m the trouble he makes. Before you more than get a sentence set down you have to drop everything and run and jerk the palm-leaf fan out of his hands, which he takes gr

k Cousin Eunice ought to write out and send to a magazine under the head of "Hints for Tired Mothers." But I say it again, there don't any of us begrudge him these m

day she got here, for everybody knows, my diary, how a lady that's ev

in and started to drive home. "Why, it's positively flying in the face of Providence to leave

nths there has been scarcely a thing discussed in my presence but belly-bands!" (There weren't any men ar

ntum! Teething!" Mother kept

ineteen others say it's cruel to keep him all swathed up in this hot weather, while

" mother asked, to change the

told her, which made her jump, although it looks

t talked long when Mammy Lou came into the room holding something under her apron. She looked kinder

ou all to pay me some mind. There's two subject's I'm well qualified to speak about and one is babies. Ain't I done raised a bushel

very much embarrass

ousin Eunice said very pleasantly just to pacify

er apron like a man on the stage dressed in velvet d

bands when you've got these! Ther nuvver has been a child that cut teeth

when father spoke up and asked mammy who it was th

will come that you-all 'ull be thankful to me for savi

te I get there and leave me and Jean free to do whatever we want to. She is teaching me what she calls "artistic handwriting" now, using an actress' signature for a cop

place down in the yard with her paper and pencil and compose on a book she's trying to write. Before she was ever

pale men and long-stemmed roses and other things like that before a neighbor drops in and talks for three hours about the lady around the corner's husband staying out so late at night and what her servants use to scrub the k

ed a tear in the shape of a bean, for they were what a grown person would call "the indirect cause" of a quarrel between them. It's queer that such a

winter that she was deeply attached to. She would see him at a big library in the city where she loves to read every afternoon. She saw him there one time and got to admiring him so much that she would go up

hat-pin deep down into the olive bottle, like little Jack Horner, "but he was always

remember where, but she said oh, yes, she knew it was a swell family a

y about souvenirs, I begged her to go and get it, hoping

were sitting flat down on the floor, which sometimes tangles your heels dreadfully. Finally she got up, tearing a piece of trim

er she had to go to the graveyard in the middle of the night to do it or not. I comforted myself with the thought that they would be in a prettily ornamented urn, even if they were ashes, for I had read about urns in

let him take Waterloo's picture for some post-cards. If you were pleased you could buy them and if you weren't you di

idn't have any hair on his head, as hair showed up so well in a picture. I told her it was aristocratic not to have hair when you're a baby, on your head. She said shucks! how could anything connected with a baby be aristocratic? This made me mad and I told her maybe she didn't know what it was to be aristocratic. She said she did, too; it was aristocratic to have a wide front porch to your house and to eat sweetbreads when you were dining in a hotel. I was thi

ent to get the ashes of Mr. Aryan. She said it was a lovely rat, which cost five dollars, all covered with long brown hair; and she said it was just the thing to set off Waterloo's bald head fine. So she ran and got it and we fixed it on. He looked exactly like a S

story and I could go on to bed to-night, without having to sit up by myself writing

ckon she was the one that put it into his head to walk up those front steps and on to that porch

live he threw up his nice white hands and remarked "Heavens!" which is the elegant t

ay when he was very much surprised, she jerked it off and held it up, like the executioner did Mary, Queen of Scot's head, which gives me a crinkly pain up and down my back even to read about. The rat was just pinned together and set up on Waterloo's little noggin, so Jean jerked i

ly growth was the rat of his beloved. If I was writing a novel I'd say that he "recoiled wit

like he was dazed; "imagine a man t

eady to speak up and say, "I thank you, Mr. St. John, my littl

he asked him. "'Tain't any harm to kiss i

t looking at us and we were trying to squirm Waterloo's little fat legs out of the overalls and him kicking and crying, Miss Merle walked out on the

en doing with my rat down here?" s

ghed and said well, it was too hot to wear the thing on suc

ir. If he had had any sense he would admire her all the more for not telling a story about that rat; for I've seen a thousand young ladies in my life that wouldn't have owned up to it for a hundred dollars, but would

t to talking and we could hear what they said (although

it, even the poets and novel-writers that always make their heroines so fuzzy-headed. Then she called him a prig and he said someth

when she gets the ring back again, but up to a late hour to-night, as the newspapers say about the election returns, there was nothing doing. Oh, it d

I couldn't go over to Jean's, which put me out greatly. I finally thought about sending a note by Lares and Penates and paid them in chicken liv

t back to Miss Merle, for I was deeply worried, me and Waterloo and Jean being to blame for it. Then, too

antern to light it, and never saw a lady person that could; but it was a romantic idea. So she thought hanging a white towel in the wi

ch less a towel. So I went sorrowfully to bed. The next morning I was delighted to see that I was going to get rewarded for my watching,

didn't waste much time over breakfast, b

st inside the hall, looking like he would like to come out, but

"what are you in suc

ry and can't think of anything else to tell they tell the t

ave made up!" I told her, fanning hard

Just then Mr. St. John came out and asked who was that talking about him b

down the stairs just in time to hear

window," she told me, looking very much surprised

s talking about and it was their turn

led. But I couldn't let them think that I had made up the towel story, so I told them if they would come around on th

er to, but she looked tolerable agreeable. Then I begged them to come on

turned red. "Why, it must have been my er-shirt I hung

rners of his mouth ain't used to it. That is one bad thing about a d

t that signal looked like that brought Ann over in such a hurry. "A shirt is a highl

just covered with red. "I'll be the happiest man on earth, Merle, if you'll