Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/31

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A Multiplicity of Parents
27

to realize I was a Southern lady and not just studio property.

"He felt very sad that I didn't know any children, but there weren't very many children to know, because Daddy's friends were most of them so busy being individualists they didn't stop to have any children. They had theories about children, but no children. We planned to go to live in the country some day and have a cat and a dog, and maybe a cow, but the day never came because Daddy began to get sick. By and by he got so sick he couldn't write and he used to dictate to me. I tell you it was hard work to cross my t's and dot my i's and keep up with Daddy at first, but after a while he got so slow I could do it easily. I would take the copy over to one of the nice girls who came to our parties, and she would type it and see that it got to the Sunday paper on Friday.

"Then Daddy got so he couldn't dictate and the money got low, but he felt so sick he didn't know anything about the money and I didn't tell him. I began to pawn things. I started in on the Apostle spoons. My first father had a collection of them and I felt as I sold them that the Saints were looking after us. Then my first mother's jewelry! That kept us a long time. I hated to let that go because I could