. "Oh, oh, it isn't that!"

"What is it, then, for goodness sake?" asked mother.

But I would not tell. I could not tell. How could I say that the
daughter of the Bad Madigans was the first real and satisfying playmate
I had ever had?

IV. FAME

AS I remember the boys and girls who grew up with me, I think of them as
artists, or actors, or travellers, or rich merchants. Each of us, by the
time we were half through grammar school, had selected a career. So far
as I recollect, this career had very little to do with our abilities.
We merely chose something that suited us. Our energy and our vanity
crystallised into particular shapes. There was a sort of religion abroad
in the West at that time that a person could do almost anything he set
out to do. The older people, as well as the children, had an idea that
the world was theirs--they all were Monte Cristos in that respect.

As for me, I had decided to be an orator.

At the time of making this decision, I was nine years of age, decidedly
thin and long drawn out, with two brown braids down my back, and a
terrific shyness which I occasionally overcame with such a magnificent
splurge that those who were not acquainted with my peculiarities
probably thought me a shamefully assertive child.

I based my oratorical aspirations upon my having taken the prize a
number of times in Sunday-school for learning the most New Testament
verses, and upon the fact that I always could make myself heard to the
farthest corner of the room. I also felt that I had a great message to
deliver to the world when I got around it, though in this, I was in
no way different from several of my friends. I had noticed a number
of things in the world that were not quite right, and which I thought
needed attention, and I believed that if I were quite good and studied
elocution, in a little while I should be able to set my part of
the world right, and perhaps even extend my influence to adjoining
districts.

Meantime I practised terrible vocal exercises, chiefly consisting of a
raucous "caw" something like a crow's favourite remark, and advocated
by my teacher in elocution for no reason that I can now remember; and
I stood before the glass for hours at a time making grimaces so as to
acquire the "actor's face," till my frightened little sisters implored
me to turn back into myself again.

It was a great day for me when I was asked to participate in the Harvest
Home Festival at our church on Th