I did what you told me, when I got wet. I hung my clothes round the
kitchen stove on three chairs, but the cooking girl she flung them under
the table. So now I go wrinkled, and the boys chase me to smooth out the
wrinkles. I’ve got a good many hard rubs. But I laugh too. That’s the
best way. Some of the boys play with me now, and ask me to go round with
them. Dorry hasn’t yet. Tom Cush plagues the most.
Sometimes the schoolmaster comes out to see us when we are playing ball,
or jumping. To-day, when we all clapped Dorry, the schoolmaster clapped
too. Somebody told me that he likes boys. Do you believe it?
A cat ran up the spout this morning, and jumped in the window. Dorry was
going to choke her, or drown her, for the working-girl said she licked
out the inside of a custard-pie. I asked Dorry what he would take to let
her go, and he said five cents. So I paid. For she was just like my
sister’s cat. And just as likely as not somebody’s little sister would
have cried about it. For she had a ribbon tied round her neck.
[Illustration]
The woman that I go to have my buttons sewed on to, is a very good
woman. She gave me a cookie with a hole in the middle, and told me to
mind and not eat the hole.
Coming back, I met Benjie, and he looked so sober, I offered it to him
as quick as I could. But it almost made him cry; because, he said, his
mother made her cookies with a hole in the middle. But when he gets
acquainted, he won’t be so bashful, and he’ll feel better then.
We walked away to a good place under the trees, and he talked about his
folks, and his grandmother, and his Aunt Polly, and the two little
twins. They’ve got two cradles just like each other, and they are just
as big as each other, and just as old. They creep round on the floor,
and when one picks up anything, the other pulls it away. I wish we had
some twins. I told him things too.
Kiss yourself for me.
Your affectionate grandchild,