Una Mary: The Inner Life of a ChildC. Scribner's sons, 1914 - 268 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
altar Arcturus Aunt Louisa baby beauty became began blue boys called caught child Christmas tree church Cincinnati clothes color Country course curls dark Death deep Dooun Tothers dreams dressed earth Edward Fairy father feeling felt flowers friends gave ghost girls grew hair Harry hated head heard heart inner inside knew lace Lafayette Park light lived lived on Q Lizzie looked loved magic Mamma Mammy Mary Mary's measles Millerites Minerva mortar and pestle mother mountains mysterious never night once painted Papa paper dolls person pink played Purgatory Real Girls remember rocks Santa Claus seemed seen shadows side sister smallpox soon sort soul stars stone stories strange summer sure thing thought told took toys Una Mary Una Mary's Unitarian velvet watched whole wild words wore worship yard
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 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 169 - I was listening, I heard Mammy say, " Dis house am certain hanted wid dolls. I done swept dis room myself!" To the colored servants we owed a great many thrills. Mamma was ill most of the time, and my father was busy writing during his spare moments, so in order not to disturb either of them we had to be very quiet when we were in the house, except in our playroom which was off in a wing directly above the kitchen, and as Mammy was eminently sociable, we were quite as apt to stay in the kitchen itself....
Page 158 - ... 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 yard, those two wild...
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 10 - ... candles. Real living flames, one by one they quivered into being like stars that are born at twilight, until the whole tree shimmered and breathed with their beauty. Of course children believe in fairies and radiant half-seen presences, and they always will as long as we give them Christmas trees. As I sat at the foot of this personification of all enchantment, all beauty, and all dreams, I felt as if a spirit had been called into being before my very eyes, as the children in the fairy tales...
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...
Page 11 - She always understood Una Mary. A real toy or an ordinary doll would have tumbled me to earth too suddenly, but the magic golden nut with its dolls of unmistakable china was the one perfect link between the tree and me, the one thing that could make the glamour real and tangible enough to belong to me and yet no less marvellous and beautiful. Afterward we went home through a snow-storm just as the street lamps were being lit.
Page 162 - I leaned over, reaching the full length of my arm, tugging at an end of apple-green velvet sprigged jwith flowers, lost my balance, out the chair jumped from under me, and into the basket I plunged head first, and was fished out by the legs by Mammy. Later, when I made my own instead of my dolls...