did she get here?"

"Her nurse brought her. Her father kept her after her mother's death,
taking her about from place to place with this old negro mammy until she
was three, when he died suddenly, strange to say, in the same place his
wife died, Mobile, Alabama."

"Why did the nurse bring her here? Was she a Yorkburg darkey?"

"No; but she had heard Mr. Cary say there was an Orphan Asylum here,
and not knowing what else to do, she came on with her. She told the
Board ladies she had heard the child's father say a hundred times he
would rather see her dead than have her mother's family take her. And
she begged them not to let it be known who she was until she was old
enough to understand."

Just then Bobbie Moon laid out flat on his back and kicked up his heels.
And Billie looked so disgusted, I stopped the story I was trying to
tell.

"You ain't talking sense," he said. "And I'm not going to listen any
more. An ant can't eat an elephant in half an hour and leave no scraps."
And he rolled over and began to fight Bobbie.

Sarah Sue and Myrtle, who'd been playing with their mother's muff and
tippet, got to fussing so about which should have her hat that Mrs.
Moon, hearing it, jumped up, and I heard her say:

"Mercy me! Do you suppose she heard?"

I never was so glad of a fight in my life. The more fuss was made the
more chance there was of my being forgot, and presently I told Mrs. Moon
I had to go home. The boys said they didn't care, my stories were
rotten anyhow, and out I went and ran so fast I had such a pain in my
side I could hardly breathe.

But I didn't go in right away. I couldn't. Inside of me everything was
thumping: "Mary Alden, your Mother; Mary Alden, your Mother; Mary Alden,
your Mother." There was no other thought but that.

Presently I turned and went down to King Street, to where the Reagans
live, and in the dark I stood there and shook my fist at my dead
grandfather. I hated him for treating my mother so. Hated him! Then I
burst out crying, and cried so awful my eyes were nearly washed out.

There were twelve and a half years' worth of tears that had to come out,
and I let them come. After they were out I felt lighter.

But sleep? There wasn't a blink of it for me all night. I was so mixed
up with new feelings that I was sick in my stomach, and my old
conscience got so sanctimonious that if I could have spanked it I would.

I wasn't eavesdropping; I know that's nasty. But forty times I'd b