My bed was a very safe place, for did not angels guard it, “two at the foot, and two at the head”? I knew who my angels were,—my very own grandmother, who had died when my mother was a new baby, the aunt for whom I had been named, my little cousin Mary who really should have been guarding her brother Harry, and a fourth whom I have now forgotten.
The songs were not gay, but my life was not troubled by thoughts of death. Heaven seemed a nice place, somewhere, and angels and fairies were normal parts of my universe.
I did have a few minor troubles. My language was criticized. “You bet your boots” did not meet with maternal approval. Then, if I carelessly put my sunbonnet strings into my mouth, I got my tongue burned from the vinegar and cayenne pepper into which they had been dipped for the express purpose of making the process disagreeable. Those sunbonnets, with which my head was sheathed every time I started out into the airy out-of-doors, were my chief pests. I usually compromised my integrity by untying the strings as soon as I was out of sight. I would double back the corners of the bonnet, making it into a sort of cocked hat with a bow on top, made from the hated strings, thus letting my poor scratched ears out of captivity.
My cousin, Mrs. Gibson, tells me that she also suffered the martyrdom of sunbonnets; I suppose in those days girls were supposed to preserve natural complexions, it not being considered decent to have
