myself before they grew up to laugh in my face. However, I got that
laugh anyway, and I might just as well have left them, for Billy ran to
the gate and called Doctor John to come in and make Molly stop digging
up his buttons. Billy claims everything in this garden, and he thought
they would grow up into the kind of buttons you pop out of a gun.

"So you're digging up the bachelor-pops, Mrs. Molly?" the doctor asked
as he leaned over the gate. I went right on digging without looking up
at him. I couldn't look up because I was blushing still worse. Sometimes
I hate that man, and if he wasn't Billy's father I wouldn't neighbor
with him as I do. But somebody _has_ to look after Billy.

I believe it will be a real relief to write down how I feel about him
in his old book and I shall do it whenever I can't stand him any longer,
and if he gave the horrid, red leather thing to me to make me miserable,
he can't do it; not this spring! I wish I dared burn it up and forget
about it, but I don't! This record on the first page is enough to
_reduce_ me--to tears, and I wonder why it doesn't.

I weigh one hundred and sixty pounds, down in black and white, and it
is a tragedy! I don't believe that man at the grocery store is so very
reliable in his weights, though he had a very pleasant smile while he
was weighing me. Still I had better get some scales of my own, smiles
are so deceptive.

I am five feet three inches tall or short, whichever way one looks at
me. I thought I was taller, but I suppose I will have to believe my own
yardstick.

But as to my waist measure, I positively refuse to write that down, even