have big ears, sure enough!"

"Little pitchers," indeed! As if I didn't know what that meant! I'm no
child to be kept in the dark concerning things I ought to know. And I
told her so, sweetly and pleasantly, but with firmness and dignity. I
made her tell me what she meant, and I made her tell me a lot of other
things about them, too. You see, I'd just decided to write the book,
so I wanted to know everything she could tell me. I didn't tell her
about the book, of course. I know too much to tell secrets to Nurse
Sarah! But I showed my excitement and interest plainly; and when she
saw how glad I was to hear everything she could tell, she talked a
lot, and really seemed to enjoy it, too.

You see, she was here when Mother first came as a bride, so she knows
everything. She was Father's nurse when he was a little boy; then she
stayed to take care of Father's mother, Grandma Anderson, who was an
invalid for a great many years and who didn't die till just after
I was born. Then she took care of me. So she's always been in the
family, ever since she was a young girl. She's awfully old now--'most
sixty.

First I found out how they happened to marry--Father and Mother, I'm
talking about now--only Nurse says she can't see yet how they did
happen to marry, just the same, they're so teetotally different.

But this is the story.

Father went to Boston to attend a big meeting of astronomers from all
over the world, and they had banquets and receptions where beautiful
ladies went in their pretty evening dresses, and my mother was one
of them. (Her father was one of the astronomers, Nurse said.) The
meetings lasted four days, and Nurse said she guessed my father saw
a lot of my mother during that time. Anyhow, he was invited to their
home, and he stayed another four days after the meetings were over.
The next thing they knew here at the house, Grandma Anderson had a
telegram that he was going to be married to Miss Madge Desmond, and
would they please send him some things he wanted, and he was going on
a wedding trip and would bring his bride home in about a month.

It was just as sudden as that. And surprising!--Nurse says a
thunderclap out of a clear blue sky couldn't have astonished them
more. Father was almost thirty years old at that time, and he'd
never cared a thing for girls, nor paid them the least little bit of
attention. So they supposed, of course, that he was a hopeless old
bachelor and wouldn't ever marry. He was b