lie would strike in with--"Ma, why do you go on humouring
Johnnie while he tells such lies? You ought to give him a good
whipping."

"The poor little chap ain't got no mother!"

"Poor little devil! If you keep on encouraging him this way he'll become
one of the greatest liars in the country."

A colloquy after this sort took place more than once. It gave me
indescribable pleasure to narrate an absurd adventure, believe it myself
in the telling of it, and think others believed me. Aunt Millie's scorn
stung me like a nettle, and I hated her.

In many ways I tasted practical revenge. Though a grown girl of
nineteen, she still kept three or four dolls. And I would steal her
dolls, pull their dresses for shame over their heads, and set them
straddle the banisters.

* * * * *

We took in boarders. We had better food. It was good to have meat to eat
every day.

Among the boarders was a bridge builder named Elton Reeves. Elton had a
pleasant, sun-burnt face and a little choppy moustache beneath which his
teeth glistened when he smiled.

He fell, or pretended to fall, in love with gaunt, raw-boned Millie.

At night, after his day's work, he and Millie would sit silently for
hours in the darkened parlour,--silent, except for an occasional murmur
of voices. I was curious. Several times I peeked in. But all I could see
was the form of my tall aunt couched half-moonwise in Elton Reeve's lap.
I used to wonder why they sat so long and still, there in the
darkness....

* * * * *

Once a grown girl of fourteen named Minnie came to visit a sweet little
girl named Martha Hanson, whose consumptive widower-father rented two
rooms from my grandmother. They put Minnie to sleep in the same bed with
me....

After a while I ran out of the bedroom into the parlour where the
courting was going on.

"Aunt Millie, Minnie won't let me sleep."

Millie did not answer. Elton guffawed lustily.

I returned to bed and found Minnie lying stiff and mute with fury.

* * * * *

Elton left, the bridge-work brought to completion. He had a job waiting
for him in another part of the country.

It hurt even my savage, young, vindictive heart to see Millie daily
running to the gate, full of eagerness, as the mail-man came....

"No, no letters for you this morning, Millie!"

Or more often he would go past, saying nothing. And Millie would weep
bitter