January 25.
I can remember a time long, oh, very long ago. That is the time
when I was a child. It is ten or a dozen years ago.
Or is it a thousand years ago?
It is when you have but just parted from your friend that he seems
farthest from you. When I have lived several more years the time
when I was a child will not seem so far behind me.
Just now it is frightfully far away. It is so far away that I can
see it plainly outlined on the horizon.
It is there always for me to look at. And when I look I can feel
the tears deep within me--a salt ocean of tears that roll and surge
and swell bitterly in a dull, mad anguish, and never come to the
surface.
I do not know which is the more weirdly and damnably pathetic: I
when I was a child, or I when I am grown to a woman, young and
all alone. I weigh the question coldly and logically, but my logic
trembles with rage and grief and unhappiness.
When I was a child I lived in Canada and in Minnesota. I was a
little wild savage. In Minnesota there were swamps where I used
to wet my feet in the spring, and there were fields of tall grass
where I would lie flat on my stomach in company with lizards and
little garter snakes. And there were poplar leaves that turned
their pale green backs upward on a hot afternoon, and soon there
would be terrific thunder and lightning and rain. And there were
robins that sang at dawn. These things stay with one always. And
there were children with whom I used to play and fight.
I was tanned and sunburned, and I had an unkempt appearance. My face
was very dirty. The original pattern of my frock was invariably
lost in layers and vistas of the native soil. My hair was braided
or else it flew about, a tangled maze, according as I could be
caught by some one and rubbed and straightened before I ran away
for the day. My hands were little and strong and brown, and wrought
much mischief. I came and went at my own pleasure. I ate what I
pleased; I went to bed all in my own good time; I tramped wherever
my stubborn little feet chose. I was impudent; I was contrary; I
had an extremely bad temper; I was hard-hearted; I was full of
infantile malice. Truly I was a vicious little beast.