I, Mary MacLane/Chapter 20

by Mary MacLane

An eerie quality

To-morrow

WHEN I was Ten years old I played marbles 'for keeps,' smoked little pieces of rattan buggywhip in the hay-scented barn and slid 'belly-buster' down long winter hills on my sled. And I hammered and sawed ruinously with grownup tools, whistling happily. And I played with dolls absorbedly for hours on end.

I was not boyish and not girlish.

I was not childish except for an oddly hungry child-heart.

I was myself.

So long ago and longer I consciously owned an eerie quality which toppled over the edge of my humanness.

And still own it.