Oh, it was a terrible misfortune not to have been a boy!
And how sad and lonely it was, after all, in this ghostly garden.
The radish bed and what it symbolised had turned my first joy
into grief. This walk and border me too much of my father reminded,
and of all he had been to me. What I knew of good he had taught me,
and what I had of happiness was through him. Only once during
all the years we lived together had we been of different opinions
and fallen out, and it was the one time I ever saw him severe.
I was four years old, and demanded one Sunday to be taken
to church. My father said no, for I had never been to church,
and the German service is long and exhausting. I implored.
He again said no. I implored again, and showed such a
pious disposition, and so earnest a determination to behave well,
that he gave in, and we went off very happily hand in hand.
"Now mind, Elizabeth," he said, turning to me at the church door,
"there is no coming out again in the middle. Having insisted
on being brought, thou shalt now sit patiently till the end."
"Oh, yes, oh, yes," I promised eagerly, and went in filled
with holy fire. The shortness of my legs, hanging helplessly
for two hours midway between the seat and the floor,
was the weapon chosen by Satan for my destruction.
In German churches you do not kneel, and seldom stand, but sit
nearly the whole time, praying and singing in great comfort.
If you are four years old, however, this unchanged position
soon becomes one of torture. Unknown and dreadful things
go on in your legs, strange prickings and tinglings and
dartings up and down, a sudden terrifying numbness, when you
think they must have dropped off but are afraid to look,
then renewed and fiercer prickings, shootings, and burnings.
I thought I must be very ill, for I had never known my legs