Una Mary: The Inner Life of a Child

Front Cover
C. Scribner's sons, 1915 - 268 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 44 - Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take ; And this I ask for Jesus
Page 110 - Ink-line," and I imagined all the ^rioters in the city shooting up at the descending 'cars. It was horrible! It was even worse than the snatching of Death himself, this killing of human beings by other human beings. It was as monstrous as an old sow eating her suckling, an event , that had shocked me inexpressibly at. the farm the summer before. The next terror was a smallpox epidemic. I remember seeing the signs outside many houses' and on Mount Auburn Avenue, the street that joined ours at right...
Page 158 - Devil himself busy among the coals. The one joy of the house was the back yard, and here, in a shady corner, we made a wild-flower garden, for Washington was then so small that we could easily walk, even wheeling the baby carriage, into the real country, where we could pick wild flowers and dig up plants for our gardens — we each had our own, my sister and I. I planted yellow and white violets in mine as well as blue ones and lady's-slippers and bloodroot. They were the great glory of the back...
Page 110 - It was the day of hearses splendid with can-ing, metal trimmings, and black plumes, and the horses had more plumes on their heads and coverings of tasselled net on their backs. Una Mary felt they were magnificent and I turned a toy wagon into a hearse drawn by a rocking-horse covered with an old dotted veil of Mamma's and had funerals every day for my dolls, with old calling-cards standing up against blocks for their gravestones. I secretly felt that our house lacked dignity because we had never...
Page 175 - Strange were the places to which that baby-carriage penetrated with Mildred and me on either side of it, and thanks to Mammy our horizon was certainly broadened in many ways unplanned by our parents, and from her we all caught a great gusto for events. It was on one of these walks that we went to Rock Creek to see a great Baptist Revival.
Page 164 - ... same fascination I found in an old book one of my friends had discovered in her attic, "The Tortures of the Spanish Inquisition." We used to read it by the hour, hidden under the cloth of the dining-table, which was as dungeonlike a place as we could find. From Mammy I heard, too, for the first time of the Devil, the King of Purgatory and Hell. He came to me as quite a new and delightful personage. I am sure Mammy loved the creeps and shudders the thought of him gave her. I did, and would have...
Page 23 - The broom was the safe and conservative method, as the handle went in front and broke the fall at the bottom, also it went more slowly; but my soul was only satisfied by the perils and joys of the tea-tray. I started at the top, collecting my small self and superfluous skirts as near the centre of the tray as possible, holding fast to the carpet until I was ready. Then I gave a push with both hands, and down through bumping, clattering space I tore with such impetus that I only stopped when shot...
Page 156 - Una." I felt really solemn over that and was glad Mamma had let my hair begin to grow. It had already reached the round-comb length. I often used to see the Colonel afterward sitting on a bench in the park, smoking a cigar, the curling smoke seeming a fitting atmosphere for his genial, expansive leisure. He habitually wore a carnation in his buttonhole, and when we met he always took it out and gallantly pinned it to my coat, kissing my hand when he had done so, just as if I were really the Princess...

Bibliographic information