wish she'd lived long enough for me to remember calling
her mother. I think it would be so sweet to say `mother,'
don't you? And father died four days afterwards from
fever too. That left me an orphan and folks were at their
wits' end, so Mrs. Thomas said, what to do with me. You
see, nobody wanted me even then. It seems to be my fate.
Father and mother had both come from places far away
and it was well known they hadn't any relatives living.
Finally Mrs. Thomas said she'd take me, though she was
poor and had a drunken husband. She brought me up by
hand. Do you know if there is anything in being brought
up by hand that ought to make people who are brought up
that way better than other people? Because whenever I
was naughty Mrs. Thomas would ask me how I could be
such a bad girl when she had brought me up by hand--
reproachful-like.

"Mr. and Mrs. Thomas moved away from Bolingbroke
to Marysville, and I lived with them until I was eight
years old. I helped look after the Thomas children--there
were four of them younger than me--and I can tell you
they took a lot of looking after. Then Mr. Thomas was
killed falling under a train and his mother offered to take
Mrs. Thomas and the children, but she didn't want me.
Mrs. Thomas was at HER wits' end, so she said, what to do
with me. Then Mrs. Hammond from up the river came
down and said she'd take me, seeing I was handy with
children, and I went up the river to live with her in a
little clearing among the stumps. It was a very lonesome
place. I'm sure I could never have lived there if I hadn't