This was due in part to her high opinion of the Baynes family, and to a
general distrust of women. In her view they were a designing lot. It was
probably true that Mrs. Perry was fond of show and would have been glad
to join the Baynes family, but those items should not have been set down
against her. There was Aunt Deel's mistake. She couldn't allow any
humanity in other women.

She toiled incessantly. She washed and scrubbed and polished and dusted
and sewed and knit from morning until night. She lived in mortal fear
that company would come and find her unprepared--Alma Jones or Jabez
Lincoln and his wife, or Ben and Mary Humphries, or "Mr. and Mrs. Horace
Dunkelberg." These were the people of whom she talked when the neighbors
came in and when she was not talking of the Bayneses. I observed that
she always said "Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg." They were the
conversational ornaments of our home. "As Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg says,"
or, "as I said to Mr. Horace Dunkelberg," were phrases calculated to
establish our social standing. I supposed that the world was peopled by
Joneses, Lincolns, Humphries and Dunkelbergs, but mostly by Dunkelbergs.
These latter were very rich people who lived in Canton village.

I know, now, how dearly Aunt Deel loved her brother and me. I must have
been a great trial to that woman of forty unused to the pranks of
children and the tender offices of a mother. Naturally I turned from her
to my Uncle Peabody as a refuge and a help in time of trouble with
increasing fondness. He had no knitting or sewing to do and when Uncle
Peabody sat in the house he gave all his time to me and we weathered
many a storm together as we sat silently in his favorite corner, of an
evening, where I always went to sleep in his arms.

He and I slept in the little room up-stairs, "under the shingles"--as