poem, which exactly expresses my sentiments: When bright angels in thy vision Beckon thee to fields Elysian?" It stumped her to think of an answer for a moment, and she made an excuse of putting the cat out, in order to give herself more time. But when she came back all she had found to say was that[17] I needn't think being grown up was any field Elysian. I was eating my white bread now, and if a girl only knew all that lay ahead of her she'd let well enough alone. She'd wait for trouble to come to her instead of running to meet it. [17] Somehow I don't believe Tippy ever had any bright angels beckoning her, else she couldn't be so pessimistic about my growing up. I can't think of her as ever being anything but an elderly widow with her hair twisted into a peanut on the back of her head. And yet she had a lover once, and a wedding day, or she couldn't be Mrs. Maria Triplett now. But it's impossible to think of her as being gay fifteen and dancing down the stairs to meet the morning with a song. One feels that she met it with a broom, saying: While I my moments waste? O let me with the morning rise And to my duties haste." She's said that to me probably as much as five hundred times. I shall bracket this part about her just as soon as I can get a bottle of red ink. But how I'm going to account to her for having red ink in my possession is more than I know. That's the worst about being the only child in[18] a family. They're all so fond of you and so interested in your sayings and doings, that they watch every movement of your mind and body. You're like a clock in a glass case with your works open to the gaze of the older people. It's all very well during the first years for them to keep tab on your development, but the trouble is most relatives never seem to know when you're developed, and have reached the point where a little privacy is your right. It's maddening to have to give a reason every time you turn around. [18] All the lives of noted people which I have read begin with the person's birthplace and who his parents were, and his early acts which showed he gave promise of being a genius. So I'll pause right here for a brief outline of such things. My name is
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