UP to this point of my story, what I have written is hearsay. With the
awakening recorded in the last chapter, my real reminiscences begin.
The next vivid impression upon my plastic memory has its setting in
the McQuie yard. My mother had been to Richmond on a visit and brought
back, as a present from a woman who was said to be “good,” a doll for
my sister. Perhaps she considered me too young to be intrusted with the
keeping of the rare creation of wax and real hair. Perhaps she did not
recollect my existence. In either case, as I promptly settled within
myself, she was not the good woman of my mother’s painting.
Not that I had ever cared for “dead dolls.” When I could just put
the wish into words, my craving was for a “real, live, _skin_ baby
that could laugh and talk.” But this specimen was so nearly alive
that it opened its eyes when one pulled a wire concealed by the satin
petticoat, and shut them at another tweak. Moreover, the (alleged) good
woman in the beautiful city I heard as much of as of heaven, had sent
my sister the gift, and none to me. Furthermore, and worst of all, my
sister paraded the gift before my angry, miserable eyes, and, out of
my mother’s hearing, taunted me with the evident fact that “nobody
cared for a little girl whose hands were dirty and whose hair was never
smooth.” I was barely three years old. My sister was a prodigy of
learning in the estimation of our acquaintances, and nearer six than
five. I took in the case with extraordinary clearness of judgment and
soreness of heart, and meditated revenge.
Watching an opportunity when mother, nurse, and sister were out of
the way, I stole into the office-cottage, possessed myself of the
hated puppet, who had been put into my bed for an afternoon nap—lying
there for all the world like “a sure-enough baby,” with her eyes fast
shut—and bore her off behind the house. There I stripped off her
gay attire; twisted a string about her neck; contrived—nobody could
ever tell how—to fasten one end of the cord to the lowest bough of a
peach-tree, armed myself with a stout switch, and lashed every grain of
sawdust out of the dangling effigy.
I recollect that my sister, rushing to the scene of action, dared not
approach the fury into which I had been transformed, but stood aloof,
screaming and wringing her hands. I have no recollection of my mother’s
interference, or of the chastisement which, I have been told, was
inflicted with the self-same rod that had mangled the detested doll
into a shapeless rag. In my berserker rage I probably did not hear
scolding or feel stripes.
My father rented the house vacated by the Braggs, finding the daily
ride to and from the store too long in the short winter days. Soon
after our return to our old quarters, another boy was born to the
bereaved parents—my brother Herbert. He was but a few days old when
“Grandma” McQuie and her two daughters called to inquire after mother
and child, and carried me off with them, I suppose to get me out of the
way of nurse and mother. My whole body was a-tingle with excitement
when I found myself snugly tucked up in shawls on the back seat of the
roomy chariot, beside the dear old lady, and rolling down the road. We
had not gone far before she untied and took off my bonnet, and tied
over my curly head a great red bandanna handkerchief “to keep your ears
warm.” The warm color and the delicious cosiness of the covering put
an idea into my head. I had heard the story of Red Riding Hood from
my colored nurse, and I had already the trick of “playing ladies,” as
I named the story-making that has been my trade ever since. I was Red
Riding Hood, and my grandmother was taking me away from the wolf. The
woods we presently entered were full of fairies. They swung from the
little branches of shrubs that brushed the carriage-windows, and peeped
at me from behind the boles of oak and hickory, and climbed to the top
of sweetbrier sprays writhing in the winter wind. One and all, they did
obeisance to me as I drove in my state coach through the forest aisles.
I nodded back industriously, and would have kissed my hand to them had
not Grandma McQuie told me to keep it under the shawl.
My companions in the carriage paid no attention to my smiles and
antics. They were busy talking of their own affairs, and probably did
not give the silent child a look or thought. A word or a curious glance
would have spoiled the glorious fun that lasted until I was lifted in
Mr. McQuie’s arms at his hospitable door.