Aunt Madge's Story

Still, in spite of cheeses, beehives, bossies, and kittens, I had many lonesome hours, and sometimes cried after I went to bed. Samantha must have known it, for I slept with her...

I went to bed that night in great excitement, and I dare say did not get to sleep for ten minutes or so. What strange thing was this I was about to do?

They say I grew very troublesome. Ruthie thought I was always "under foot," and nothing went on, from parlor to kitchen, from attic to cellar, but I knew all about it. There was...

You are not to suppose from this that I became a good girl the very next day. No, nor the day after. I ceased from the wickedness of telling lies, just as I had stopped pilferin...

Ruphelle seems to me like a little white lily of the valley, all pure and sweet, but I was no more fit to be with her than a prickly thistle. I loved dearly to tease her. Once s...

Samantha and Julia were gone to a neighbor's that afternoon, and cousin Lydia was filling a husk-bed in the barn. There was no one at home but lame and half-blind grandma Tenney.

It happened that she was a cross baby. It did not take her long to forget all about heaven. She liked to pull hair, and she liked to scratch faces; and no matter how much you tr...

And now I will skip along to the next summer, and come to the dreadful lie I told about the hatchet. You remember it, Horace and Prudy, how I saw your uncle Ned's hatchet on the...

Fel and I had begun to read before we were four years old, and by the time we were six we knew too much to go to the town school any more. I believe that was what we thought; bu...

It seemed as if cousin Lydia never would get ready to start. Ever since the letter from our mammas, Fel and I had been sure we were wanted at home; but there was no end to the t...

But my happiness did not last long. Grandpa Harrington never thought of my parasol again from that day to the day he died; and little witch and try-patience though I was, I dare...

Here you sit, Horace, Prudy, Dotty, and Flyaway, all waiting for a story. How shall I begin? I cannot remember the events of my life in right order, so I shall have to tell them...

Yes, they seemed just as glad to see me as if I was the Queen of England, and had been gone all the days of my life. Father, especially, looked really overjoyed.

That frightened us dreadfully. We knew aunt Persis steamed Zed, for he said so; and what if she should steam us all out of the world with jugs of hot water close to our noses? A...