hem as much as they could eat at any one meal. She was
worse off than the

old woman who lived in a shoe,
And had so many children she didn't know what to do.
To some she gave butter, to some she gave bread,
And to some she gave whippings, and sent them to bed.

Now, _my_ old woman had no butter, and very little bread; and she was
so naturally economical that even whippings were sparingly
administered. But, after all their privations, they were, with the
exception of the eldest hope, as healthy-looking a set of ragged little
wretches as ever I saw. The aforesaid "hope" was the longest, the
leanest, and the bob-sidedest specimen of a Yankee that it is possible
to imagine. He wore a white face, whiter eyes, and whitest hair, and
walked about looking as if existence was the merest burden and he
wished somebody would have the goodness to take it off his hands. He
seemed always to be in the act of yoking up a pair of oxen, and ringing
every change of which the English alphabet is capable upon the one
single Yankee execration, "Darnation!" which he scattered, in all its
comical varieties, upon the tow head of his young brother, a piece of
chubby giggle, who was forever trying to hold up a dreadful yoke, which
_wouldn't_ "stay put," in spite of all the efforts of those fat dirty
little hands of his. The "long woman," mother-like, excused him by
saying that he had been sick, though once, when the "Darned fools" flew
thicker than usual, she gently observed that he had forgotten that he
was a child himself once. He certainly retained no trace of having
enjoyed that delightful state of existence, and though one would not be
so rude as to call him an old boy, yet, being always clad in a
middle-aged habit, an elderly coat, and adult pantaloons, one would as
little fancy him a _young_ man. Perhaps the fact of his wearing his
father's wardrobe in all its unaltered amplitude might help to confuse
one's ideas on the subject.

There was another dear old lady to whom I took the largest kind of a
liking, she was so exquisitely neat. Although she too had no floor, her
babe always had on a clean white dress, and face to match. She was
about four feet high, and had a perfect passion for wearing those
frightful frontpieces of false hair with which the young women of L.
were once in the habit of covering their abundant tresses. She used to
send me little pots of fresh butter,--the first that I had tasted sin