the boredom with which I had this inane question put to me! It was one of the wonders of my days: the utterly absurd questions that grown-up people could ask.
For example: “How do you do to-day?” What had any reasonable child to answer to that? Of course one was well. If one wasn’t, one would be kept at home. If one wasn’t, one wasn’t going to tell anyway. Or, “What’s she been doing lately?” Well! Was one likely to reply: “Burying snow. Hunting pig-nuts. Digging up pebbles from under the eaves. Making a secret play-house in the currant bushes that nobody knows about?” And unless one did thus tell one’s inmost secrets, what was there left to say? And if one kept a dignified silence, one was sulky!
“She’s a good little girl, I’m sure. Is she much help to you?” Aunt Hoyt asked that day, and patted my hair as we took leave. Dear Aunt Hoyt, I know now that she was lonesome and longed for children and, like many another, had no idea how to treat them, save by making little conversational dabs at them.
Then there was Aunt Arthur, who lived in a square brick house that always smelled cool.
