nd mauled and greased; in short, I wonder we
had a whole hair left; but, after undergoing every thing you can
imagine, I found myself on a pole in the shape of a gentleman's wig,
covered with high-scented pomatum and powder.

No one would have recognized me as the same beautiful hair that had
adorned the head of Alice. There were a number of poles with wigs on
them close by me, and I knew, as a matter of course, that I must
look just like them. They looked perfectly hateful to me, and I felt
disgusted with myself, because I knew I resembled them.

It is now a puzzle to me how men could have ever been so foolish as
to make such a thing as I am, to put on their heads; these great
unmeaning curls, this ugly club, as they called it, hanging down
behind, and this horrid grease and powder too.

Most of my life, of course, has been passed in this horrid shape in
which you now see me; but the remembrance of my early days clings to
me, and the love of freedom, and the sense of beauty which I
acquired when the wind played through my natural curls as they
covered the head of my dear Alice, have never forsaken me. It was
then only that I truly lived. But, forgive me--I have the weakness
of old age, and love to talk of youthful pleasures.

One morning, in the year seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, when I
was just twenty-eight years old, a gentleman of middle age came into
the hair dresser's shop, and asked to look at his wigs. I was shown
to him with some others. After examining us all, and trying on
several, he chose me, because, he said, he thought I was made of the
finest hair.

"This," said he, "will visit the American colonies, and probably
remain there, for that will, I think, be my home."

I rejoiced to hear this, for I was weary of my present life, and
longed for some variety.

The good gentleman who purchased me seemed well satisfied with my
looks; but, when I saw myself in the glass, upon his long, narrow
face, with his great bottle nose, and cheeks like the sides of a
sulky, and all my pretty curls and my bright color gone, I wonder
that each hair did not stand on end with fright; most likely it
would have stood up, but for weight of pomatum and powder.

Soon after my owner purchased me, he set sail for America. As I was
his new and best wig, I was packed carefully in a box, and knew
nothing till he arrived here, and was settled in his place of
residence.

The first time I was taken out of my box was on Sun