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The Buzz-Saw Girl


I just must talk! I must talk all the time! Of course I talk entirely
too much--no one knows that any better than I do--yet I can not help it!
I know that my continual cackling is dreadful, and I know just exactly
when it begins to bore people, but somehow I can't stop myself, but go
right on and on in spite of myself.

Aunt Patsey says I am simply fearful, and just like a girl she used to
know, who lived down-East, a Miss Polly Blanton, who talked _all_
the time; told every thing, every thing she knew, every thing she had
ever heard; and then when she could think of nothing else, boldly began
on the _family secrets_. Well, I believe I am just like that
girl--because I am constantly telling things about our domestic life
which is by no means pleasant. Pa and ma lead an awful kind of an
existence--live just like cats and dogs. Now I ought never to tell that,
yet somehow it will slip out in spite of myself!

My pa says I really do act as if I did not have good sense, and I am,
for the world, just like ma. And ma, she says I am without delicacy,
manners, or any of the other new touches that most girls have. As for
Aunt Patsey, she is _always_ after me! She is "Old Propriety"
itself! She goes in heavy for _good form_. "Not good form, my dear,
not good form!" is what I hear from morning until night. I do get so