much. I kept her as long as there was anything to hold her by; but after
legs and arms went, and the back of her head got so thin from lack of
sawdust that she had neuralgia all the time, I found her dead one
morning, and buried her at once.

I loved Rebecca Baker: not for looks, but for comfort. I could talk to
her without fear of her telling. She always knew how hungry I was, and
how I hated oatmeal without sugar, and she never talked back.

During the years from three to nine I lived just mechanical, except on
the inside. I got up to a bell and cleaned to a bell, and sat down to
eat to a bell; rose to a bell, went to school to a bell, came out to a
bell, worked to a bell, sewed to a bell, played to a bell, said my
prayers to a bell, got in bed to a bell, and the next day and every day
did the same thing over to the same old bell.

But when I marry my children's father there are to be no bells in the
house we live in. Only buttons, with no particular time to be pressed.

We go to church to a bell, too; that, is to Sunday-school. We always go
to St. John's Sunday-school--Episcopal. The man who left this place put
it in his will that we had to, but we go to all the other churches.
Episcopal the first Sunday, Methodist the second, Presbyterian the
third, and Baptist the fourth, and when we get through we begin all over
again.

We go to church like we do everything else, two by two. Start at a tap
of that same old bell, and march along like wooden figures wound up; and
the people who see us don't think we are really truly children or like
theirs, except in shape inside. They think we just love our hideous