me of it. She was what
is called "absent-minded," and often forgot to hear some of our
lessons, and we thought it would n't be polite to remind her of them.
She had a soft and mournful voice, and a droopy sort of a look,
especially about her hair. She dressed a little queer sometimes, and
played on the accordion, so it was whispered about that she wrote
poetry. I know she read it a good deal, and novels too. She had in
her desk a very long romance, called "The Children of the Abbey," which
she used to read at noontime and recess. She read it through, and then
she appeared to read it backward, for it lasted nearly all summer. It
seemed to me that the story went on and on, till it came to the last
page of the book, then turned round and went the other way.

I said I went to school alone; yet after a while I had company, which
no one else would have thought of much account, but which was quite a
comfort to me. One day I made a purchase with my own money. It was
only a little pocket-handkerchief, but such a handkerchief! On it was
printed, in bright blue, a picture of General George Washington, in
full regimentals, with his sword in his hand, flanked by the Ten
Commandments, and with a scroll labelled "Constitution" for his base.

At first I looked upon that stern face, with its strong, tight mouth,
like a steel-trap just sprung, with a good deal of reverence; but as I
grew familiar with him I became fond of him, and part of the time
treated him as a doll; indeed, he seemed to me more real than any doll
I ever had, and far dearer. I folded him carefully every morning and
laid him in my dinner-basket, over my rations, grieving that I was
obliged from limited space to fold under his legs, giving them an
amputated look. But I laid him out at full length in my desk, and
often lifted the cover to take an admiring look at him, during the day.
At night, I laid him in one of my dolls' beds, and actually "tucked in"
the "Father of his Country," calling him "George, my boy," and telling
him to be good, and not to get up in the morning and go to hacking away
at cherry-trees, with that sword of his.

He was two in one,--George I. and II. He was little George, or the
great General, just as the occasion demanded. On the Fourth of July, I
remember, he appeared in all his glory to deliver an oration to "a
large and appreciative audience" of dolls and kittens. He spoke in
this wise: "Fellow-Citizens, and your wives and daugh