that I found she liked a strange shade of red that to me looked unattractive. I was overwhelmed by the thought that perhaps it did not look the same to both of us, and that if I saw it as she did I might like it also; but there was no way for either of us to know how it actually looked to the other! I realized the essential isolation of every human being. However, I forgot the loneliness when papa joined us on the road beside the pond, where the wild lilac scattered its blue-violet lace on the over-hanging bank, and cut for me a willow whistle that sounded the shrill joy of being alive.
On the Sunday afternoon walks when we all went up into the hills together I learned, among other classics:
“Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make a mighty ocean
And the wondrous land.”
But it was at night when I was safely put in my bed that I heard through the open door, mamma, at the parlor piano, singing to me:
“I want to be an angel,
And with the angels stand,
A crown upon my head,
A harp within my hand.”
I suppose that neither she nor I were really in immediate haste for the fulfillment of that wish, but it made a good bed-time song. Another favorite was, Shall we Gather at the River?, and there was occasionally a somber one called Pass Under the Rod.
