is not allowed to destroy 
 is a pretty poor substitute for one's breakfast. I 
 know. 
 
 I have tried my Mother's soul to-day. I am sick, 
 and glad of it; I fret, and I am glad of that. Some- 
 times, I cry. Some of it is traced to boredom, some 
 to cussedness and the rest is just baby. I staggered 
 out to the dining-room, and pulled the cloth off the 
 table before the dishes had been cleared away. This 
 proved diverting, but did not start the day very well. 
 
 When Mother made the beds, I clung to the brass 
 railings, and howling madly, I grabbed each sheet 
 and blanket as it was laid in place, and pulled it to 
 the floor. This caused Mother to take me firmly, 
 but with kindness in her touch, and to set me down 
 on the floor in the next room. She remarked in pass- 
 ing, that she did not intend to have her white blankets 
 thrown on the rugs, whether I was sick or well. Her 
 manner implied she meant what she said. 
 
 I daresay it would have been nice of me to have let 
 her alone, as she was worn out with a series of bad
 
 152 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m m 
 
 nights and neighborhood complaints. But no not 
 at all! What normal baby would have done the 
 decent thing? None you ever heard of, believe me. 
 There are Mothers who will tell you that we help 
 them with Life's cares but these are Mothers who 
 are old and who have grown gentle toward their by- 
 gone trials, or the young Mothers who have someone 
 with whom to divide their cares. The quite tired 
 Mother of the moment, knows that babies taunt 
 up-growns at times, as animals have been tormented 
 in arenas for the fiendish amusement of morbid spec- 
 tators. The principal difference between a bull 
 and a matador trying to kill each other, and a nervous 
 Mother and a teething child trying to be nice to each 
 other, is that the Mother hasn't any applause to ease 
 the situation. 
 
 To-day I taunted my Mother, and the more it 
 seemed to upset her, the harder I taunted. As my 
 Mother sat trying to mend something that must have 
 her attention at once, I stood beside her, lurching for 
 the scissors, breaking her thread, yanking at the cloth
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 153 
 
 and swinging on her forearms. I turned to her a 
 tear-stained little face, full of rage and demand and 
 discontent. When she could no longer endure this, 
 she set her work aside, and tried to show me pictures, 
 but I wickedly tore a page out of the magazine, which 
 settled this possibility of entertaining me, for my Mother 
 put the pictures away, saying that books must be 
 respected even by little children. 
 
 She then started to put the sitting-room to rights. 
 Each thing she picked up, I threw down, if I could 
 get it. When she went to sweep the floor, I established 
 my position directly in front of her broom, my mouth 
 being wide open to send out shrieks and take in dust. 
 But I had gone too far I got a surprise! My Mother 
 drew back with her broom as one might make ready 
 for a tennis ball, and the next thing I knew, I was a 
 mass of infuriated babyhood on the other side of 
 the room! 
 
 Here my Mother spoke aloud, saying, "I cannot 
 see the reason in pressing human beings so hard that 
 their actions bear no relation to their own standards!"
 
 154 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 It did not hurt me to be swiftly rolled across the room 
 with a broom, nearly so much as it shocked my Mother 
 to have administered a broadside of just deserts to 
 one of helpless age. 
 
 Humiliated, she picked me up and took me to the 
 kitchen, where she put me in my high chair, while 
 she tried to sort out the dishes I had broken from those 
 that had escaped me when I cleared the breakfast 
 table for her. She gave me playthings, which I 
 threw upon the floor, stiffening out in my confinement 
 and yelling at top voice. She offered me a drink 
 of cooled water, which had been boiled for me. I 
 hurled the cup out of her hand. I much prefer plain 
 pipe water, such as Miss Cummins used to give me 
 in New York, unsterilized and right out of the faucet. 
 Miss Cummins never told this on us, and I could not. 
 
 Mother said something she would not like to have 
 me repeat, and picked up the pieces of the cup. 
 Then, she ignored me and worked. But I had no 
 intention of being ignored. I resolved to make a 
 personally-conducted tour around the edge of the tray
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 155 
 
 of my high chair. I meant to crawl all the way 
 around the rim of the tray, and sit down in my chair 
 again, just to show Mother that I am a real person 
 not a theory on Race Suicide. Well, I got as far as 
 making a promising beginning, when when I fell 
 heavily to the floor, hitting my head a vicious crack 
 on the oven door, which lay out just to spite me, open. 
 
 Tell me, do you think I got picked up and coddled 
 and told that it was a beastly shame of the oven door 
 to hurt my darling baby head and that when I am 
 big enough we will kick the oven together miser- 
 able thing? You do? Well then, there is one thing 
 certain you don't know my Mother as well as I do! 
 
 My Mother's hands, now strong in desperation, 
 held me fast under the arms, while the rest of me was 
 just dangling in air, as I dangle my doll, Miss Beatrice 
 Clara Cummins, and close to my face I heard her 
 saying, "Now, young man, you have imposed upon 
 the fact that you are teething, just about long enough! 
 You are fifteen months old quite old enough to be- 
 gin to cultivate the instincts of a gentleman. I have
 
 156 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 TO SB 
 
 BS3 Gs2 
 
 done for you all that I am able to do including not 
 shaking you until your eyes rattle! You will now 
 have the pleasure of your own society!" 
 
 She went with me to the sitting-room where she 
 gave me toys, which I threw from me. Then she 
 left me, and I heard her close the dining-room door 
 to the kitchen. I still creep when I want to' make 
 good time, and I reached that door as fast as any 
 snake could have got there. Screeching, I scrambled 
 to my feet, and beat upon the wood. I choked once 
 stopping my own noise just long enough to hear 
 the down-stairs lady's voice on the back porch, say- 
 ing sweetly to Mother, "Excuse me for coming up to 
 make an early call, Mrs. Carr, but I could not help 
 wondering if you knew how hard your baby is crying?" 
 
 In polite, but fairly chilly tones, Mother replied, 
 "My dear madam, do you know that George Wash- 
 ington is dead?" 
 
 A little later, when I had run down, so to speak, 
 being unable to keep up the standard amount of 
 racket, on no breakfast, I heard a sound that told a
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 157 
 
 story to me. My Mother was opening and slamming 
 the icebox door. I heard her say once that our ice- 
 box door made a sound exactly like that of a brougham 
 door when banged to by a groom; and that the slam 
 of a carriage door always did her soul good it 
 suggested the lighter and more gracious side of Life! 
 
 It must have been a long time before my Mother 
 trusted herself to see me, for when at last she came, 
 she found me asleep on the dining-room floor right 
 in a draught. If I had made the day's work too 
 heavy for her so far, I now saddened it more, by 
 letting her find me, a sick baby, asleep on the floor 
 in a draught. 
 
 We rocked together a long time after this, peace- 
 fully. When we stopped a moment, I looked about 
 for my stuffed Easter duck. If you will believe me, 
 my Mother with all the things that had claimed 
 her attention this very trying morning had found 
 the time and opportunity to hide that duck again! 
 
 My Mother interests me greatly.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 FATHER, Mother and I have enjoyed a visit, 
 with Aunty Catherine and Uncle Max at 
 the Springs. Aunty is delightful in her 
 pride in me. She takes me out just when the car is 
 passing, so that her neighbors may see who is visiting 
 her. 
 
 They seem to take Aunty Catherine rather seriously 
 at the Springs, which amuses Mother who has always 
 had an older sister attitude toward her which act 
 counts, I daresay, for Aunty Catherine's evident re- 
 lief that out of the confusion of Life, Mother got me, 
 upon whom to vent some of her energy. 
 
 It is very wonderful out-of-doors here. The coun- 
 try places make a loosely joined village, back of 
 which are the glorious Rocky Mountains. There 
 are so many autumn leaves on the lawn that by the 
 
 time you have tried to kick each leaf, your cheeks are 
 
 158
 
 ui out-of-dwi?
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 159 
 
 wildly red, and ladies will make comments on the 
 depths of your brown eyes. By the way, my eyes 
 have at last settled into their permanent color, and 
 stopped one embarrassing personal controversy. 
 
 But what I like best about the Springs, is the gravel 
 walk in front of Aunty Catherine's house. You 
 can't imagine what adorable pebbles grow in the 
 driveway. To-day when running away from Mothec 
 I came upon a bone with a handsome vacant hole 
 in it. I filled this hole four-thousand- nine-hundred- 
 and-sixteen times with gravel, which quickly ran out 
 at the other side. 
 
 To-day we had tea with neighbors whose library 
 runs two stories high and has a fire-place big enough 
 to have for a play-house. Rough stones, too big to 
 fit in that lovely bone I found, make the chimney, 
 and near the top is a deer's head. My! I 'most 
 went crazy over that deer! I wish I had half a chance 
 at those glass eyes! 
 
 Out into the room and around the fire-place is a 
 funny low seat, or foot-rest, and on it I put a plate
 
 160 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 of cookies, in fine order, like a row of soldiers. I 
 took a bite out of each cake in turn, sometimes offer- 
 ing the ladies tastes. I adored the ladies this after- 
 noon. They sat holding their tea cups and making 
 flattering remarks upon my looks and conduct watch- 
 ing me the while, as though I had within me strange 
 and great things to teach them. 
 
 I fancy this gathering, with the possible exception 
 of Mother and myself, was what is called "society," 
 and we met one exquisite young matron who said I 
 reminded her of her own child, whom "she always 
 tried to see for an hour a day, anyway, although it 
 was sometimes hard to manage it." 
 
 Mother replied that she always tried not to see 
 her child for an hour a day, although it was invariably 
 hard to manage it! 
 
 Our hostess' husband was my favorite next to 
 the deer's head. He was so interesting but of 
 course, he would be interesting because he is a physi- 
 cian. Physicians are very wise. Observe them, 
 yourself! The Doctor, instead of rudely throwing
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 161 
 
 1 & 
 
 me into the air above his head, as most men do by 
 way of introducing themselves to a baby, ignored me. 
 It is always effective to ignore him whom you would 
 attract a little. The Doctor sat down and talked 
 with the ladies but he took out his watch and idly 
 dangled it on the end of the chain then waited. 
 He knew the answer before he took out the watch. 
 This is the reason that I walked to him and put my 
 hands in his. 
 
 But the Teddy Bears and Miss Beatrice Clara 
 Cummins are waiting for me in Park Hill, so we 
 have to go away from the Springs. I have had a 
 fine visit, but I shall miss the lady of the cookies, the 
 gravel and the empty bone, as well as Aunty Catherine 
 and the dead leaves. 
 
 My parents are training me to pick up bits from the 
 floor but there is one thing they do not know. I 
 get the bits out of the waste-basket, myself, and put 
 them on the floor, in the first place. 
 I wear socks always, never having had a long 
 pair of stockings, such as "Sonny" and most little
 
 162 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m m 
 
 boys wear. Perhaps we cannot afford the long ones? 
 The down-stairs lady has remarked she has noticed 
 that I am wearing heavy shoes. Of course, the patter- 
 patter of my feet above her head does not disturb 
 her, you understand, but she wonders if my Mother 
 does not agree with her that softer shoes are better 
 for such little feet. If you lived under me, you might 
 feel the same way. No telling. 
 
 I fill my Father's shoes with small blocks, which he 
 invariably sees after having put his weight on them. 
 I also put a tiny block in my Grandmother's bag one 
 day, and when she got home she cried. When she 
 had cried, she telephoned us. Grandmothers are apt 
 to weep over the acts of their grandchildren, when 
 the same acts got a spanking for their own children. 
 When you weep in the wrong place, it is a pretty 
 good sign you have the making of a real grandmother 
 in you. 
 
 I cannot turn on the water in the bath tub yet, but 
 it is not because I have not tried. * 
 
 My toes now touch the foot-board of my high-chair,
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 163 
 
 which proves that I am of eighteen months' age, and 
 glad. I can see out of windows by straining a little. 
 I used to think I should never grow so tall. Oc- 
 casionally I get some real food, but over my egg I 
 want to be leisurely. Why hurry? I want to be 
 flirted with and coaxed to eat it, but my Mother is 
 such a business-like person! 
 
 "Dicklet," she said to me to-day, intensely, "if 
 you are going to dawdle over your meals, I know I 
 shall go mad!" 
 
 But I think I shall dawdle just the same, if you 
 don't mind. 
 
 As long as it is supposed to be such excellent dis- 
 cipline for the up-grown character to have us of 
 helpless age thrust upon it, I think we ought to do 
 the best we can to make the fullest use of our oppor- 
 tunity. I should hate to feel, in the end, that there 
 was any calculation ever made by my Mother that I 
 have not altered, or smashed up altogether. Cer- 
 tainly. So, I dawdle while purple-red spots form 
 on my Mother's cheek bones, and trembling with
 
 164 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 nervousness, she smiles just like the wax ladies 
 who wear ready-made gowns in shop windows. 
 
 I don't understand why ladies are not as amused 
 by holding a spoon before a pouting red mouth, as 
 they used to be by sitting at a piano for hours over 
 some difficult piece of fingering. Surely, our Mothers 
 love us more than they loved their rented pianos? My 
 Mother has dawdled at times over her scales she 
 has told me so many days but when I dawdle over 
 my egg, she feels like a prisoner. Is it not extraordinary? 
 And goodness knows what might have happened to- 
 day, if an old lady had not come in to call and tact- 
 fully suggested that I might grpw up some-day. This 
 cheerful possibility had never occurred to either of us. 
 
 I must explain that this picking-up business they 
 are drilling into me, works both ways. Father has 
 to go away, and he packed his trunk while Mother 
 and Aunty Catherine were at the far end of the 
 apartment. As Father packed, I unpacked, and got 
 no thanks. It was a low steamer trunk, and most 
 convenient for one of my height. Daddy made many
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 165 
 
 no-no remarks which did not bother me at all. I 
 took everything out of his trunk, every time he went 
 into his bedroom to get more clothes. When I found 
 that this promised to be unpopular, I began putting 
 in extra things for him on top of his white waistcoats. 
 I got in three Teddy Bears, Miss B. Clara Cummins, 
 a ball, an ash-tray of out-blown matches, two blocks 
 and a jumping- jack, and I was just stepping in my- 
 self to keep him from being lonely when he opened 
 his trunk at the other end of his journey, when Daddy 
 came back and found me too much. 
 
 He mopped his brow and dashed for the ladies, 
 and said with emphasis, "For the Lord's sake, can't 
 one of you women come in here and stand between 
 me and this child, long enough for me to make my 
 train?" 
 
 Aunty Catherine looked at me to-day, when she 
 had settled herself for a little visit with us; she looked 
 at me critically. 
 
 "Your head is a sight!" she said under her breath. 
 "A perfect sight! I don't believe you have had your
 
 166 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m @ 
 
 hair clipped in all your life, and it is way down over 
 your ears and almost into your eyes. Come with 
 me, child!" 
 
 I scented trouble, but Aunty Catherine is very tall 
 and very commanding, and often is taken seriously. 
 I trotted along beside her to my high-chair, and she 
 took it and me to the back porch. I was fascinated 
 by the evident momentousness of the occasion. I 
 was quiet. The next I knew, I was sitting in the 
 chair, and Aunty Catherine's firm white hands were 
 occupied one holding my two, fat little hands, and 
 the other, flourishing a pair of scissors. 
 
 Had I been able to speak English, I could have 
 informed my aunt that these particular scissors were 
 the old ones that Mother used to cut odd bits of things, 
 like picture wire. They were dull and sawtoothed, 
 rather, and were good for hair-pulling, but awful 
 for hair-cutting. 
 
 The next instant, the aunt made a dash for me, and 
 I ducked and screamed, as a bunch of hair fell to the 
 floor. Mother flew to us.
 
 oo "OJUCA.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 167 
 
 "Catherine!" she demanded, dramatically, "what 
 are you doing to my child?" 
 
 "Giving him a much needed hair-cut!" replied 
 the aunt, with vigor. 
 
 "Well, don't put his eyes out!" snapped Mother. 
 
 "Possibly, you'd better hold him, then," advised 
 the aunt. 
 
 And if you will believe me, my Mother turned 
 against me in the fight, holding me with all her 
 strength! We soon collected an audience in the alley 
 and on all the back porches of the block, while my aunt 
 jabbed at me, clearing vacant spots on my head, upon 
 which I felt the chill air blowing. But when they 
 tried to "trim my bangs," I heard the mad hurry of 
 a man coming to us, three steps at a time. I trusted 
 it was the police, but it was only the janitor, whom 
 I had supposed to be my friend. I once heard him 
 telling Mother that he used to valet a man who went 
 in for wild boar sticking, and in this crisis I quickly 
 saw that he had contracted some of his former em- 
 ployer's love of the fight. Anyway, his blood was up.
 
 168 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 gi m 
 
 "Here, Mrs. Carr," he panted. "Give me them 
 scissors!" 
 
 The two women relinquished their weapon, and 
 fell on me one putting her weight on my chest, 
 and the other holding my frantic hands. Moses! 
 How I shrieked! The boar-sticking janitor got to 
 work at the back of my head, and tore out a sort of 
 high-water line up where one's bump of veneration 
 is conceded to be, but sometimes isn't. They were all 
 excited and red in the face, although Mother called 
 to the neighbors not to worry nothing dreadful 
 was happening just a little trimming up of my hair. 
 
 With one vicious dive at me, which resulted in 
 exposing a patch of scalp over my "soft-spot," the 
 three demons fell back, and set me free. 
 
 "Richard," said Mother bending over me, tender- 
 ly, "I call it a miserable imposition! Can you for- 
 give me, and give me a little kiss?" 
 
 I did not want to, exactly, but still I put my arms 
 around her neck, for after all, I am the little soul of 
 Mother. She had tears in her eyes tears that came
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 169 
 
 after she had done what she wanted to like so many 
 of Life's tears. "Catherine!" she half sobbed, "look 
 at this beautiful child! He looks positively moth- 
 eaten!" 
 
 Moth-eaten indeed! That is much too polite 
 a term. If you ask me, I can tell you I look Indian- 
 raided! 
 
 "Well," weakly the aunt defended herself, "it 
 was the best I could do and save his eyes." 
 
 I feel blue enough at the rough treatment I have 
 received from my best friends, but still, I have solved 
 a mystery. I know, now, why the Springs takes 
 Aunty Catherine seriously; and when I am bigger, 
 I will explain it to Mother, as the matter seems to 
 be one of such interest to her. Aunty Catherine 
 probably cuts their hair for 'em in the Springs and 
 Moses! I should think they would take her seriously.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 I THINK yesterday must have been what the 
 up-growns call Christmas, for Father came home, 
 and everyone met at my grandparents' where there 
 was a huge pile of articles in the middle of the draw- 
 ing room floor, covered over with a sheet. The 
 game seemed to be for all to sit on the floor, regard- 
 less of stiffness in getting down, and one at a time, 
 each person drew out a package done up with bright 
 ribbons, and opening it before all eyes, he gasped 
 (regardless of getting the wrong thing), "How nice! 
 Just what I have been wanting for months!" 
 
 I sat on the top of the pile most of the time, enjoying 
 the sensation of feeling the presents settle under me. 
 Strange nobody snatched me off. Being the only 
 grandchild among many up-growns, has its ad- 
 vantages. Several bundles were for me contain- 
 ing things to which I prefer our talcum powder can. 
 
 I behaved well all day. I was worried. My 
 170
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 171 
 
 thoughts were upon the alive duck in our next door 
 neighbor's back yard. I had heard Mother suggest that 
 they must be fattening it for Christmas. I was anxious 
 to get home to see if the duck's incessant quacking 
 had ceased. 
 
 It had. Never another sound from him poor 
 little duck! And my stuffed Easter duck is put away, 
 and not speaking English, I have not yet hit upon a 
 successful way of asking for him. One really ought 
 not to allow himself to grow attached to ducks their 
 destiny is so certain. 
 
 The most thrilling time we have had lately, how- 
 ever, was the night before Father arrived. The little 
 boy belonging to the down-stairs lady, came in with 
 his parents after the theatre; and between 'em, they 
 slammed every door in their apartment, and finally 
 congregated in the bed room just under us, and right 
 up through the court, we heard the boy say, "Let's 
 poke Sport in the ribs and make him bark!" Then 
 followed a romp which was noisy enough to wake 
 the dead duck.
 
 172 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Egg 653 
 
 ESS ^^0$ 
 
 The down-stairs family had made such a point 
 of complaining at every sound from me, that Mother 
 thought they had little to do to start me up, them- 
 selves, in the middle of the night. She stood the 
 disturbance as long as she could, and then, so annoyed 
 she hardly knew what she was doing, she put her head 
 out of our window. Through my crying, the boy's 
 romping and the dog's yelping, she made herself 
 heard and distinctly. I doubt if this section of the 
 country ever listened to more telling eloquence, poetic 
 justice and neighborly exchange of ideas than were 
 combined in the few remarks that Mother made to 
 whom it might concern. 
 
 A stillness followed that would have flattered any 
 great orator. The dog stopped breathing. Nothing 
 stirred not even the spirit of the departed duck. 
 A head was thrust out of every window near us 
 boarders' heads, mostly. Everything was night and 
 intensity. The climax lasted longer than some 
 climaxes, and was interrupted only by the down- 
 stairs boy's tip-toeing with his puppy out into the
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 173 
 
 kitchen. Even the whitewash on the court walls 
 was impressed. 
 
 Then, of course, we had days of remorse and 
 things. You might know we would never spare 
 ourselves the unusual amount of suffering this oppor- 
 tunity afforded. We were self-conscious, and avoided 
 meeting the down-stairs family. A fleeting glimpse 
 of the doglet's tail getting around the edge of the 
 building, was quite enough to embarrass us. This 
 stump-speech of Mother's suggested Miss Clara 
 Cummins and the dyed black dress material, and 
 the similarity of method fussed Mother more than the 
 whole down-stairs family was worth. She deeply 
 regretted not having taken more conventional, and 
 less effective, measures. But I understood it all. 
 You see, ladies sometimes let things go until they are up- 
 set beyond their self-control, hoping all the time that 
 the difficulties will eventually adjust themselves. 
 The down-stairs lady was wiser than Mother, I fear 
 she rendered her complaints on the installment 
 plan, and kept her system clear. Her scheme
 
 174 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 gsa gsa 
 
 Bs ES3 
 
 was fine from her standpoint, but it was a terror 
 for us! 
 
 But the strained relations eased up a bit when the 
 down-stairs family "went on the road for a while 
 with poppa." I took this occasion to sleep well at 
 night, and I refused to wear any shoes save my little 
 felt bed room slippers in the house. I didn't knock 
 over a chair and shake the house, once, the whole 
 time they were out of town. 
 
 But they came back. Most things one is not in 
 love with, do if you just give them time. So, think- 
 ing our neighbors might miss their old grievances if 
 I stayed good, I un-eased myself, and dropped all 
 the books I could, and cried often and loudly. I 
 never disappoint people who are nerved for trouble, 
 if I can help it. 
 
 An anti-climax developed at this point. The 
 down-stairs family stormed down town and told the 
 agent that they could not stand the loss of sleep, and 
 they thought if they were expected to endure the 
 up-stairs baby, their rent ought to be reduced. But
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 175 
 
 GEi _csa 
 
 BS ~~ ~0S 
 
 the agent settled the matter promptly by saying that 
 he would be glad to cancel their lease anytime on 
 one week's notice. Whereupon the down-stairs 
 family had an attack of human nature when they 
 found it was easy to go, they wanted to stay. The 
 agent, you see, is a relative of mine, and is solid for 
 me. Ha! 
 
 Feeling the tightness of the present relations, Mother 
 thought she would make the advances toward an 
 armed neutrality, as she had caused the open break. 
 So she took a dainty bowl of wine jelly and went 
 down stairs, saying to the lady when she came to 
 the door, that as they had not yet had time to re-stock 
 their larder after their trip, perhaps this bit would 
 help out with luncheon. But the down-stairs lady 
 pretended that she had never met Mother, and did 
 not understand. No doubt it was a trying moment. 
 Anyway we never have wine jelly anymore, I have 
 noticed! 
 
 And the strangest part of all is that the dog be- 
 longing to the down-stairs boy disappeared the next
 
 176 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 M H 
 
 night. I don't know what foundation they had for 
 their suspicions and aspersions, but at once the down- 
 stairs gentleman stopped speaking to my Father on 
 the street. Things are generally serious when the 
 men take part in apartment-house feuds. Person- 
 ally, I don't believe we had a thing on earth to 
 do with the tragedy. We are not the only people 
 with whom that dog was unpopular. This passing 
 was just one of those things resulting from some un- 
 known natural cause, which is classed by the up-growns 
 as a coincidence. Possibly the puppy got into the 
 alley barrel and ate some of that wine jelly, and it 
 was too much for him, being unused to unpasteurized 
 stimulants. I can't say. But the janitor always 
 looked amused every time anybody in the building 
 inquired for "Sport." The janitor had the sense of 
 humor except when cutting the hair of persons who 
 much prefer he'd mind his own business. He had, 
 however, been obliged to listen to so much assorted 
 conversation on the subject of this particular boy and 
 this particular dog, that he gave it out coldly, he
 
 f ut touir-ar 
 nder
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 177 
 
 thought he could stand the loss without going into 
 mourning. 
 
 I hope all this does not give the impression that 
 we live in a tenement? Oh dear me, no! We pay 
 very high rent for our troubles. But we can't stand 
 it any more, and we are moving soon. We are con- 
 vinced that apartment houses are no places for boys, 
 babies, dogs, pianolas, parties, alarm clocks, nerves, 
 ducks, squeaking rocking chairs or machine-sung 
 comic songs. Apartments should be occupied only 
 by felt-soled shoes, gossip and thick skins. We will 
 run a furnace ourselves, deal directly with burglars, 
 and walk six blocks in mud ankle-deep to the near- 
 est car, if we have to, but no more apartment-houses 
 for us I should say not! 
 
 Every day I sit on my Father's knee in the late after- 
 noon, and find in his pockets many things. The cigars 
 that are there, one must not crush. This would be a 
 no-no. To muss up the cigarettes would also be a 
 no-no, but it is all right to threaten to do so, and if 
 one has a true Father, such as I have, he will stand
 
 178 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m m 
 
 for 'most a hundred threats, patiently. In an upper 
 waistcoat pocket is a miniature of a placid face and 
 an unplacid soul my Mother. This I kiss each 
 time I find it, quite as though I had discovered it for 
 the first time. It is etiquette to put the locket back 
 in Daddy's pocket after kissing. It would never 
 do to make-believe to throw this on the floor this 
 would be a dreadful no-no. 
 
 After the cigar-cutter has been snapped forty-seven 
 times, we think of books, Daddy and I. I am not 
 allowed to touch the up-grown books; but on my way 
 to get my own books, I pretend to take a large volume. 
 This I shall do seriously, just as long as I can provoke 
 my Father into saying, "Not those books, Son!" I 
 am fond of this sentence it is part of our daily play. 
 I am devoted to the sameness of things, day in and 
 day out. Isn't your little boy? 
 
 There is something they have not yet discovered. 
 I found a fine blue pencil on Sunday morning when 
 I got up early, and they did not know I was out of 
 my crib, I went into the sitting room and took out
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 179 
 
 of the case one up-grown book at a time, and wrote 
 in it many things with this lovely blue pencil. When 
 I thought each volume sufficiently decorated, I put 
 it back in the orderly fashion they are teaching me. 
 But I was disappointed in getting only eight books 
 marked up, when I heard Mother coming. 
 
 They may find me out, in time, for one of the vic- 
 tims was a borrowed book. But our own books may 
 know their own decorations in silence always, for I 
 marked up only the good ones that nobody ever reads, 
 such as Taine's History of English Literature, which 
 I have heard Mother say she hoped to get around to, 
 someday. I trust when that day comes, I shall be 
 big enough to run!
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WE are moved. I am glad. We live in a 
 little house on the edge of town, where 
 we can see two hundred miles of great 
 high mountains, and where the wind blows so that it 
 is hard to stand up. We have not blown over yet. 
 It is lovely to have a house that is quite one's own. 
 Why, the very knowledge that I can cry at night 
 all I want to, and not disturb a soul, has taken out of 
 me the desire to cry at all. I am cheerful every minute. 
 In the back yard Daddy has made me a sand-pile, 
 in which I bury all little things, like nutmeg graters 
 and thimbles. I keep much busier than I did in town, 
 although I was said to be rather active there. Last 
 evening I put my tin steam yacht in the nice cool oven, 
 and I know Mother got a shock and thought the 
 Spanish fleet was upon us, when she went to make 
 
 the toast this morning. And the exhaust pipe of 
 
 180
 
 fjag mabe me a ganb=pile, in tofjicf) 3f burp 
 all little things, like nutmeg graters anb 
 
 till 111 blfS. page ISO
 
 181 
 
 the bath tub is already stopped up. The up-growns 
 don't know why, but I do. The key to my yacht 
 is carefully poked down there. I would explain if 
 I could, but I can't. I talk a great deal in my own 
 way, which does not seem clear to the up-growns. 
 I don't see why they, who are so much better informed 
 than I, cannot understand me, when I have no trouble 
 at all understanding them. 
 
 The old lady who once suggested to Mother that 
 I might one day grow up, gave me a horse that is not 
 constructed at all like the vegetable man's horse. 
 My horse has a head stuck on a long, thin body 
 which is a sort of little sister to a broom-stick, and 
 the horse's hind feet are two wheels, one of which 
 I got off after some difficulty, and the other I hope to 
 dislodge soon. I ride this horse by the hour, and he 
 never gets any more tired than I do, myself. I have 
 a pair of overhauls and a big hat, and on the whole 
 present a formidable appearance. I am Mother's 
 cow puncher, so she says. 
 
 They have a dog three doors from us, which is
 
 182 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 supposed to be ugly with children, but he is very 
 cordial with me, which is accounted for, no doubt, 
 by the fact that I am a cowboy on a broncho not 
 "children." This dog and I eat together, but no- 
 body knows it. His plate is an old, unwashed pie 
 dish, out by the rain pipe from the roof. He gets 
 odd bits of hash, and the old soup meat and the cake 
 that turned to lead instead of angel food. These we 
 enjoy together. And these informal meetings with 
 "Teddy," remind me of Miss Clara Cummins, in a 
 way. 
 
 I am a most trustworthy person. They let me out 
 to roam the neighborhood, and Mother refuses to 
 have her temperature kept high because of the things 
 that might happen to me. She lets me out for the 
 principal reason that she can't keep me in. I can 
 undo the hooks on both gates. Mother says if she 
 gave in to all her apprehensions, she would be in the 
 insane asylum, and believe me, if she were not, I 
 should be! Mother once heard of a young man 
 who turned to his over-solicitous Mother and said,
 
 let me out to roam tfje netg;f)tiori)oob pag e 182
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 183 
 
 "Will you let me breathe for myself, Mother? You 
 smother me with your care!" I know if I ever re- 
 proached my Mother like that, it would cut her to 
 the soul. She believes that even babies have a right 
 to be treated like responsible human beings, and 
 while she seems ever ready to stand between me and 
 distress, still she says I must have my own experiences, 
 and might as well begin one time as another. This 
 theory, however, does not keep her from flying to 
 the door every few minutes to see what I am <loing. 
 I have learned to open doors, and while I appreciate 
 the fact that I am not supposed to be on the back 
 porch, owing to my love of inspecting the ice box, 
 still to-day I got in there. It was fine. I first fell 
 upon a huge bowl of eggs, which I threw, one at a 
 time, onto the floor, making a nice skating sort of 
 foundation for a crock of soup stock, which I had 
 some trouble in upsetting. Then there were some 
 little dishes of vegetables and other things which 
 added greatly to the interesting swimming pool. I 
 sat down and slid around, joyfully. Then I rubbed
 
 184 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 i iH 
 
 the egginess into my hair, and I was just about to try 
 to take a horse-back ride on a leg of lamb that went 
 splendidly through the slippery waves, when Mother 
 appeared. 
 
 Mother said something emphatic, then dragged me 
 from the fun, and noted that I had painted the walls 
 of the porch as high up as I could with a new pound 
 of butter. Then I got spanked. Thank you. I 
 think the spanking was almost as good as an example 
 of Mother's kind of activity, as the back porch was 
 of mine. I fancy Mother would have cried, but 
 Mother is rather un-crying. She is willing enough, 
 but the sobs seldom get past the buckle at her throat. 
 I do somewhat better, myself. The stair-case, the 
 kitchen floor and the bath tub were all eggy. So 
 sorry. The ice box is a very bad no-no, indeed. 
 
 We had just finished our egg shampoo on me and 
 the house and Mother, and were soberly glaring at 
 each other in the sitting-room, clean and discouraged, 
 when a silk-lined lady with flowers in her hand and 
 malice in her heart, came to call. She was one of
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 185 
 
 Cousin Martha's suit-case sympathizers when Cousin 
 Martha was thrown into black. She always called 
 twice a day on Cousin Martha at that time, with a 
 suit-case in each hand, to feed her aromatic spirits 
 of ammonia to dull her over-wrought nerves, and to 
 explain to her that by the time she was out of mourn- 
 ing, her tan shoes would be an old fashioned cut 
 and wasn't it fortunate they wore the same size? She 
 said she would like to borrow her opera wrap, and 
 gracefully suggested that by taking in her tailored 
 jackets, she could use them, and would just love to 
 take the hateful things away where poor little Martha 
 would not be constantly annoyed by the sight of 
 them, full as they must be of painful associations! 
 
 I fancy the silk-lined lady was a most "smart" 
 person, because she did not speak of automobiles, 
 but of motors. Mother says this is the supreme test 
 of the "society" woman, especially when the motor 
 referred to is not the property of the speaker. Then, 
 too, I am sure she must have been a "society" woman, 
 because she cut away at once from all the amenities
 
 186 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 H li 
 
 supposed to be the pass-word of Society, the very 
 foundation of the profession, as it were; and she 
 promptly jumped into the private affairs of her hostess 
 without the slightest hesitation. This sort of thing 
 Mother would not resent so positively in an unlettered 
 woman, as she always does when she meets the 
 characteristic in someone who openly stands for the 
 polite life. 
 
 "How is Martha, these days?" casually inquired 
 the silk-lined lady, after having automatically remarked 
 that I was "a perfect beauty," and mentally noted 
 everything in the room with the hope of finding it in 
 poor taste. 
 
 "Martha is well, thank you," replied Mother, 
 keyed for some sort of a blow. 
 
 "I can't get over the shock Martha gave me," 
 fretfully continued the dame. 
 
 "No?" Mother ventured. 
 
 "No! I might have stood her marrying again so 
 soon, if only if only she had not married a grocer." 
 
 "I am afraid your prolonged associations with dry
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 187 
 
 goods have made you super-sensitive," Mother sug- 
 gested, sweetly. 
 
 The silk-lined lady's husband was the chief of 
 one of the dry goods houses in town. 
 
 "Well, well, you see " the silk-lined lady hurried 
 on uneasily, "we that is, John has very little to do 
 with trade, himself, you understand! He is the 
 manager of a large business." 
 
 "Mr. Ludlow is the manager of a large business, 
 also." 
 
 "Really?" said the silk-lined lady. "I am so 
 glad. One hears such misleading things, you 
 know. I was told he put up orders, himself. 
 But even so, it is rather dreadful to be a grocer, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 "Well," argued Mother, in the very friendliest 
 of tones, "what is the difference, when one comes 
 down to facts, between your husband and my cousin- 
 by-marriage, except that one of them has rows of 
 ready-made coats and trousers stacked upon tables, 
 and sells bone-casing and darning cotton; and the other
 
 188 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 fSJ .gra 
 
 tzS gg 
 
 merchant handles breakfast foods and dried 
 apples?" 
 
 "Oh! Such a vast difference!" exclaimed the silk- 
 lined lady, in horror. "A grocer is a grocer, and one 
 can't get away from it, while John is simply in busi- 
 ness sitting at a desk, like any other well-ordered 
 man." 
 
 "A marvelous distinction!" agreed Mother, with 
 real merriment in her eyes. "But might not a grocer 
 sit at a desk? That is, when not sitting at the dinner 
 table, in an automobile or in an opera box?" 
 
 "Does does Mr. ? I never can recall that per- 
 son's name, someway! Does he sit at a desk?" 
 
 "Y-yes," drawled Mother, patiently. "Where did 
 you suppose he sat in a cage?" 
 
 "Now you're laughing at me!" petulantly pro- 
 tested the silk-lined lady. "And this is a most 
 serious matter! You know as well as I that Society 
 draws certain well-defined lines for the occupations 
 of men and the conduct of women, and the man 
 who allows himself to get so far down as to "
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 189 
 
 "As to earn twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars 
 a year," Mother finished. 
 
 "No no. Not at all. So far down as to be 
 stamped by such a commercial and irrevocable a 
 curse as bulk olives, cannot possibly " 
 
 "I cannot, for the life of me, see how so spiritual 
 a soul as yourself, could ever have stood so many 
 years' contamination with Monday bargain sales!" 
 Mother cut her off. 
 
 "Let me explain, my dear," the silk-lined lady 
 insisted, "that I regret my husband's work; but at 
 least, pray do understand that we would never be in 
 such a business in New York!" 
 
 "Why not in New York?" Mother asked, with 
 interest. "I should think it would be better to be in 
 the dry goods business in New York, than here 
 in New York no one would know you." 
 
 Ladies are most interesting. They say such awful 
 things in such pleasant voices. They hurt each other 
 so deeply, generally over some one's else affairs, and 
 show their wounds so little.
 
 190 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 The silk-lined lady kissed Mother's cheek, and 
 Mother (who never cared particularly for kissing 
 ladies) kissed her back. The silk-lined lady kissed 
 me, and said, in parting, that I was a wonderful 
 child, so unusually intelligent and charming. Many 
 thanks. She paid no attention at all to me. Were 
 she and I to meet to-morrow, she would not know me, 
 I am sure. And I should not know her not unless 
 she had a suit-case with her. 
 
 I do not care for the silk-lined lady. I prefer Miss 
 Clara Cummins. If one must fight, give me the clean, 
 fair, brutal combat, such as Miss Cummins dealt 
 the janitor when he stuck his hand in my face once 
 as I lay sleeping in my carriage on the New York 
 roof, and woke me. Miss Cummins was not a lady 
 the Third Avenue Elevated was her "motor" 
 but I like her brand of fight better than some I could 
 mention, if it were polite to do so, which it isn't. So 
 sorry. When Miss Cummins came after you, she 
 did not fall upon you with flowers in her hand. She 
 was perfectly square. She advanced with a rolling-
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 191 
 
 pin, or a section of unmistakable conversation, and 
 you knew from the first just where you stood with her. 
 She was not a lady (and I was disappointed in her 
 crying just plain white tears, when I had hoped they 
 would be brown), but there was something in her 
 that I love.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A STRANGE thing have I discovered. When 
 one stands in the sunlight, a funny, blackish 
 thing appears beyond one on the floor or 
 wall. When you stoop to pick it up, it stoops too! 
 It does not cry out when you put your Mother's scissors 
 into it, or try to do so. It does everything you do, and 
 it stays with you as long as you stand in the sun. Very 
 odd. 
 
 I am of twenty-three months' age, and English 
 speaking, in moderation. I kiss my Mother's hand 
 before and after getting bites of sugar. A visiting 
 lady an un-silk-lined one, this time said to Mother 
 that she was teaching me to break many hearts in 
 later life; and Mother replied that probably I would 
 be up to this time-honored man-pastime, anyway, 
 so I might as well learn to do it gracefully which 
 would, in a measure, compensate the ladies for their 
 
 wee twinges of loneliness! 
 
 192
 
 a 
 
 ^ i * -
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 193 
 
 When there are tea-absorbing persons present, I 
 go through my parlor tricks as though I were giving 
 an initial performance, but truly, there have been 
 dress rehearsals. Mother teaches me things, and 
 my "charm" as the ladies call it, is not entirely of 
 the variety generally classed as "native." 
 
 Yesterday that other very tired Mother was here 
 she who owns him named Sonny and before her 
 my Mother said, upon giving me a cooky, "Say 
 'Thank you, sweet Mother!'" 
 
 "Sank you, sweet Mummah!" I repeated in 
 creditable English. 
 
 Then she who belongs to Sonny dryly remarked, 
 "Well, dear, if your child does not appreciate you, 
 it is not going to be pour fault, is it?" 
 
 In answer my Mother laughingly asked, "What 
 is the point of having a son, if you cannot delude 
 him into idealizing his Mother at least, up to that 
 dreaded time when his sense-of-humor begins to 
 develop?" 
 
 Ladies have much to talk over, mostly things which
 
 194 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 @ m 
 
 their opinions cannot alter "problems." I think 
 these things are called. Mother says that, in the 
 beginning, one child is as favorable material for 
 training as another; in other words, that she could 
 do as much with any little boy as she can with me. 
 That other Mother does not agree with her this 
 is one reason why the two ladies have enjoyed each 
 other for so many years. Sonny's Mother insists 
 that my good appearance is due to my nature, which 
 no amount of discipline could make or mar. (Three 
 cheers for Sonny's Mother!) But, to tell the truth, 
 I do not believe that ladies think. They feel a lot; 
 and when they meet, sometimes their feelings rush 
 into large quantities of impressive words; and then, 
 they think they have thought things. This is a theory, 
 only. If it is wrong, please excuse me. 
 
 I like to be discussed in my own presence it gives 
 me a warm sense of importance, which I try not to 
 betray in self-conscious glances, or by sweeping my 
 eye-lashes across my cheeks. The up-growns are 
 constantly resolving to stop this practice of analyzing
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 195 
 
 me before myself, assuring themselves that beyond 
 doubt, persons of helpless age take in a great deal. 
 
 Mother thinks pardon me! Mother feels she 
 would quite as soon have an orphan as a child of 
 her own. She got this off to her Special Physician 
 once in New York, just as though she meant it. And 
 the Doctor said, thoughtfully (we did not pay much 
 attention to what he said, but we always liked to 
 watch his expression) "Well, I believe in inheri- 
 tance, myself, but then / am a Virginian." 
 
 Really, it is most perplexing to decide whether 
 or not one should take ladies seriously. They say 
 that men-beings have been undecided in regard to 
 this matter, before. However, if they go to import- 
 ing any orphans, I shall snatch their bottles away, 
 and bump them over in a heap on the floor. It is 
 bad enough to have Sonny out here, grabbing my 
 cracker and moving the dining room chairs, when I 
 am trained so that I am happier when they stand in 
 place. We don't need any orphans I can keep 
 the house sufficiently mussed up, myself. And any-
 
 1% THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 HE KE3 
 
 SS*~ ~" 8s3 
 
 way, Father says he already has two children a 
 boy and a girl. He means Mother by the girl. Ha! 
 Father has a pretty good idea of what to take seriously. 
 My Mother and that other Mother make many 
 plans for the future friendship of Sonny and myself. 
 They have everything all mapped out for us how 
 we shall enter the kindergarten together, the grammar 
 school, the preparatory school, and go to college 
 together and stand by each other through Life. May- 
 be! But I don't think much of our start. We hate 
 each other cordially, being delighted that we do. 
 Each wrenches things away from the other, wanting 
 everything in sight. Each bites the other that is 
 why we both howl. The only thing we have in 
 common is a certain delight in the whirlwind of 
 comment that follows one of our bouts. After every 
 scene, each tired Mother explains to the other (both 
 in the same breath and in the same words, they have 
 been over the ground so often), that never does her 
 child show to such poor advantage as when with 
 the other! But, in the future, by seeing more of each
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 197 
 
 G22 RZg 
 
 BS K3 
 
 other, and getting used to playing with other babies, 
 they do hope that that that but we never let them 
 finish. You'd be surprised at the amount of noise 
 there is when both Sonny and I yell our biggest, and 
 the ladies try to make themselves heard above us. 
 Honestly you would. 
 
 I suppose it takes a good many years to understand 
 humor in all its phases, for to-day, to my chagrin, 
 I exhibited a marked lack of appreciation of a joke. 
 I still think the joke must have been un-funny. We 
 were sitting on the couch after Sonny had been got 
 out of our neighborhood Father, Mother and I. 
 Father suddenly said, "Son, let's have some fun with 
 Mother let's choke her." 
 
 He grabbed at her throat, but left her room to laugh. 
 It seemed fearfully serious to me, and I beat my Father 
 in the face, and shrieked in terror, "No-no, Daddy 
 no-no! Dis is my Mummah dis is my Mummah!" 
 
 My parents, seeing that I was in earnest, stopped 
 their play, while I burst out crying and clung to my 
 Mother. Father apologized and tried to explain
 
 198 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m m 
 
 that he was only playing, and Mother kissed me 
 gently and said it was good to- know she had a cham- 
 pion in her baby son. Maybe they thought this 
 funny, but I did not. I don't believe Daddy knows 
 about that iron buckle at Mother's throat, and he 
 might why, I shudder to think what he might do! 
 
 From then until bed time, the pathetic little ex- 
 pression they sometimes remark on my face (the one 
 behind which there is nothing), settled down upon 
 me, and I was un-smiling, quite. Mother says that 
 sometimes I look as she used to feel whatever this 
 means. I had an attack of it now, sitting silent, even 
 when our next door neighbor came in she for whom 
 I steal flowers from the other neighbors. She tried 
 to divert me by saying something about a person I 
 have not met the sand man, she called him. I 
 know the ice man, the milk man and the vegetable 
 man. Daresay the sand man is one of the same lot. 
 
 "What time does Dicklet naturally retire?" asked 
 the lady. 
 
 "He never 'naturally retires'," Mother answered.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 199 
 
 cga raa 
 
 053 """BS 
 
 "He is artificially put to bed about seven. It is a 
 tragic moment for us all!" 
 
 I like this next door lady. I know where the salted 
 wafers are kept at her house. She knows I know. 
 She doesn't talk too much one thing I admire in 
 her. Her husband says he thanks the Lord he hasn't 
 any kids. But just the same, he kisses me every time 
 he is perfectly sure nobody is seeing him do it. Mother 
 asked him once if he would trade his fishing outfit 
 for me and he promptly answered, "I should say not!" 
 
 He may change. No telling. I will wait. 
 
 The up-growns at our house would have an easier 
 time finding the button-hook they want, if they would 
 look on the inside of their shoes before putting their 
 feet in and getting dents in themselves. Then they 
 talk about children never learning anything by ex- 
 perience! 
 
 Kissing a pleading lady through the banisters as 
 one stands part way upon the stairs, is fairly amusing. 
 Zest is added to the game by standing one step too 
 high for the lady, causing her to strain herself. Par-
 
 200 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 ESS Go 
 
 ticular care should always be taken to duck in time 
 to let the lady kiss the wood. After this one should 
 endeavor to look exquisitely innocent. Ladies want 
 most the things they humiliate themselves to beg for. 
 They are generally keen to get a kiss from someone 
 who has none to give. At least, such has been my 
 experience. 
 
 I am aware that in telling a story, one should carry 
 it to a natural conclusion; but I can't see that there 
 is any natural conclusion to a life, and I am telling 
 simply of a life my life. I fail to comprehend how 
 a conclusion to a life could possibly be a natural one. 
 There would have to be devilment, miscalculation 
 or premeditation somewhere along the line! I never 
 expect my life to be "naturally concluded," but 
 perhaps one can't say as much for ducks. Anyway, 
 there is a fact not yet fully taken into consideration 
 at our house, and that is that I am growing up. Un- 
 noticed, I have learned to shove chairs up to high 
 furniture upon which ink, ducks and other things 
 are put for protection from persons of helpless age.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 201 
 
 To-day, while Mother was having a mental 
 battle with herself upon the question which was the 
 harder for a sensitive woman to take a gas stove all 
 to pieces and clean it, or to live with a greasy stove 
 I was up stairs on a chair, silently lifting down from a 
 shelf that little stuffed duck that was given me by the 
 lovely lady, on my first Easter. 
 
 O joy, how long have I waited for thee! I took 
 a fall out of that duck that was beautiful in its com- 
 pleteness. I got his toe-nails off; I got one downy 
 wing worked off the wire that held it; I got a fierce 
 hole stove in his starboard side, and both glass eyes 
 dug out, when Mother interrupted the operation by 
 coming to see what caused her darling to be so quiet. 
 Too bad. But I had done almost all I could. It 
 wasn't a happy moment for me, altogether. But 
 I must say that I stood the natural conclusion of my 
 meeting with my Mother better than the duck stood 
 his with me. 
 
 However, between the spanking and annoying 
 bits of fluff from the duck's clothes which had worked
 
 202 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 pgi Ega 
 
 EG 
 
 their way into my nostrils, I was forced to see that 
 most pleasure is paid for one way or another. My 
 pleasures are paid for mostly in one way. 
 
 But one thing interests me. Do the people who 
 believe that lives and stories arrive at natural con- 
 clusions, argue that this duck was concluded when 
 they caught him in the wood-pile and chopped his 
 head off, and packed him off to Mr. Vantine's shop 
 in New York Town, or when I spent my few un- 
 chaperoned moments with him? And after all, is 
 this ducklet's conclusion best described by the word 
 "natural?" But I must not exercise my brain too 
 much! It is a bad habit. And I wouldn't for the 
 world allow myself to become analytical or introspec- 
 tive. It's too bad about ducks, though. 
 
 These days I get general orders every time Mother 
 leaves the room. She turns in the doorway, and says 
 with decision, "Dont touch anything!" Amusing? 
 
 The monotony of existence was delightfully dis- 
 turbed recently by the visit to Park Hill of an Actress 
 Lady we knew slightly in New York. She came to
 
 1 tocK a fall oui of %t duck ikat 
 m o )
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 203 
 
 nga Eg 
 
 (39 as 
 
 our house to luncheon, and she said the biscuits were 
 "slumslicious." If you know a very lovely Actress 
 Lady who says things are slumslicious, you know who 
 this Actress Lady is. Well, the Nicest Man in Town 
 lunched with us, too, and they all planned to go to 
 the ball of the season which was the following night. 
 Mother was to be the chaperone, but she isn't very 
 old and usually scorns such a position. This time it 
 promised to be different, and while Mother, as a 
 rule is not much keener for Society than Society is 
 for her (which she says is not as keen as it might be), 
 still she and Father sat in a box to see the Actress 
 Lady's play, together with the Nicest Man in Town and 
 the two next Nicest Men in Town, and later they took 
 the Actress Lady to the ball. 
 
 Mother was called to the stage door back of the 
 boxes by the Star's maid, and there crouched in a 
 heap on the floor was the Actress Lady in her fas- 
 cinating fluffy gown of the last act, to say that she 
 would be a real woman in a real gown in five minutes! 
 They waited for the girl on the deserted stage, and
 
 204 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 ii m 
 
 then they all passed out the stage entrance to the 
 carriages in the back street. It was all rather different 
 from the way Mother goes to balls (when she can't 
 get out of them which isn't often). 
 
 When the party came down the great stair-case, 
 there was a half moon of shirt-fronts, three deep, at 
 the bottom, and pretty ladies were parting the palms 
 to peep through at the beautiful, gentle Actress Lady. 
 Then many pleasant people, who ordinarily never 
 had time to stop to speak to us, came up to Mother 
 in flocks, and said they were so glad to know she had 
 come back to live among them, and they were coming 
 to see her so soon, They were then introduced to 
 the Actress Lady, each one, in turn, making exactly 
 the same little remark, with the possible variation 
 of locality. 
 
 "You don't remember me, of course," each lady 
 said in shaking hands with the celebrity. "But I 
 met you in Bar Harbor three years ago this last Au- 
 gust!" 
 
 "Oh yes," graciously answered the Actress Lady,
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 205 
 
 ga Eg) 
 
 BCT^ as 
 
 in her smooth, low voice, that even the profession- 
 proof Leading Man caught himself thinking had a 
 personal sweetness, now and then, "I remember that 
 August very well, indeed. Bar Harbor is delight- 
 ful in August, isn't it?" 
 
 Then the shirt-fronts crowded up, and shook 
 Mother warmly by the hand especially those who 
 never could tell for the life of them, whether she was 
 herself, or one of her sisters. And each shirt-front, 
 in turn, said to the Actress Lady, "May I have a 
 dance? You know, I did have a dance with you 
 once but, of course, you would not remember it! 
 It was at a lawn party in Morristown, given by Mrs ." 
 
 "Oh yes!" the Actress Lady recalled the time, 
 with the dearest sweetest little glance at the shirt- 
 front, "I remember that lawn party, perfectly! Awfully 
 jolly sort of place, Morristown don't you think so?" 
 
 And Mother, who had not had so many men eager 
 to get near her since the time when she carelessly 
 got drowned, had the most deliciously entertaining 
 time she had had since she lost her grip on the humor
 
 206 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 n m 
 
 of things, in acquiring me. Cousin Martha's former 
 suit-case sympathizers were all there, as was also 
 the stirring dame who had taken such pride in spread- 
 ing it all over the community, that Martha had in- 
 vited her to lunch with her in New York, but that 
 she had been obliged to decline, as Martha had 
 shown the astonishing lack of tact of presuming to 
 ask her to lunch at her husband's house as though 
 she could possibly consider eating under the roof of 
 a grocer! Her fine feeling was especially interesting 
 to Mother, whose quick eye rested at once upon an 
 ornament belonging to Cousin Martha, which this 
 dame had never returned. The dame, however, 
 meant the best in the world she had told my Mother 
 that she was truly sorry to have been obliged to hurt 
 Cousin Martha, and she wanted us all to know that 
 if Martha had been considerate enough to have asked 
 her to Sherry's or Martin's, she would have gone, no 
 matter how she felt about the grocery business. Nice 
 of her and we are glad the little ornament she has 
 neglected to return, is so becoming.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 207 
 
 The gentleman who kept Mr. Ludlow a stranger 
 to him supplied with all of the brilliant local news- 
 paper clippings with red head-lines on his marriage 
 such as "Her New York Club Man turns out to be 
 the Grocery Boy" he whose regard for his gentle- 
 manhood was so strong that he used his club envelopes 
 he was there, lending distinction to the function. 
 And he who used to say that the quality of Mother's 
 voice touched places in his soul that nothing else had 
 ever reached he who this evening asked her flatter- 
 ingly what it was she used to do that was interesting, 
 paint? he was there. Well, rather! 
 
 And after a while the Nicest Man in Town stood in 
 the doorway of the ballroom, his great coat over his 
 arm and his hat in his hand, looking up at the lovely 
 Actress Lady, as she came gracefully down the stairs 
 with her wrap on. She was saying gentle little things, 
 right and left, like, "I'm sorry we must say good-night 
 so early, but I have a matinee to-morrow! One day 
 we shall meet again, I am sure, and everybody will 
 remember everybody else and won't it be jolly?"
 
 208 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 g3 ' ' '-- ---.-. ^^* liSs? 
 
 And to Mother she said she would be sure to write 
 her a note from San Francisco and that Mother 
 need not fancy that because she was an actress girl, 
 she would forget! "I shall always love Dicklet," 
 she added. 
 
 "And I shall always think of you as you hurried 
 through the darkened theatre, and all those stage 
 people wished you a happy time at the ball!" Mother 
 said to her, in parting. 
 
 Perhaps it is well that work-a-day women in vastly 
 different callings, can see the picturesque side of each 
 other's lives. It helps the world go around a little.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FATHER has accepted a position somewhere 
 away on the train-cars. From the fact that it 
 was all very quickly decided, and because 
 on our way to the station to see Father off, he and 
 Mother spoke of trivial things with a great effort at 
 being impersonal, I know they both feel depressed 
 and fear a long separation. 
 
 Strange thing about the blues so many intelligent 
 people have them, there must be something in them. 
 
 It was dreadful to come back alone, just Mother 
 and I. I thought for a moment our key would refuse 
 to unlock the front door. I was rocked to sleep; and 
 when anything like this happens in our family, you 
 can count on it, I am needed. I don't think I was 
 rocked for my own pleasure, if you care to know. 
 And the way that "Bye-O Baby Bunting" got sung 
 
 to me, in jerks, was not at all cheerful. 
 
 209
 
 210 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Breakfast was a chokey sort of an affair. The 
 morning seemed very long; the afternoon dragged; 
 and at five o'clock, Mother acquired an attack of 
 nerves and began walking the floor. I took my usual 
 place at the window to watch for the "Daddy-car." 
 It comes from town about five. 
 
 "Couldn't you think of something else to do, be- 
 sides stand at that window?" demanded Mother, 
 none too considerately. 
 
 I could have done something else, no doubt, but 
 I would not. I just stood patiently watching car after 
 car go by, and sinking deeper into that expression 
 that looks the way Mother used to feel the way she 
 was feeling about now, too. Finally, I was marched 
 up to bed. But at nine o'clock (think of it's being 
 so late!), Mother was still rocking me, and I was 
 doing all I could to be polite and stay awake to show 
 my appreciation of such un-dreamed of courtesy. 
 
 After this Mother went down on the porch. She 
 did not eat. Silly. Ladies always take their griev- 
 ances out on Life by not eating. It does not hurt
 
 at) 
 
 affair.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 211 
 
 Life. Most ladies take a little tea and toast in place 
 of their usual dinner, when the man is away. Mother 
 is yet worse. She cannot stand the dining room. We 
 only go in there to dust, and change the water the 
 sweet-peas live in. I am fed punctually, of course. 
 I think I shall call a halt on custard soon. I often 
 look longingly at the lemon pies they grow next door. 
 Coddled egg becomes monotonous, although it has 
 its uses in gumming up the tray of one's high chair, 
 and is fairly good for decorating the fringe of bibs. 
 Otherwise, excuse me! Custard is another form of 
 coddled egg, one which the up-growns fancy a clever 
 deceit. I can't see that it is possible to fool a person 
 of helpless age forever and ever with the same trick. 
 I am looking forward to talking over this point with 
 Mother some day. 
 
 My Mother has carefully instructed her Mother 
 upon the class of gifts most acceptable to small per- 
 sons on their second birthdays. "Give the boy little 
 things," she advised. 
 
 Now I have vast numbers of bright, new pennies
 
 212 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 and nickels from the Mint; and the good word getting 
 to Aunty Catherine, I have hundreds of tiny glass 
 beads to string; and the idea being passed on to 
 Aunty Beatrice, I have miniature train-cars one 
 inch long; and Aunty Hope not wishing to be un- 
 fashionable, has given me a game with many, many 
 wee pegs to be stuck in cardboard holes, but which 
 I prefer to stick in Mother's gloves, or in the bread 
 box. We have to side-step to keep off the beads, 
 we find pegs in the beds, the sand-pile is full of pennies, 
 and the little engine hops down people's backs with 
 my help. 
 
 I think we are going crazy. Mother says this is 
 her last theory on toys, and she hopes the next time 
 it is Christmas, or I am of another year's age, the 
 family will combine and give me one big thing that 
 cannot turn up in the soup unexpectedly for in- 
 stance, a mule or a grand piano. 
 
 My favorite .sentence is, "I want to help my Mum- 
 mah! "And the other day when the laundress came here 
 with the finger of her glove shockingly ripped at the
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 213 
 
 tip, I remarked, "All bit too bad!" which I think 
 shows that I am progressing in the art of expressing 
 myself in words. Don't you? Strange, is it not, that 
 when one understands so much, he can say so little? 
 
 My Grandfather has a new automobile, which 
 greatly impressed Park Hill this afternoon when he 
 drove out to our place in it, on its first trip. My 
 Grandmother, in the tonneau, looked most got-up 
 and beaming. My boy-uncle exhibited the correct 
 degree of assumed indifference for one feeling so 
 superior to the other High School boys, while the 
 chauffeur was noticeable for being a shade darker 
 than Miss Clara Cummins, and quite as self-appre- 
 ciative, if not more so. Furthermore, he was a bit 
 too crisp, so to speak, in taking the big car around 
 corners. There was a spirit of cake-walk in his 
 driving, due, possibly, to his great pride in being 
 chosen to take the car out the initial tour, and to teach 
 the new owner how to run it. 
 
 Well, they picked us up, and off we all went for 
 a drive our neighbors not having been so interested
 
 214 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 in us since the day we took snapshots of the lovely 
 Actress Lady in our back yard, with me in her arms. 
 
 "Don't be nervous, dear," my Grandmother kept 
 saying, reassuringly to Mother. "No harm will 
 come to the blessed boy!" I, Dicklet, am he referred 
 to as "blessed" by my Grandmother. It is a pleasant 
 word blessed but there is a tone of fatality in it, 
 especially to the sensitive while automobiling. I 
 closed my hand tightly on the two new nickels that 
 had begged to come with me. They were not de- 
 lighted at being called "blessed," either, as we shot 
 around curves. They just escaped being poked 
 down a crack in the floor of the front porch, by the 
 arrival of the family and the new machine, and they 
 weren't anxious to get into any more trouble. They 
 clung to me and I to them, and Mother to both of us. 
 
 Grandmother made the same little remark she al- 
 ways made when we were out together, a remark to 
 the effect that Mother's hat would be much more 
 becoming if it were bent down at the back. Mother 
 replied, irrelevantly but feelingly, that as Father was
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 215 
 
 out of town, and I was their pride (and there were 
 no duplicate copies), she did wish we might drive 
 a little more conservatively. It seemed too bad that 
 the public should not have a definite glimpse of us, 
 too we were so elated, it was a pity not to let the 
 joy be seen by others! 
 
 "Pray, don't worry, dear!" Grandmother insisted, 
 (as we dashed out of the Park at the rate of thirty 
 miles a hour, when the regulations were "Automo- 
 biles Notice! Not faster than 8 miles"). "You 
 see, dear," my Grandmother went on, "this Negro 
 is a thoroughly trained chauffeur, and is specially 
 recommended by the man from whom we bought 
 the car. He simply has the love of his race for show- 
 ing-off. He will slow down, presently. We are 
 hurrying just a little now because Brother has an en- 
 gagement to take Hope to a concert." 
 
 "Well," ventured Mother, "I don't question the 
 darkey's ability as a driver, especially when it 
 comes to making time but is he anything of a surgeon?" 
 
 This remark was probably not particularly bright,
 
 216 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 which accounted for the Negro's hat blowing off 
 just at this instant. He turned to look after the hat, 
 it being a very well-worn specimen of cheap felt 
 that might have got dusty. While he was looking, 
 the car dashed rudely up to a telegraph pole to shake 
 hands with it, without first being introduced. 
 
 Something blew up like a barrel of dynamite. 
 Somebody yelled "My God!" And besides other 
 things that occurred, Mother's hat at last got bent 
 down at the back. 
 
 It was summer and everybody was out on her porch. 
 Later we heard many versions of the accident, but 
 one old lady witness reverently announced that the 
 only reason we were not all killed outright, was be- 
 cause "the Lord did not want us," which statement 
 has more truth in it, doubtless, than the lady imagined; 
 for, while Mother's family love each other much, 
 they love to argue with each other more there being 
 considerable Kentucky and a little Killarney in them, 
 in spots. It is only to be supposed that the Authorities 
 would think twice before taking so many of us into
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 217 
 
 m m 
 
 Heaven at one sitting. It might disturb the evenness 
 of the present administration. 
 
 Mother's first idea, after so unceremoniously changing 
 her seat in Grandfather's new motor, for a more for- 
 mal one in the gutter on the opposite side of the street, 
 was that her skull was crushed in at the back, as well 
 as her hat. Then floods of horror swept over her 
 she was afraid to look for me. I was interested to 
 see her who used to wake up hoping she no longer 
 had a baby to complicate her life, now, in maddened 
 intensity, try to force herself to face the possibility 
 of finding this to be true. She did not mind her twisted 
 ankle, nor her bent-at-the-back hat, nor the little 
 stream of blood running down her cheek, nor any 
 of her other dents, but I was worried lest before I 
 found the breath to call to her, the iron buckle would 
 drive itself into her throat, and this would be the end. 
 
 I nervously sobbed, just in time. She looked up 
 to see me crawling toward her. I had bounced out 
 like a rubber ball. She grabbed me with such 
 fierce strength she hurt me a lot more than the accident
 
 218 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m m 
 
 had. She struggled to the sidewalk with me close 
 to her, where we had excited remarks made into our 
 buzzing ears, and whisky and hair-tonic poured on 
 us and into us, by kind people who had the surprising 
 good manners not to laugh. 
 
 My boy-uncle groggily got to his feet and made for 
 the nearest street-car line, to keep his appointment 
 with his sister it was all he knew until next morning 
 and he never did know where he lit, or what had hit 
 him. Grandfather, whose head had grazed the 
 coping walked like a tipsy sailor to where my Grand- 
 mother sat rocking to and fro in a hysterical mass of 
 fine clothes, asphalt chips and blood stains, and he 
 remarked, "One of you women scratched the back 
 of the seat getting out of the machine!" He gets 
 red every time anybody tells this story on him, and 
 he says it is a wicked libel that he at once inquired 
 for the dead and wounded! Then we all laugh 
 another reason why they would rather have our family 
 enter Heaven on the installment plan. 
 
 Nobody was killed. We went home in the street
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 219 
 
 car, for which we gave ourselves congratulations. 
 The city did not charge us for knocking the telegraph 
 pole out of plumb. It is quite possible for a Negro 
 to turn pale. Mr. Cake- Walk got his hat back and 
 he got some other things that were due him. Believe 
 me. They mended the car, but it took them weeks 
 to do it. 
 
 We dream of tigers at night, especially if, during 
 the day, we have heard an automobile horn which 
 sound we do not care for as we once did. We hope 
 that if anyone else has any free rides to give Mother 
 and me, he will bring the milk wagon or some such 
 moderate kind of vehicle, we being a bit shy of non- 
 rail-going buggies. Thank you just the same. 
 
 The two nickels arrived home safely in the palm 
 of my hand, but they had the wind pretty well squeezed 
 out of them. I think they will enjoy a quiet rest in 
 our ash pit, if ever I can succeed in throwing them 
 high enough to get in the hole at the top. So thought- 
 less of up-growns to build ash-pit openings up so far! 
 
 It is lonely to go out in an automobile without
 
 220 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 one's Father. It is yet lonelier to come home without 
 him. 
 
 Manufacturers, salesmen and enthusiasts will ex- 
 plain to you, if you are weak enough to permit it, 
 that the "automobile is the conveyance of the future." 
 They caught Grandfather on that phrase. But 
 (take it from me!) it is a conveyance to the fu- 
 ture, and you'd better look out for it!
 
 M 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Y Father makes a ring on every letter to 
 Mother, and writes in it "A kiss for the kid." 
 I see the postman coming sooner than any- 
 one else, and I run to Mother and get the bit of paper 
 with my kiss on it. I carry this all day, except when 
 I lose it; and at night, having exhausted every other 
 excuse to make my tired Mother climb the stairs again, 
 I cry for my "Daddy-kiss." My Mother, like other 
 little boys' Mothers, cannot refuse this plea. Funny 
 how much one is born knowing! 'Most every man 
 is born knowing all the weaknesses in the ladies. 
 Just looking pathetic, is one of the most effective 
 proofs of this statement. You might try it yourself, 
 sometime. 
 
 I have been ill, and Mother is worn out. First it 
 was hot, then the vegetable man meant to be kind, 
 
 and gave me a raw carrot a dainty that Mother 
 
 221
 
 222 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 has often seen cab-drivers in Germany indulge in, 
 while sitting on the box with their feet done up in 
 burlap and straw, without any ill results to their inner 
 workings, so far as the Bureau of Vital Statistics 
 knew. But there is something in the highly-strung 
 organism of American persons of helpless age that 
 makes them differ from German cab-drivers. The 
 carrot in my case did not set well. I could feel it 
 shift. Later on I went in to call a few houses up, 
 where two children are kept pretty sick, as a rule, 
 by their mother's native stupidity; and here, "She," 
 as her husband calls her, gave me a basket of green 
 grapes, and encouraged me to eat all I liked skins, 
 seeds and all. This was too great a strain on the 
 carrot. Certainly. I ought to have had my feet 
 done up in straw when I ate it. 
 
 I really cannot say women are such complicated 
 ones whether it is because our Doctor is a good 
 physician, or because he has an automobile and re- 
 fuses to have a speed-mania attachment put in, or 
 just because once when he was in training in New
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 223 
 
 m m 
 
 York, he knew Mother's Special Physician, but 
 anyway, we believe in him. It did not take our 
 Doctor long to get to iis; and someway, we felt happier, 
 ill, with our Doctor headed for our house, than we 
 would have felt, well, with no excuse to see him. We 
 hope he will never find it out. 
 
 The new Doctor makes me well quickly. Besides, 
 I get some pleasure out of a slow drive around the 
 block in his machine. He drives right-side up a 
 great relief. We never worry about raw carrots and 
 green grapes when he is in town, we only worry about 
 the neighbors. If I were "She," I would be more 
 careful how I walked out, unprotected, near Mother. 
 As for the vegetable man well, we have changed 
 vegetable men! 
 
 Aunty Catherine came up here from the Springs 
 and took me home with her. As the train pulled out, 
 I put my face close to the car window, and searched 
 the crowd at the station for my Mother. I looked 
 hunted. I suppose I might have spared my Mother 
 this, when I knew how much she needed a few nights'
 
 224 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 g m 
 
 sleep, after her hard week with me. But no. There 
 is a streak of brute in babies. There is something 
 satisfied in me when my Mother goes back to that 
 still house, and buries her face in my empty clothes, 
 and is un-crying something satisfied in this, that 
 otherwise would be left wondering. Men-beings 
 should always remember to look a little tragic when 
 leaving the ladies that are near to them, especially 
 when leaving them in overwhelming desolation, and 
 when going away for a good time, themselves. 
 
 Having supplied the left-behind-ones with suffi- 
 cient suggestion for the misery they delight in, men- 
 beings should at once smile. This I did before the 
 train was out of the yards. I shall see the lady of 
 the cookies. I shall look for that delightful empty 
 bone and fill it with gravel from Aunty Catherine's 
 walk. I shall pester the cat with sincere hugs. I 
 shall kiss enough of the lady callers to make them 
 want to come in to tea often. I will make Aunty 
 Catherine wish she had a little boy, while I am with 
 her; and see that she is glad she hasn't, when I leave,
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 225 
 
 And as for Mother well, she can sit, as usual, 
 on the porch, and watch the summer evenings turn 
 blue, until the great mountains and the night grow into 
 one darkness. If she likes, Mother can think of 
 Father's touching little remarks about his room at 
 his hotel in Montana being so wretched he can't 
 bear to go there until two o'clock or so in the morning. 
 She can amuse herself thinking of Father at two 
 o'clock in the morning, or before two o'clock just 
 whichever she thinks she can get the more worry out 
 of. 
 
 Most women are waiting. It is a waiting job to 
 be a woman. Very sorry, if they don't always like 
 it, but it is so. Women try sometimes to change things, 
 but they end up waiting. A woman who has post- 
 poned her waiting by a little play-acting at living 
 in the world with her own life, finds pain in her soul, 
 where otherwise there would have been only va- 
 cancy perhaps. This is what I think, although I 
 can see that thinking may be out of my line. If my 
 Mother had never tried to sing with her voice, she
 
 226 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 ^j m 
 
 might have sung in living a joyous life, dealing with 
 raw carrots and me; she might have seen the humor 
 in never staying in any one place long enough to get 
 a gas stove paid for, before boxing up and following 
 fate. 
 
 Eventually I was brought home, and Aunty Cather- 
 ine, very handsome in an early autumn suit and becom- 
 ing hat, looked at Mother with sisterly feeling and said, 
 "Dear girl, I can't say how sorry I am for you, living 
 here by yourself all these months with only this child!" 
 
 And Mother replied, also with sisterly feeling, 
 "Well, dear girl, when I am a well-preserved, middle- 
 aged woman, on my way to see my son graduated 
 from Harvard, and you are still as you are now, I 
 shall be sorry for you!" 
 
 This, and other little things tended to make me see 
 that I was welcomed home. 
 
 I like to drive with Grandfather, although he is 
 the sort of chauffeur who miraculously saves one's 
 life four or five times each voyage. We often drive 
 out onto the prairie, and Grand-dad takes us very
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 227 
 
 BE) fgj 
 
 as ^^83 
 
 near all possible danger, such as wash-outs and ir- 
 rigation ditches, and lets his machine quiver, while 
 he points off to the horizon, and says, "See that 
 splendid property? Well, some day, we shall see a 
 pretty suburb there, with schools, and churches and 
 stores. If people had any sense, they would buy up 
 this property and hold it a little while." 
 
 Mother, who always sees the horrible possibilities 
 in things, nervously inquires of Grand-dad where- 
 abouts he thinks they will lay out the cemetery. But 
 I am growing used to Grandfather's driving, and 
 personally, I think he will save us from violent death 
 just as long as he can and still drive where he pleases. 
 And anything is better than staying at home all the 
 time. Mother says she never did belong to that 
 class of society that dresses up its youngsters and spends 
 the Fourth out with the populace. 
 
 All ladies should be non-thinking. It would be 
 easier then to wait. 
 
 Babies grow up if one gives them time. 
 
 We are going to move again. Packers are coming
 
 228 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Eg) EH3 
 
 BS BS 
 
 to box up things. We are going to the far-away 
 place on the train-cars where Daddy is. We have 
 lived here, and Daddy there, until it is proved that 
 Daddy's position is permanent and satisfactory. 
 Having decided it is all for the best, we are disposing 
 of our present gas stove for a sufficient amount to make 
 the last payment, and are headed for a new gas stove 
 and some more of Life's detail. 
 
 With all the crating going on about this place, I 
 have marked fears that they will over-look packing 
 up the sand-pile. 
 
 Our physician glanced over the wreck of our lovely 
 little home to-day, and remarked that it was a great 
 regret to him to see the little brown house on the 
 prairie dismantled; he had grown fond of it. Seems 
 to me he had little to do to make it any harder to go 
 away. Physicians are a strange lot, they have much 
 talent for making their patients remember them. 
 1 1 90 is the number of our Doctor's automobile, and 
 there are other pleasant things about him that don't 
 come to me at the moment. If a lady must miss her
 
 jtar il^rak f our Ucjifjiiik ^aje Wajf. 
 
 s
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 229 
 
 physician, I should say it is better for her to miss two 
 of them, than just one. We are now missing two, 
 one with an automobile, and one without. No 
 physician ever got an umbrella out of us, however, 
 but it is not because we did not long to give it to him. 
 
 Whenever Life crowds too heavily upon my Mother, 
 she wants a piano. She has not had a piano for years. 
 There must be a reason. My Mother has had every- 
 thing she has needed except a piano. This is 
 fate. My Mother is superstitious, and believes that 
 it is because when she had the opportunity given her 
 to learn to play the piano, she used to sit and dream. 
 She cannot play. She has told me that living for 
 months without Father would not have been so hard, 
 if we had had a piano. I can't see why. 
 
 My Mother says there is no rest in being some- 
 body's mother, but personally, I fancy there is just 
 as much as there is in being somebody's son! Don't 
 think for a moment it does not require considerable 
 effort to hold my position! Sudden dismissal con- 
 stantly threatens me, if I don't stop saying, "Mummah."
 
 230 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Gsa sa 
 
 BS^^ BS 
 
 "Say Mother, Dicklet!" my Mother sternly in- 
 sists. "Do that much for me, I beg of you! You 
 are no longer a baby. Why, you are over two 
 years old quite old enough to treat me with proper 
 dignity." 
 
 I would not flatter any woman by bending too 
 quickly to her will, and when we have these little 
 times of correction, I just smile, and remark, "Mine 
 likes to say Mummah!" 
 
 To-day I studied my Mother and lisped, "Blue 
 eyes!" She looked as happy as the sun coming out 
 after a rain, so I spoiled the effect of my tenderness 
 by continuing, "Mine wishes Mine could git 'em 
 out, an* play wif 'em!" 
 
 I don't know whether my Mother is pretty, or not, 
 but I think not. Her nose is awfully long, and fre- 
 quently gets in my eye when she kisses me. My 
 eyes are brown, and my nose is not old enough to 
 get in anybody's way. Rather glad. Cats* noses 
 are part of their faces. I tried to show the cat how 
 to wipe her nose yesterday. P. S. I did not succeed.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 231 
 
 We broke a glass, and I got little gas-pipe trenches 
 dug in myself by the cat's ringer nails. So rude. It 
 is very hard to teach cats things. 
 
 My! But a torn up house is dismal! Why, it 
 is so wretched here that Mother forgot herself and 
 rocked me to-night, sitting on a box of books. She 
 sang about "Daddy's gone a-hunting." It is not so 
 very easy to be the Father of one. The Father has 
 to make money, and there are so many men who might 
 get there first, it must be difficult. 
 
 I think these facts were heavy in my Mother as she 
 rocked me on the packing-case. Also, while singing 
 this old tune, she was thinking. In her mind there 
 was a sort of home-made comedy going on, with just 
 one actor a kind of dream-person called "Lullaby e." 
 From my sleepy glimpses into her thinking, I should 
 judge that a Lullabye is a spirit which takes form 
 at times in a song. Mother's mind says a Lullabye 
 is a song usually written by a man who would throw 
 a book at the first child that interrupted him while 
 doing it a song sung by a lady to up-grown persons
 
 232 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m B 
 
 in a drawing room, while her model, modern baby 
 is put to bed by a nurse in a dark room, as he should 
 be. 
 
 My Mother, herself, used to sing Lullabyes, pay- 
 ing much attention to her breathing, voice production 
 and phrasing. She never knew any Lullabye with- 
 out her music, and she never could play her own 
 accompaniments. To-night she was wondering what 
 was the real idea of a Lullabye. Certainly women 
 do not put years of work and much money into music 
 for the purpose of singing to their own children. 
 Even / can see this. I think they must do it so 
 they can say self-consciously, when asked to sing, 
 "Well, it is rather soon after dinner, isn't it? 
 And I am horribly out of practice, but, if you like, I 
 will try a little Lullabye." 
 
 Then somebody comes to the surface, pleasantly, 
 and remarks, that the singer has an exquisite voice 
 and a great future. And the "future" of a great 
 many Lullabye-singing women is sitting on a case of 
 books, humming "Bye-O Baby Bunting, Daddy's
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 233 
 
 gone a-hunting, to get a rabbit's skin to wrap his 
 baby up in!" This Lullabye is a real Lullabye, 
 seldom sung in a drawing room, being too actual in 
 its story to be merely an amusement. It is good for 
 going-to-sleep purposes though, as it is monotonous, 
 and can be sung immediately after dinner, with or 
 without a piano accompaniment, by a voice in or 
 out of condition. We have quite a library of Lulla- 
 byes they are kept in a case up stairs, now that no 
 piano lives with my Mother, while "Baby Bunting" 
 is always ready to sing itself to me. 
 
 "Sing it again?" I pleaded. 
 
 "Very well, son," she said, sadly. "I am glad 
 you like it it is the only one I know that I never saw 
 on a printed page." 
 
 I hope Daddy has the rabbit skin. I'd rather 
 have it than my Russian blouses, or even my over- 
 hauls. 
 
 We are going on the train-cars to-morrow to a new 
 home.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE Mothers of men would be rich if they 
 got one dollar, or thereabouts, for each time 
 they said, "Don't hold the screen door open, 
 dear it lets the flies in!" 
 
 Habit is strong in Mothers. The idea of constant 
 correction lives in them when unnecessary. In other 
 words, Mothers do not take vacations when vacations 
 offer themselves. My Mother got off her screen-door 
 remark to-day, when there was not a thing in the little 
 brown house for a fly to sit on not even a packing 
 case or a bit of trash, for everything was left empty 
 and tidy and clean; and besides, it is November, 
 and for days we, like the flies, have been frozen solid 
 most of the time. I should think one's Mother might 
 allow him to hold the screen door open on Christmas 
 and in other non-fly seasons, without spoiling his 
 enthusiasm in wrong doing. One's Mother doesn't, 
 
 however. 
 
 234
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 235 
 
 It is quite thrilling to feel a train moving with you 
 aboard, headed for your Daddy. It is so absorbing 
 that your eyes grow dreamy, and the collection of 
 waving relatives on the station platform, naturally 
 jump at the conclusion that the expression is caused 
 by parting with them. It isn't. Little children do 
 not mean to be cruel, but the meanest sort of train- 
 car can beat any weeping grandparent on earth for 
 holding one's attention. Sorry. It seems to have 
 been so for many generations. I don't know what 
 little boys liked better than grandparents before there 
 were train-cars. But once a train-car beat out Miss 
 Clara Cummins, which ought to prove to you the 
 truth of my statement that a train is fascinating. 
 
 I am sorry about Grand-dad's automobile, I am 
 sorry about the sand-pile, I am sorry about the little 
 brown house on the prairie, I am sorry about 1 1 90, 
 I am sorry my Mother is too tired to cry, I am sorry 
 one's relatives grow so attached to one that they 
 have dull pains in their hearts, but I must say I like 
 to be going somewhere once in a while!
 
 236 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Bgi Eg) 
 
 OS ^^BS 
 
 Between us and Father, there seem to be great 
 wastes of unimproved property, with prairie-dogs 
 always popping out of holes and barking at the engine. 
 My! but the world is big! I got a tiny, tiny glass of 
 water in the dining car. A big black man gave it to 
 me. Mother smiled as she discovered it was a whiskey 
 glass. I like black men, for you will notice that black 
 men like little children. Miss Cummins was black. 
 
 On the train Mother and I had a game. She would 
 start it by saying "I say Mother, not Mummah!" 
 "Mine says Mummah!" I would reply, looking 
 at her just as humorously as she looked at me. 
 
 In this manner we passed endless ant-hills and real 
 hills, cowboys and lonesome looking ranches, far 
 apart. It is nice to have a steady joke with one's 
 Mother one of those easily understood jokes that 
 adds interest unto itself with every repetition, and 
 which is no particular tax on the intellect. I would 
 not call her Mother for the world. It would mean 
 too much to her. If I did this, she might kiss me in 
 public, or there might be tears of gratitude in her eyes
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 237 
 
 for my having allowed her to suffer so much for me! 
 I think too much of her to spoil her fun in imagining 
 that a baby is not worth while. She might be just 
 unstrung enough to fancy herself repaid for some of 
 her sleepless nights or something, if I ever called her 
 Mother. You won't catch me taking any careless 
 chances with gratitude I'm no physician! Mummah 
 is a very good name, I think, for a lady who has set 
 herself dead against joy. Don't you? 
 
 I think I understand women a little, but, naturally 
 I would think so, being a man-being. Women 
 economize too much, which is the result of their making 
 money, by saving it. Women have to count the cost, 
 which often mars the pleasure of possessing things. 
 The cost of joy is great so heavy, in fact, that most 
 women can feel only the awful price. Very sorry. 
 It has been so forever, almost. 
 
 I was entertained to-day by a nice, fat old gentle- 
 man, who leaned forward into our section, and said 
 in a friendly way to Mother, "What are you going 
 to make of this little boy, when he grows up, madam?"
 
 238 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Now you would suppose, wouldn't you, that this 
 question would require some deliberation? But no, 
 not at all! Mother glanced up from her magazine, 
 and- answered, quick as a flash, "I am going to make 
 a success of him, sir." 
 
 It fairly took my breath away. I see clearly what 
 lies ahead of me! It begins to dawn upon me, why, 
 ever since I was a youngish person of eighteen months' 
 age, I have been expected to keep my toys in their 
 proper place, and why I am not allowed to tear up 
 books. If my Mother has this alarming idea in her 
 head, why, I shall not be allowed to day-dream, as 
 she has day-dreamed! 
 
 A success of me? Eh? Horrible! I was hoping 
 she would say she would make a Pullman conductor 
 of me, if I were good! 
 
 The nice, fat old gentleman dropped into one of 
 our seats, as you might know he would have to do 
 after such a statement, "And how will you make a 
 success of him, madam?" he continued, smiling over 
 the top of his glasses.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 239 
 
 "I will teach him, so far as I am able, the qualities 
 that tend toward success. And if my own influence 
 falls short of the mark, I will bring to bear other in- 
 fluences along the same lines." 
 
 Possibly you think I was not surprised! 
 
 The old man was a stranger to us, and had made 
 a casual remark in passing, but he evidently had 
 struck a serious chord, and it amused him quite as 
 much as anything else would have done. 
 
 Mother says she thinks about all there is to Life 
 is to be entertained, so she instantly detected the old 
 man's wish to be diverted And whether she meant 
 all she said, or not, she was ready to help him kill 
 half an hour and he was a nice, Santa Claus sort 
 of person, I'll say that for him. I stopped trying to 
 extricate the eye of my Teddy Bear, and began to 
 take notes, while sitting in the aisle, in everybody's 
 way my favorite position, always. 
 
 "Well," began the old man, readjusting his glasses, 
 "this is most interesting! Are you going to make a 
 lawyer, a doctor, a soldier or a merchant of the boy?"
 
 240 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 "I shall leave the choice of a calling to the boy 
 himself," she replied. 
 
 "Oh?" he asked, amused. "So all you volunteer 
 to do, is to make a success of him, is it?" 
 
 "And isn't that enough?" she asked. 
 
 "Why are you so bent on his being a success?" he 
 went on. 
 
 "Because / have always been a failure," my 
 Mother answered. 
 
 "Are you sure?" he probed. 
 
 "Absolutely." 
 
 But my Mother smiled at the delicate flattery in 
 the old man's accent. Ladies always smile at flattery. 
 P. S. Also men. Still once yet and babies, too! 
 
 They had quite a talk, but I did not follow it 
 closely, I was too much engaged in thinking. It 
 had occurred to me ere this, that if I dared to stand 
 before my Mother, good-for-nothing, she would, 
 with her own hands, take that iron buckle from her 
 own throat and put it on mine. Furthermore, my 
 Mother would press it in.
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 241 
 
 JH g| 
 
 Being my Father's son, and in consequence a 
 gentleman, I would not raise my hand against what 
 she honestly believed to be right. Perhaps things 
 would have been less complex for me, if my Mother 
 had not failed at singing printed Lullaby es? It 
 would seem to the average intelligence, as though no 
 reproduction of my parents' bad qualities is to be 
 tolerated in me. It is enough to turn one white! It 
 would seem fairer, rather, that the failings presented 
 to one by inheritance, should be coddled because 
 they have been in the family so long that everyone has 
 grown fond of them. No day-dreaming, eh? Work 
 that is what is ahead of me! 
 
 Ha! I have to smile. I have often wondered 
 what lay in the one little sentence that Mother's 
 Special Physician spoke that one about "a naturally 
 good mentality allowing itself to become a hypochron- 
 driac." I see now what was in it, besides words. 
 Power was in it. Or was it bluff? And what is 
 the difference between power and bluff, if the result 
 is the same thing? And there is something in my
 
 242 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Mother's simple statement that she is going to make 
 a success of me, that makes me nervous. There is 
 more in this than words. You would appreciate 
 this, if you ever saw my Mother check my tendency 
 to howl when I fall down and get dented. 
 
 Oh, well! I suppose thoroughness is one of the 
 qualities that must be developed in anyone who is 
 destined to be a success, so I stopped worrying, and 
 went back to work on my Teddy Bear's eye. I 
 think I can get it loose, in time. 
 
 Mother says that a woman's particular vocation 
 in Life, is flattering men into thinking they amount 
 to something. Now persons of helpless age, like 
 the ladies, are not supposed to have any idea of logic, 
 but let me remark, please, that if my life is to be tagged 
 by my Mother's flattery, I might as well begin right 
 now to enjoy my prosperity! 
 
 I have heard it said, with sadness by those who 
 know, that there is quite a wait, as a rule, between 
 the beginning of a career, and the first casual gasp of 
 recognition "How interesting!" Some of the world's
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 243 
 
 most earnest and gifted workers never hear the little 
 remark until they are so old they have to catch it 
 through an ear-trumpet. I should judge I have al- 
 ready made the right start and my reward, "How 
 interesting!" is sure to come, because I caught my 
 Mother saying to herself, "Is there just a possibility 
 that I would have greater strength to handle this 
 child, if I went to work at this late day, and actually 
 accomplished the things I have always failed in 
 doing?" 
 
 Heavens! I wonder if she is going to take up scales 
 at thirty? If she ever does turn back and carry out 
 her resolutions, well, what way out of success is there 
 left for me? 
 
 My Mother has nerves. She is very modern. 
 If you don't believe me, put sugar on your meat some- 
 time, and observe the expression on her face when 
 she sees to what degrading depths you have sunk. 
 Personally, I like sugar on my meat. I tried it in 
 the dining car this evening but not for long. Dear 
 Mother! She says a woman ought to be an idea, or
 
 244 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 a dream or a memory never a contrivance for bring- 
 ing up little boys! Considering how badly she feels 
 about it all, I think she is doing fairly well with me, 
 however. You would have thought so yourself, I 
 am sure, had you seen the porter carrying out the 
 sweetened meat. Butter on grapes is no more popular 
 I have tried that, too. 
 
 The only crusts I like, are those that grow on choco- 
 late cake. Other crusts I do not eat, because I save 
 them for my Mother. 
 
 I think I know what ails my Mother. She has 
 an "artistic temperament." P. S. This is a pretty 
 bad disease when it gets a good start, but it isn't 
 catching, and I doubt its ever breaking out in me. 
 Mother doesn't take it so awfully seriously in herself, 
 but it would be no laughing matter for me to affect 
 it! Not muchy! Sugar on meat is worse for artistic 
 temperaments than it is for nerves, and it is bad enough 
 for nerves. The taste of it is a matter of opinion. 
 People cannot always agree, even though relatives 
 and loving. Why should they?
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 QUITE as we had anticipated, we arrived at 
 last. Daddy seemed strange after all the 
 months we had been apart, but his pride was 
 warming. I haven't seen anyone look so happy since 
 the day Father leaned over my tiny white iron hospital 
 crib, sometime ago why, dear me! It must have 
 been two years ago! We were oh! so glad to see 
 each other all of us. 
 
 In the carriage, Father turned to Mother with 
 concern and said, "This is a Godforsaken place I 
 have brought you to, dear, just an over grown mining 
 camp. I have hoped all along it would not be 
 necessary to live here, but " 
 
 "This place with you, is better than Park Hill 
 without you," Mother reassured him. And I think 
 so, myself, though I can't help wishing we had 
 
 brought the sand-pile. 
 
 245
 
 246 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 It is a dreary looking place, indeed. There are 
 no trees nothing grows here but people and enter- 
 prises. It is a mining camp that has turned itself 
 into a town, giving an appearance of gawkiness, 
 something like a half-grown boy with clothes that are 
 too small for him. Cows wander about, nibbling 
 at tin cans. The place is full of tin cans, and 
 "dumps" and shaft-houses and whistles and sort of 
 run-down looking little cottages. Oh yes! And 
 saloons. 
 
 "You will find the people charming," Father 
 ventured, on our first walk. 
 
 "They would have to be if there were anything 
 charming here," Mother replied, a little discouraged, 
 I thought. 
 
 "There is a store that isn't so bad," Father hesi- 
 tated, with something in his tone that indicated he 
 had already grown to like the town enough to be sensi- 
 tive to any criticism of it. 
 
 "One can get a gas stove I suppose?" 
 
 "Dear girl!" Father said, "we have had about
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 247 
 
 enough of struggling, haven't we? But it will be 
 different here. We certainly can get a gas stove!" 
 
 We walked on, up a steep hill, and saw all sorts 
 of industries, like flat-cars full of timbers for the mines, 
 and men going to work with their dinner buckets 
 in their hands. At last Mother spoke. 
 
 "One would almost have to have a piano here," 
 she said. Then her mind travelled back to the time 
 when she and Aunty Catherine were students together, 
 and Aunty Catherine broke Mother's best tea-pot, 
 and expressed her regret thus: "Why worry, Sis? 
 The world is full of tea-pots. All you have to do, 
 is to get in line with them!" Mother was two years 
 "getting in line" with another good tea-pot, but she 
 has often applied Aunty Catherine's philosophy. 
 Now she looked up at Father, before he had time to 
 say anything comforting, and she argued, cheerfully, 
 "I suppose the world is full of pianos, and all we have 
 to do is to get in line with them, isn't it?" 
 
 "That's all, dear," replied Father, with a smile. 
 
 "It is something to do, to get in line with the things
 
 248 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 GSi H 
 
 that tend toward happiness and satisfaction, isn't 
 it?" thoughtfully suggested Mother. 
 
 "It can be done even in a Montana mining camp," 
 Father said. 
 
 We have taken a funny place to live in. We have 
 two dark rooms in a good looking building, for which 
 we give twice the rent we did for the Park Hill house. 
 Out of our back window, we see an alley a mining 
 camp alley, which is, if possible, a shade less aesthet- 
 ic than other alleys; and from our side windows, we 
 see brick walls, with window sills decorated by other 
 people's lard pails and milk bottles. We have a 
 "kitchenette," in which there is a cubbyhole-ette, 
 through which groceries are supposed to be shoved, 
 and lean janitors wriggle, when you go out without 
 your key. 
 
 Besides the cubbyhole-ette, we have a gas stove- 
 ette, a table-ette, and an icebox-ette that will hold 
 as much as four egglets and a pound of butter. Mother 
 is afraid that one day I will play with the icebox- 
 ette and mislay it. In truth we shall never get into
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 249 
 
 anything smaller than our kitchenette, until we are 
 laid into a coffin-ette. And hot? Don't mention it! 
 
 They have some nicer rooms in the building, but 
 other people got into them first. Places to live in 
 in mining camps are difficult to get, you see, because 
 the town is always so very full-up with people who 
 regret having to live there. We are having our 
 troubles stowing away our belongings. Father says 
 he sees no way to fit us into two rooms and a kitchenette, 
 except by giving up business and sitting and holding 
 the superfluous things. Mother hunted up the man- 
 ager of the building and asked for the key of the store 
 room belonging to our apartment. 
 
 "The store room?" the manager asked, in a puzzled 
 way. "Why, madam, there are no individual store 
 rooms in the building. We did not count on there 
 being any demand for them when constructing the 
 block." 
 
 "Really?" said Mother politely. "Well, then, 
 no doubt we can use the main store room? Where 
 is that?"
 
 250 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 si m 
 
 "The main store room?" queried the manager. 
 "Why, there is no main store room! We supposed 
 when the building was planned, that the tenants 
 would prefer keeping their possessions in their own 
 flats." 
 
 Later on Mother went down to the office with a 
 wringer in her hand. "May I trouble you once 
 more?" she ventured, civilly, keeping her eye on me 
 the while. "Where is the laundry? I simply cannot 
 do anything further toward getting settled until I 
 get this obstruction out from under foot. Moving is 
 fearfully trying, isn't it?" 
 
 "The laundry?" the manager repeated, vaguely. 
 "Why, let me see we have in camp the Troy Laun- 
 dry, the French Hand Laundry, the C. O. D. Laun- 
 dry, the 
 
 "Yes, yes," Mother interrupted, "but I mean the 
 
 washing room here our private laundry, you 
 
 if 
 see. 
 
 "Oh!" A light broke in upon the manager. 
 "There isn't any laundry here, madam. In the
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 251 
 
 beginning, it never occurred to us that the tenants 
 would care to be bothered with their own washing 
 and ironing. We have made no provision for such 
 things." 
 
 "I see," Mother replied, weakly, holding the 
 wringer in one hand, and keeping a tight grip on me 
 with the other. "But what do your tenants do about 
 their laundry work?" 
 
 "I can't say, I am sure." 
 
 "Well, we will take the elevator back with our 
 laundry implements," Mother smiled. 
 
 "I am afraid you will have to walk up to-day," 
 the manager told her. "The building is new and 
 we are having some trouble with the automatic 
 elevator at present. But we have sent to Denver 
 for the necessary things to repair it, and it will be 
 running soon!" 
 
 There is one thing about this camp I imagine we 
 might as well realize one time as another, and that 
 is, we'd best take it as it is, without a struggle. 
 It is a very self-satisfied place, and if you remark
 
 252 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m m 
 
 upon any of the extraordinary ways of doing things, 
 or the princely price of ice (which is one of the 
 few things that grows naturally here), all you get is 
 a patronizing, "Well, you see the conditions are 
 very different here from what they are in most places!" 
 
 If we put the wringer on the gas stove, it might 
 bend the stove, it is such a frail stove and such a 
 healthy wringer. The wringer will not look well 
 hung above any of our oils. The problem is serious. 
 Maybe if we get a China-boy to wash for us, he will 
 accept the wringer as a gift. Also the wash-board, 
 also the clothes pins, also the irons, also the ironing- 
 board, also the boiler. In the meantime, the laundry 
 implements may sleep with me, if they like. I am 
 used to having my little cold iron train-cars at the pit 
 of my stomach, and my cement blocks tucked under 
 my cheek. 
 
 Father came in from the office to-day and found 
 us considerably black-and-blued from trying to cir- 
 culate around our rooms. We were somewhat dis- 
 couraged concerning the disposition of three barrels
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 253 
 
 of china, four trunks of clothes, a center table weep- 
 ing under its load of books, pictures stacked three 
 deep all around the room, to say nothing of five 
 Teddy Bears and cooking utensils. 
 
 Mother looked up pleasantly and said, "Do you 
 know, Richard, there is one thing I am sure I am going 
 to like about this place?" 
 
 "Good! What is it, dear?" 
 
 "There is no one here who is apt to insult me about 
 Martha's having married whom she pleased and 
 when she wished!" 
 
 "Life has its compensations, after all!" decided 
 Father. 
 
 If we ever had any idea of having a piano in this 
 apartment, we might as well face the fact that it 
 would be quite as easy to have this apartment in a 
 piano. As it is, the place looks like the back room 
 of a Fourth Avenue antique dealer's in New York. 
 And Father says all we need to complete the effect, 
 is a price mark on the bits of bricfy-brah that are 
 clinging on the narrow plate-rail.
 
 254 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 We have almost as many neighbors as belongings. 
 Each neighbor has a sewing machine, a piano or 
 other instrument of disturbance, and a baby. Some 
 of them have more than one baby. Our mining 
 camp home is as modern in its disadvantages as any 
 kitchenette apartment in New York City, built on 
 precious ground, leased for a period of ninety-nine 
 years, for a sufficient sum to admit of the daughters 
 of the owner marrying into the British aristocracy. 
 And plain ground to build comfortable houses 
 on out here, is another thing that grows freely, 
 too. 
 
 We are going to have a party. I heard Mother 
 say that the guests were to be given a new game to 
 play in place of bridge. She is going to ask the ladies 
 to come at the dinner hour, when all of the wooden 
 shutters are open from the kitchenettes, and 
 the gases and odors which would explode the 
 galleys if kept in, are let out into the main 
 halls. She is going to give the correct guesser 
 of the number of smells between the front entrance
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 255 
 
 and our apartment, a prize. The prize will be the 
 wringer. 
 
 A second prize, consisting of two and a half barrels 
 of china and junk, and all of the books and some of 
 the pictures, will be awarded the lady who guesses 
 the exact number of noises that interfere with the con- 
 versation. 
 
 A consolation prize of all the uneasy bricfy-brah 
 that always quivers lest the ship is going to roll the 
 other way, will be presented to the lady who makes 
 the nearest guess as to the number of times the auto- 
 matic elevator will move out of five tries. 
 
 Assorted souvenirs, consisting of the miscellaneous 
 things we constantly stumble over, will be distributed 
 among those not winning a prize, so that there will 
 be no hurt feelings. 
 
 Lastly, to her who succeeds in getting into the bath 
 room, and out again, without a burn from the steam 
 pipes, a "well appointed repast will be dispensed." 
 
 After the party, I think we shall be less wretched, 
 yet it does seem cruel to live where glorious moun-
 
 256 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 ESS" (Si 
 
 tains are to be seen, and still gaze out upon other 
 people's milk bottles. 
 
 If we stay here, the janitor (if he stays here) will 
 be getting Father's high hat. We really need rub- 
 bers, but unless we wear them to bed, I don't know 
 where we could keep them. Perhaps it is just as 
 well we did not bring the sand-pile, after all. The 
 Fire Ordinance might have objected to any fur- 
 ther clogging of the way out.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 IF you shove a jar of preserves off the ledge out- 
 side a window, and it goes four stories down 
 onto an asphalt-paved area, it will not only 
 spill the preserves, but will probably smash the jar. 
 Also, a silver cup accidentally dropped from the same 
 window onto the same landing, will get a dent in it. 
 (The same result will be noticeable if you drop the 
 cup on purpose). I know these things, because 
 to-day I made my own experiments. 
 
 I am improving every opportunity to speak English 
 better. I came to the breakfast table this morning with 
 one of my Father's collars on my head, announcing 
 that I was a king; and to show that I appreciated the full 
 meaning of the crown, I said to them, impressively, 
 "Mine is not going to eat any more aiggs!" 
 I am fond of the same old answers the up-growns 
 
 give to those of us who are yet small. I often nag 
 
 257
 
 258 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 my Mother on some familiar subject, just to see if 
 it is possible she has anything new to say in reply. 
 To-day when she was busy I began one of my favorite 
 chants, "Mine wants candy, candy, candy! Mine 
 does want candy, candy, candy candy!" 
 
 No answer at all. I repeated the chant dozens of 
 times, until at last the veins stood out on my Mother's 
 forehead. She tried not to notice me, so I began to 
 whine. This she refused to hear, so I began to cry. 
 But had her heart stopped beating, then and there, 
 she would not have softened sufficiently to regard 
 my demand seriously. She has a theory that if she 
 lets me alone long enough, I will grow tired of the 
 sound of my own voice. But she reckons without 
 my ego. I adore the sound of my own voice! 
 
 When I felt she was quivering and about to scream, 
 or jump out after the preserves, I smiled my heavenliest 
 smile, and said, "Mummah, say 'No, sonny, I 
 fwaid not to-day!"' 
 
 I wonder if it ever has occurred to up-growns that 
 Life for little children has its dull spots? Why should
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 259 
 
 m Gi 
 
 it be taken for granted that we are always amused? 
 Indeed! The Mother of one is more apt to be un- 
 playing, than not. Not knowing how to play her- 
 self, she does not teach us how to play. We are 
 supposed to be born knowing how to play, but we 
 are not. The things that Mother teaches me are 
 the things not-to-do. 
 
 Sometimes I amuse myself. I bury my head in 
 sofa cushions and announce that I am lost. I direct 
 the search of me, telling them to look in the kitchenette. 
 There is a quaint stupidity in the up-growns they 
 often touch my bare knees when getting down to look 
 under the couch, but they seldom see me until I tell 
 them where I am. 
 
 It has been Christmas again. My Mother was hurt 
 because I preferred the picture of a train-car on the 
 box which contained handkerchiefs, to the hand- 
 kerchiefs themselves. Of course. What do you 
 suppose? She did not buy the handkerchiefs to 
 please me, did she? She bought them, hoping I 
 would now let her fine ones alone. It was a silly
 
 260 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 hope. Most hope is silly. The picture was nice, 
 though. 
 
 I have had a professional hair-cut, too. I look 
 neat, but unnatural, and we haven't found any anti- 
 dote yet that will kill the perfume they put on my head. 
 Soap won't phase it. Time may. I wonder how 
 that wild-boar-sticking janitor is he who under- 
 took to cut my hair in Park Hill? I wager he knew 
 what happened to "Sport." Don't you? 
 
 At my age, Life has great responsibilities. Honor 
 compels me to step on every coal-hole and gas-trap 
 in Camp. All horse-blocks must be climbed, steps 
 and copings walked upon, hitching-posts poked in 
 the ribs, and all fences touched. I have set a fashion, 
 too. 
 
 They have put a harness on me, with bells on the 
 breast-band, and I can't run away from the frozen 
 parent driving me. Many people looked after me at 
 first, and those who did not say, "Look at those rosy 
 cheeks!" said, "Say, Mamie, ain't that a good idea?" 
 And before you would have thought of such a thing,
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 261 
 
 there were a lot of youngsters being taken out on 
 straps or in harness. 
 
 I fancy we must be a distinguished family. Father 
 once had a cocktail named after him, which you can 
 still get at the Casino in Central Park, by asking 
 for it by his name. Mother once started to be a 
 singer, worked five years, and got as far as the start. 
 And I, their son, have set a fashion! 
 
 Father says that if what I do that is wrong, does 
 not hurt me, he will. All I have to say is, he needn't 
 worry. What I do generally gets in ahead of him in 
 the matter of punishment. I threw an empty vanilla 
 bottle into a group of cuddling cups and saucers on 
 a shelf in the kitchenette, to-day, and a piece of the 
 broken dishes flew rudely back at me and hit my 
 nose. I only threw the bottle because Mother called 
 out to me, "What are you doing out there, dear some- 
 thing naughty?" I was not doing anything at all 
 at the moment, but I argued that if she would be 
 any better pleased by having her expectations ful- 
 filled, I would do what I could for her.
 
 262 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Remarkable, isn't it, that when smashing one cup 
 and one saucer out of a lot of dishes, one never, by 
 any possible chance, breaks the cup and the saucer 
 that belong together? He ruins the cup of one pair 
 of twins, and the saucer of another, thus rendering 
 useless the whole lot. Who planned Life, I won- 
 der, and if so, why? And it is strange to observe 
 how little a cook can do with two ounces of vanilla, 
 and how much a baby can do with a two-ounce 
 vanilla bottle! Again, if it isn't asking too much 
 why? 
 
 I have to piggy my toes every night, and it takes 
 a long time, especially if there is any hurry to get me 
 to bed. "Son!" this often comes from Father, 
 "haven't you finished with those little pigs yet? That 
 big toe has been sent to market seventy-five times at 
 least!" 
 
 "Bym-bye, Daddy," I reply with sweetness of 
 manner, "ist you wait!" 
 
 My, but ladies are un-difficult! All you have to 
 do to succeed with them is to know the hotv. If you
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 263 
 
 humbly ask them to do what you want them to, they 
 will invariably say no. To illustrate: To-day I 
 marched up to my Mother with some nuts in my 
 hand (persons with comparatively new digestive 
 apparatuses, are not supposed to be fed nuts), and 
 instead of whimpering for them, I looked my Mother 
 in the eye, like a man, and said, "Ope them, wif you 
 please? Mine will chew them well!" Believe me 
 with the ladies, assume a victory and you have 
 it won! P. S. It is all silly bosh about what nuts 
 will do to you. 
 
 Dear oh dear! This having to fumble for the 
 commonest words is positively wearing! This after- 
 noon, while Mother was trying to un-snarl herself 
 in the kitchenette (having attempted to squeeze in 
 between the stove-ette and the table-ette to straighten 
 up the stove-pipe-ette, and inadvertently become 
 stuck), I was flirting with the persons belonging to 
 the opposite milk bottles. 
 
 "How old are you, little boy?" they called across 
 the court.
 
 264 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 |g ,g| 
 
 I hung my head and blushed. I knew what they 
 meant, but I had no words. I did not forget, however, 
 the disadvantage of my position, and I listened to all 
 that was said of me, hoping to gain the knowledge 
 that I needed in regard to myself. One day, in the 
 public hall, about a week after my embarrassment, I 
 heard my Mother tell a neighbor my age. I could 
 hardly wait for her to unlock the door to our apart- 
 ment, I was so eager to set myself right with the new 
 friends across the way. 
 
 "Girls!" I called to them, beating upon our glass. 
 "Girls, come to de win'ow! Mine can say it now, 
 Mine can say it now! Dicky Carr is two and-er half!" 
 It will bring a smile when you grow down into a 
 little boy, if you swagger through the sitting room and 
 glance at your Mother severely and say, "Be careful 
 of dat book, Mummah!" If this does not work, then 
 await your opportunity, and in imitation of the up- 
 grown methods, turn upon your Mother and remark 
 with infinite wisdom, "Mine Vises you not ter monkey 
 wif de tea-kettle it's hot!"
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 265 
 
 m n 
 
 I see that what I have feared, has come to pass. We 
 can't stand this apartment any more. There isn't 
 any place for me to play but the fire escape four flights 
 up, which is so full of places to-fall-off-of, that we are 
 frantic with apprehension. Even with the young 
 girl to take me out, we can't live here. 
 
 I never had the slightest respect for Fredricka. 
 She is so tame-catty that I often sit down in my harness, 
 right in the Principal Street, and when she tries to 
 drag me to my feet, I slip through her hold like a 
 sack of meal without a sack. Certainly. Nowadays, 
 when we come in, Mother greets us with, "How 
 did Dicklet behave to-day, Fredricka?" 
 
 "Well," she drawls, a general air of exhaustion 
 being wrapped about her, "pretty good. He didn't 
 sit down on me more'n five or six times." 
 
 I never sat on her at all. I sat on a coal-hole. 
 This will show how much sense some people have! 
 
 Policemen are nice they wink at you when you 
 pass. I have also a large nudging acquaintance 
 among the newsboys. And cab-drivers are jolly, too.
 
 266 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 They say things to me like, "Whoa, Emma!" when I 
 come down the hill on a dead run, with Fredricka, 
 looking like a thin pain with its hat on crooked, 
 hanging onto the lines. I like to run Fredricka all 
 over this Camp. It amuses the camp, and is good 
 exercise for Fredricka, who, by the way, says her 
 health's giving out, and she thinks she will look for 
 another place. Glad of it, personally. I can 
 "buffalo" Fredricka, but it is harder to "buffalo" 
 Mother. To buffalo is a Western verb, and a good 
 one, although the same thing goes on all over the 
 world, under different names. In Boston they would 
 probably say that I "took advahntage" of Fredricka. 
 It's the same game everywhere. 
 
 Well, we are moving into another apartment, where 
 we see tall mountains, instead of other people's 
 milk bottles. We have to heat the house with stoves, 
 because this is the way they used to heat the cabins, 
 when the camp first started. What was good enough for 
 the pioneers, is considered good enough for the fol- 
 lowers-on. It is stoves or the kitchenette building
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 267 
 
 we are leaving, and this block is so modern that you 
 have to spend too much time in the automatic eleva- 
 tor between floors. One might as well carry coal. 
 You have your choice of steam heat and milk bottles, 
 or stoves and mountains. If you don't care for either 
 combination, you don't have to stay nobody asked 
 you to come in the first place. 
 
 The new home has a yard, wherein I shall be ex- 
 pected to play. O trusting up-growns! Wouldn't 
 you suppose they would realize that I have already 
 resolved to cut the yard, and play on the car-track? 
 This, of course, when I am not hanging over the 
 balcony railing, just about to drop on my head. 
 
 Our furniture got very rough usage coming five 
 blocks, more damage, in fact, was done to it, than 
 has been done in shipping it all over the United 
 States. When Mother spoke to the "boss" about 
 his placing a bedspring where the corner wore a hole 
 in the top of my great-grandmother's desk, he smiled 
 the camp smile, and said, patronizingly, "Say, lady, 
 what do you expect in a place like this, anyway?
 
 268 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 This here way, is the way we always does things, 
 and if you don't like the idea of goods rubbing against 
 each other, why to thunder did you pack away your 
 bed-cloz? We most generally uses 'em for padding, 
 when folks is extra particular!" 
 
 The stove-ette was tied down in the kitchenette 
 we left, being the property of the building, so we have 
 now paid an old five dollar bill on a new gas stove 
 for this apartment. The clerk at the Gas Company's 
 office asked Mother what model she wanted, and she 
 replied that the model was immaterial to her the 
 finish was always the same. She was being funny, 
 or pathetic, or something but the gas man did not 
 know it. 
 
 The strain of the long winter months in those dark 
 rooms, has been bad for Mother, and she has the nerves 
 once more. She does not sleep, and to hear me 
 making unnecessary noises nearly drives her mad. 
 Naturally, I won't play in the yard. When I grow 
 tired of the house, I whine. I like to write letters to 
 my Grandmother on the painted floors with a tack,
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 269 
 
 Egg Cga 
 
 as Es 
 
 but this meets with cold lack of sympathy. I only 
 meant to make things attractive in our new home 
 when I cut many, many tiny bits out of the linoleum 
 with the potato knife. But up-growns do not always 
 interpret one correctly. I wrote a letter to Grand- 
 dad on the bath room wall with a red pencil. This 
 was the crisis. I got all that had been due me for 
 something over a week. It was enough. 
 
 The hammer is lost. 
 
 A few warm days have come, and the gentleman 
 who lives down stairs, having been in a state of hunger 
 for the sight of something growing, planted a lawn 
 on the foot-and-a-half-by-width-of-the-house that con- 
 stitues our front yard. He all but sat out there and 
 held the lawn's hand to encourage its growth last 
 autumn, they say; and as a result there are several 
 blades of real grass there these April days. Well, I 
 collected three of these blades and fed them to the 
 baby belonging to the lawn. They almost choked 
 her off the census. Very sorry. But I did not sup- 
 pose she would be such a thoughtless girl as to take
 
 270 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 them down the wrong pipe, when so many up-grown 
 persons have tried the same thing before, and pro- 
 nounced it a failure. I like her, though. 
 
 We are living a pleasant life, I think. Every once 
 in a while some Marcelle Waves and Dinner Jackets 
 come here to have a bite to eat with us. Among 
 them is one I love. The first time he came to us 
 was when we were just moved in, and, as a special 
 favor, we let him lift trunks and find a roost for the 
 wringer. I was in bed, as I usually am when there 
 are guests, but he came into my room, and, although 
 he seemed embarrassed, he leaned over and kissed 
 me. I put my arms around him and hugged him 
 tight. They call this nice man Cortlandt. 
 
 "Uncle Cortlandt" has an automobile that he drives 
 so fast you don't know he is on his way, until he has 
 been sometime gone. I stand at our window and 
 watch the hill that belongs in our street, hoping that 
 he may scoot down it. I adore the scooting of Uncle 
 Cortlandt's machine. Every time he comes to our 
 house, this Uncle by courtesy kisses me, and when
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 271 
 
 I meet him in large places like the hotel dining room, 
 or the Country Club, I rush up and put my arms 
 around him. He is fussed, but still I feel the warmth 
 of his affection for me. I may be vain, but I believe 
 he would rather have the kiss of me, and the discom- 
 fort of knowing people were smiling at him, than to 
 be unnoticed among the many, without the kiss. I 
 worship Uncle Cortlandt he cuts in ahead of Grand- 
 parents, and stands next to train-cars. 
 
 "Uncle Worth" is another one who is near to me, 
 but he is not quite so near as Mr. Cortlandt, because 
 he is not so afraid that I will kiss him and so afraid 
 that I won't! He is a wee bit jealous of my adoration 
 of Uncle Cortlandt, which helps his cause a lot. He 
 is not my real uncle he is just my real friend. But 
 Uncle Worth sold his automobile, which detracts 
 from any man's attractions. 
 
 Uncle Cortlandt found a toy motor-car in New 
 York that is modeled after the lines of his own machine, 
 and he sent it to me. At the next meeting of Marcelle 
 Waves at our house, after the arrival of my car, they
 
 272 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 made a race track of the dining table and had some 
 speeding, allowing me to sit and see the fun, although 
 I had my nighty on and my red felt slippers. But 
 something went wrong with the bowsprit or some- 
 thing, and one of the Dinner Jackets put the car on 
 the floor and tried to crawl under it, the way Uncle 
 Cortlandt does under his car, to see what the matter 
 was. It was fairly funny, because the car was six 
 inches high, and the Dinner Jacket was six feet. 
 
 Father and I had a fine ride in the Cortlandt car 
 at the Country Club one day. The horse-power 
 was asleep, and one tire was sick it had a bandage 
 on it, though I know Uncle Cortlandt did not mean 
 to hurt it. Father steered the machine, and a crowd 
 of nine ragged little caddies pushed us three times 
 around the club house. On the third lap, we tooted 
 very hard, and the owner dashed out of the building 
 and yelled to us that we'd better look out he'd charge 
 us for nine caddies for three rounds! Gracious 
 we could not afford it! We have to pay for a gas 
 stove but maybe Uncle Cortlandt doesn't know?
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 273 
 
 Besides a gas stove, we have a new Doctor. He's 
 Mother's. I am glad she has him, but the other night 
 when I wanted him because I had the croup, he was not 
 to be found. I asked my Mother, why, if she couldn't 
 get the Doctor, she didn't send for Uncle Cortlandt. 
 
 And some people try to say there is no such thing 
 as faith cure! 
 
 Mother's Doctor does not take her very seriously. 
 He frankly tells her she has a bad case of "ego and 
 altitude," like so many people here who live at too high 
 a pressure. Mother asked the Doctor if he did not 
 think it might be a good idea for her to take up the 
 piano again (my! I dread this!) and he replied 
 sweetly, that he always felt it was better for a woman 
 to pound the key-board, than to hammer on the fair 
 reputation of her friends! 
 
 And what do you think? A piano has come to 
 us! When we had about given up all hope of ever hav- 
 ing one, a friend called us up and asked if we would 
 not take his as a favor to him he did not want to 
 store it.
 
 274 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m m 
 
 All Mother had to do to get a piano, after all, was 
 simply to wait. Men work for what they want; 
 women wait. But possibly it is work, and hard 
 work, for some natures to wait? I daresay. I haven't 
 thought of this before, but it may be so.
 
 THERE seems to have been a good deal of 
 thinking going on at our house lately, on the 
 part of my Mother. I have caught her men- 
 tally considering several things, principally myself. 
 I am growing very hard to direct I see it myself 
 and being very strong, and having my attention con- 
 centrated on my own purposes, it is no easy task to 
 make me do the right thing. If there is a weak spot 
 in the up-grown whose will is lined up against mine, 
 I find it. I am hard to defeat. My Mother is 
 realizing this, and it is just dawning upon her that 
 the very traits of character she has blamed for her 
 own failure, are going to beset her again, and even 
 worse this time, in bringing me up. 
 
 The same little tendency Mother always had to 
 day-dream that same wee, vague notion that with 
 
 or without her own efforts, everything would turn 
 
 275
 
 276 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 ^ffij "~ "'" r " J " ' ' " ' " RES 
 
 out well in the end, is still part of her. When her 
 career was in the making, she used to allow every 
 available influence to interfere with the tiresome, 
 daily routine of work. She had no system, but in 
 its place hope, or something equally indefinite. 
 It all comes back to her in me. A Mother cannot 
 shirk the daily exercise of forming a baby's character, 
 any more than a singer can the daily routine of vocal 
 exercises. It does not suffice to work one day, and 
 then lose interest for three, and take up the struggle 
 again, but lamely, on the fourth. And so, to do the 
 simple, right thing, day after day, whether one feels 
 inclined or not, is harder, much, than a brilliant 
 spurt of achievement now and then. A now-and- 
 then method with persons of helpless age, spells 
 failure, indifferent results, and even worse things. 
 
 My Mother has vowed to herself that she will 
 make a success of me. But how can she, if I am able 
 to wear her out and defeat her on every point? And 
 it is child nature to put forth untiring effort to this end. 
 Sometimes it takes my tired Mother one hour, or
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 277 
 
 F33 JSS3 
 
 g gg 
 
 more, to make me pick up a piece of paper that I 
 have thrown on the floor. At the end of the day, 
 she is exhausted, and there seems to be nothing to 
 show for the energy she has expended. It is too easy 
 for Mothers to give up, or compromise on all issues 
 with their children, or to carry their points by superior 
 physical strength, and then it is hard for them to con- 
 sider the picture they have made in condescending 
 to this way of doing things. 
 
 I can see that it is not at all a path of roses to be 
 the Mother of one. 
 
 On Wednesday the cat got a bath. So did the 
 bath room! On Thursday she got a hair-cut that she 
 did not thank me for. On Friday she left us. Sorry. 
 
 My Mother does not know how much I see into 
 her mind. To-day we had a long and painful session 
 about my wish to poke the eyes out of all the pictures 
 in one of my books. Mother won, but she looked 
 faint when at last she sank onto the couch and I, whim- 
 pering (a thing that in itself stifles her), put the book 
 away, without her having had to lay hands on me.
 
 278 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 Mother looked at me, steadily, with tearless eyes 
 full of awful discouragement. Her lips did not 
 move, but the words in her mind were, "I wonder if 
 I could make you do what you ought to do, easier, 
 if I had ever done it myself? I wonder which will 
 cause me the more discomfort, to watch you make a 
 failure of yourself, step by step, or to turn back now 
 and make a success of myself, step by step, so that I 
 can gain the power to make you amount to something? 
 And and I wonder if it is possible here a 
 slight flush covered her paleness, "I wonder if I could 
 bluff it?" 
 
 Silly hope! I stopped tearing out a bit of fringe 
 from the edge of the rug at her feet, and looked her 
 in the eye, honestly. It was just one of the little 
 things that children do, without any appreciation 
 of their significance. My Mother leaned forward 
 and looked down at me. This time her lips moved, 
 and she said in words, "I don't believe anybody 
 in this world will ever be able to deceive 
 you, and maintain the stand any length of time
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 279 
 
 m s 
 
 you are too clever. You see through me this 
 minute!" 
 
 We smiled at each other, a comprehending smile, 
 and one full of exquisite affection. We never hold 
 our scenes against each other. Good idea, too. 
 
 And if you will believe me, a most terrifying thing 
 followed! My Mother, nervous and exhausted from 
 our problems, slowly got to her feet, and from her 
 desk she unearthed a book of piano notes, on which 
 it said "Exercises in Velocity." She opened it at 
 the first page. She made a start, and three bars out, 
 she struck a discord. She jumped from her chair 
 at the piano, as though some unseen hand had put 
 a knife in her, and threw her hands over her face. 
 
 "Matter, Mummah?" I inquired, full of genuine 
 concern. 
 
 "The matter, my son?" she repeated, bitterly. 
 !< The matter is this: I not only played the chord 
 wrong, but I made exactly the same mistake I made 
 and left seven years ago." 
 
 I daresay it would have been the decent thing in
 
 280 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 me to have let the over-wrought Mother alone, but 
 again, this is not the child's way. She turned back 
 to the piano, and this time, truly, I thought she might 
 have hysterics, the struggle was so intense. But I 
 was in no mood to listen to jerky, tuneless exercises. 
 I begged for candy, and threatened to run away in 
 the rain, and pulled at her forearms, and swung on 
 the back of her chair. Indeed, I took this occasion 
 to be quite full of demand, criticism, and com- 
 plaint. I interrupted in every way known to persons 
 of helpless age, and we know many that fill the up- 
 grown soul with madness. 
 
 Over and over again, did my Mother try the finger 
 exercises, each time making them worse listening 
 than the time before, and the while I tormented her. 
 At last her patience utterly deserted her, and she 
 whirled on me, like a tigress. 
 
 "Dicklet!" she cried, "can't you understand I am 
 doing this for ijouP" 
 
 I trembled, for it did seem as though an awful 
 spanking were about to descend upon me, but I am
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 281 
 
 no coward. I refused to take a backward step. All 
 of a sudden the un-difficultness of ladies occurred to 
 me. I fancy this knowledge came only just in time 
 to save my life. 
 
 "Mummah," I pleaded, "Mine ist only came 
 over here by the piano to get a kiss and Mine must 
 have it!" 
 
 I got it. One always does. Bym-bye, when we 
 had a fine rock together in the big chair, my Mother 
 said, softly, "Dicklet, won't you try to say Mother 
 not Mummah? It would help so much, really!" 
 
 "Mine says Mummah!" I replied, with a smile. 
 It had been some time since we had had a round at 
 our old game. Her answer was a sigh. But, sorry 
 as I am, I still think Mummah a good name for a lady 
 who likes to wear iron buckles. 
 
 The feet can be got off tin soldiers, if one is per- 
 sistent enough in his efforts to amputate them. I 
 thought you might like to know. 
 
 I have some new white kid gloves from Cousin 
 Martha just like Uncle Cortlandt's only smaller.
 
 282 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 m H 
 
 Uncle Cortlandt's ears get nice and red when I kiss 
 him. I heard him say once that there were a few 
 children in the world that he would keep trouble off 
 of, if he could. I think I am one of them, but I am 
 not certain whether or not he was referring to my 
 white gloves when he said "trouble." I wore them 
 to a party the other day, my first party, and the strain 
 was something serious. When the hostess came 
 forward to greet me, I held my white-gloved hands 
 away from her lovely frock, her gorgeous pearls and 
 her Marcelle wave. "Look out!" I warned her, 
 sharply. "You might git-turn dirty!" 
 
 When Uncle Worth comes to our house, he comes 
 into my room and kisses me, even if I am asleep, 
 because he knows that in the morning I will ask my 
 Mother if he did. It is nice of Uncle Worth, and if 
 he would only buy back that automobile of his, and 
 let his ears get a cheerful red once in a while, why- 
 why, maybe I would yet no! Not even then 
 not quite! But Uncle Worth stands next to Uncle 
 Cortlandt, anyway.
 
 anb 3 toent out for a toalk tobap, tottfj 
 onlp eac!) otfjtr P a ge 284
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 283 
 
 m @ 
 
 I fell off a chair the other day, hard. I meant to 
 shriek, in spite of the cold reception received by 
 shrieks in our family, but I saw Mother open her 
 mouth to make her customary remark, and so I said 
 it for her. "Fr'even's sake!" I stormed at myself. 
 "That chile will kill heself, yet!" But this did not 
 help the bump any. 
 
 One would think that this threat of Mother's to 
 fortify herself to do justice to me, was about enough 
 to happen at one time. But there are other things 
 happening, too. It is almost as active, our life, as a 
 moving picture show. Well, the worst is just this; 
 our little plan to live Life safe, has taken a tumble, 
 just like the one I took from the chair. Yes. After all 
 of our efforts at being sure we were doing the best 
 thing in coming to this camp to live, bag and baggage, 
 Father's employer has failed. Isn't it too bad? For 
 us, this means another gas stove and another physi- 
 cian to get away from, another horror of a week with 
 people boxing up everything, but the things you 
 want most, like the car-tracks. It means more train-
 
 284 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 cars, and another start. For me, it means going away 
 from Uncle Cortlandt. Uncle Worth won't have me 
 to kiss. Mother says she will never again allow her- 
 self to grow attached to people in general, physicians 
 in particular, places, or gas stoves. I suppose she 
 will get over this, though. 
 
 Father has once more gone away to the far-off, 
 and left us. Mother and I went out for a walk to- 
 day, with only each other. We sat on the edge of 
 a prospect hole, a little way out of town, and thought 
 things over. The great V/estern mountains loomed 
 up all around us, almost as if they wanted to hold us 
 here. The lean cows that wander about the camp 
 nibbling at the pebbles that lie around where grass 
 would grow in other places, seemed important to us. 
 The wrecked shaft-houses, standing out gaunt and 
 lonely against the sky-line, seemed a part of us and 
 we a part of them. An automobile horn suggested 
 Uncle Cortlandt, and he brought up a mental picture 
 of Uncle Worth, who recalled other people. 
 
 I like the China-boy who takes our washing. He
 
 A like 
 
 our
 
 THE LIFE OF ME 285 
 
 m eg 
 
 BS Ss 
 
 is only teasing about carrying me off in his basket! 
 He would not do it oh no! 
 
 Mother's heart was trying to tell her that we would 
 rather sit and hold the wringer between floors in that 
 automatic elevator we once left, than to have to go 
 away from all the Marcelle Waves and Dinner 
 Jackets, and the Country Club, and the mountains. 
 But I suppose we shall have to go where our living 
 is, wherever that may be. We were having a bad 
 attack of ego and altitude out on the edge of that 
 prospect hole. 
 
 I looked at my Mother closely. The lines about 
 her mouth were tightened, and her eyes were partly 
 closed as she gazed off toward the hills. I touched 
 her cheek, but she did not heed me. 
 
 "Mother?" I said, and the word was as well 
 pronounced as though you, yourself, had said it. 
 "Mother?" 
 
 She whirled on me almost fiercely, her hands on 
 the ground, for she was still sitting on the edge of the 
 prospect hole. "What did you say?" she demanded.
 
 286 THE LIFE OF ME 
 
 @ m 
 
 "I said Mother!" I told her, and in stooping to 
 kiss her, I touched her throat. 
 
 The iron buckle was gone! Gone, too, was that 
 merciless cloak that only she and I know she has 
 worn. And I knew they would never come back, not 
 even on windy nights. I don't know why I knew, 
 but yet, I knew. And I was full of gladness. 
 
 "Say that again!" she commanded me. 
 
 "Molherr 
 
 She took me by the shoulders, and looking me 
 through and through, she said to me, "Son you 
 win! I give up you're worth while a thousand 
 times worth while! I was only waiting for you to 
 say my name before I owned it, but I knew the truth 
 all the time." 
 
 If I have won, and she who is Daddy's little girl 
 and my Mother, keeps me at winning, why I fancy 
 there really isn't anything further to say of the life of 
 me is there?
 
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