ow shall I begin? I cannot remember the events of my life in
right order, so I shall have to tell them as they come into my mind.
Let us see. To go back to the long, long summer, when I was a child:

There once lived and moved a little try-patience, called Margaret
Parlin; no more nor less a personage than myself, your affectionate
auntie, and very humble servant. I was as restless a baby as ever sat
on a papa's knee and was trotted to "Boston." When I cried, my womanly
sister 'Ria, seven years old, thought I was very silly; and my brother
Ned, aged four, said, "Div her a pill; _I_ would!"

He thought pills would cure naughtiness. If so, I ought to have
swallowed some. Pity they didn't "div" me a whole box full before I
began to creep; for I crept straight into mischief. Aunt Persis, a
very proper woman, with glittering black eyes, was more shocked by me
than words can tell. She said your grandma "spoiled me by baby-talk;
it was very wrong to let little ones hear baby-talk. If she had had
the care of me she would have taught me grammar from the cradle." No
doubt of it; but unfortunately I had to grow up with my own father and
mother, and ever so many other folks, who were not half as wise as
Aunt Persis.

They called me Marg'et, Maggie, Marjie, Madge; and your grandpa's pet
name was Totty-wax; only, if I joggled the floor when he shaved, it
was full-length "Mar-ga-ret."

I was a sad little minx, so everybody kindly informed me, and so I
fully believed. My motto in my little days seems to have been, "_Speak
twice before you think once_;" and you will see what troubles it led
me into. I never failed to "speak twice," but often forgot the
thinking altogether. Margaret means Daisy; but if I was like any
flower at all, I should say it was "the lady in the bower." You know
it, Prudy, how it peeps out from a tangle of little tendrils? Just so
I peeped out, and was dimly seen, through a wild, flying head of hair.
Your grandma was ashamed of me, for if she cut off my hair I was taken
for a boy, and if she let it grow, there was danger of my getting a
squint in my eye. Sometimes I ran into the house very much grieved,
and said,--

"O, mamma, I wasn't doin' noffin, only sitting top o' the gate, and a
man said, 'Who's that funny little fellow?'--Please, mamma, won't you
not cut my hair no more?"

I was only a wee bit of a Totty-wax when she stopped cutting my yellow
hair, and braided it in two little tails behind. The other