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diff --git a/79015-0.txt b/79015-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01b0f69 --- /dev/null +++ b/79015-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2708 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79015 *** + + [Illustration: “Dear Mother of my hart,----” + Frontispiece] + + + + + THE HEART OF AN + ORPHAN + + + BY + AMANDA MATHEWS + + + ILLUSTRATIONS BY + W. T. BENDA + + + New York + Desmond FitzGerald, Inc. + + + + + Copyright, 1912 + By Desmond FitzGerald, Inc. + + + + + TO + MY GOOD ANGEL + ADA HENRY VAN PELT + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + THE HEART OF AN ORPHAN 9 + + THE TRANSLATION OF GIOVANNA 24 + + “LITTLE SISTER IN CAGE OF GOLD” 37 + + THE MERRY CHRISTMAS OF GIOVANNA 53 + + GIOVANNA’S ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 78 + + GIOVANNA’S FIRST REMEMBERS 105 + + GIOVANNA AS THE WRONG PRINCESS 123 + + GIOVANNA’S COMMENCEMENT 143 + + + + + ILLUSTRATIONS + + + “Dear Mother of my hart,----” _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + + “I ran for the letters and put them in your hand” 14 + + “You took me on your lap like I was a little orphun” 20 + + “I put on my sylum dress and pined on my hanky” 34 + + “Dolly’s grand idea was for the Eggsloosifs to give the + orphuns of the sylum a Christmas” 54 + + “O the teeny gold watch with G on it” 66 + + “I must hold my horny hand at my back for politeness” 110 + + “I pulled again and there was the real hand of a man” 156 + + + + + THE HEART OF AN ORPHAN + + +_Dear Mother of my hart_,-- + +I hope you don’t mind my putting that name on you when I aint nothing +to you any more than some little cat you patted once. I don’t know +where you are at and you don’t know where I am at so it don’t matter +much what I call you. + +We aint all hole orfuns in this sylum. Lots of us is halfs and the +halfs write to their whichever they got left every wensday. The holes +can write too if they got anybody and a stamp. I am a hole and I aint +got the stamp or anybody so I will take my pen in hand to let you +know I am well and hope you are the same. + +This letter will surprise you only you won’t never get it so it can’t +surprise you much. I aint seen you for so long about 3 years I gess. +I was a little girl then do you remember me in the Busy Bee Sewing +Club at the coledge setelment? I sat at the end of the row and got +tangels on purpus so you would come and lift them out. You had a +smile on you like anything and I loved you. So did the other girls +but not like me. I always knew in my hart when it was the day to sew +in the Busy Bee Club. + +O I would I had a picksure of you dear one and swete but why do I say +that because I have your picksure in my head. You were not old or +kidish or tall or sawdoff you were just right. + +Do you remember that day you went to my house that was a better day +than any since. We laughed because you sat on the busted chair by +misssteak. Do you remember how my mama she coffd and coffd something +awfool. Well she died in 1 year and 3 weeks. There was Tony and +Isabella and me. Tony died in the ospittle poor Tony. My papa died. +It seemed like we had the habbit in our family. I said I wunder if me +or Isabella will die next time. I do not care much for to be an orfun +is a hard life for anybody but I did not die. + +Me and Isabella come to live at this sylum but Isabella was pretty +and little so a kind lady took her for her own. I cried and cried +and said to the maytrun O keep her till I get big enufh to adop her +myself but she said no you are too yung. I beged for them to let me +see her not awfun but some times 2 or 3 in a yere but the kind lady +said no I want her to forget you and all her passed. I no not where +the kind lady has her or if she is dead by this time. + +Nobody wants to adop me because I am long and black in my hair and +eyes. They do not like orfuns to be long and black. I know because I +heard them say when they never knew I did. Can I help that mama and +papa was daygoes? I guess not. But Isabella the kind lady said was a +little brunet buty so she took her for her own. + +Dear Mother of my hart, I heard the maytrun tell the halfs it is not +polite to write about me and nun about you but what can I write of +you when you went away before my mother died and I know not where you +may be. + +O dear mother what can I call you more than dear and swete? O dear +dear dear mother I love you for papa and mama and Tony poor Tony and +Isabella the kind lady took her for her own. When a family is only 2 +like me and you mother we must love very much don’t you think? I will +close with 9,000,000,000 kisses and some more. + + Your long black dawter, + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Mother of my hart_, + +You will be glad to hear your dear dawter is treeted first rayte in +this sylum. It is a Christian sylum, we have prayers every day and +py on satterday. The peaces are small but what does that matter? I +would not like to be a beggar on the street. + +There are 95 orfuns counting holes and halfs. The maytrun is not mean +but O I want some person to love me. The maytrun can not do that no +wuman can love 95 orfuns how could she? + +We have school but not satterday and sunday for the Lord said let us +take a rest so he hollered it. I like reading but not rithmetick, +what is the good of xampels about money and apples and orunges when +you have nun? I like to draw and sing. I usto hate goggerfry but now +no more for when I study of any place I say who knows but the mother +of my hart is there? When the teacher tells point E. and W. and N. +and S. I say which way do I point at my dear but I get no ans. My +teacher does not like me too much because my temper is bad so is my +writing. We must be as neat as we are able and never speak when at +the table. + +Why I made some potry I never knew I could. + +Mother of my hart I hate my close. I know that is very bad but how +would you like to look like 95 orfuns? so nobody could tell which one +you are. I am long and black like I said and blue is not my culler. I +feel my legs like any thing and my arms too but I think it is better +than rags. I am thank full I am not a beggar on the street. So I am +great full to the maytrun and the ladys of the board. + +I sleep in a dormit I can not spell it with 20 orfuns no 19 it is +no fare to count myself. The girls wash the dishes and spred up the +beds and we have a bath in the tub 2 times a month and our neckeneres +washt ever week. + +Sunday afternune is for visitors only nobody comes to visit me. It +aint that candy is not swete to me as to others but a loving word +would give me much more joy but that is not for me. I did not cry +last sunday like I awfun do because I thot of you mother dear dear +dear tho far away. I played you come in the door in your pink dress +the same you usto wear. A lady said onct but not to me she came to +stair at the Busy Bees when we sewed. She said you hadn awt to wear a +dress we could never hope to own but what is the matter with hopeing +any thing? It dont cost nuthing even an orfun can hope. You come in +like I said and when you see me you cried out why if here aint my +little Giovanna and you set down on the bench by me and I lened over +to you with my head and the maytrun says Giovanna have you gotta +crick in your neck and you don’t like her to say that so you go away. + + [Illustration: “I ran for the letters and put them in your hand” + Page 20] + +If you love me as I love you no nife can cut our love into. I didn +make that a girl told it to me. + +We say our prayers at night kneeling by our beds every body at once +like a big song up to God. I prayed Lord bless my dear mother but the +girl next she is a half and she said shut up you hole you aint got +nun so I slapt her good for I got you darlling even if you dont know +it. + +All the orfuns are putting up their pens and I must do the same. + + Your loving long black dawter, + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Mother of my hart_, + +Since I rote last I had a hard time. I have been out in the cold +crule world. Give me a sylum every time. There was a wuman looking +over the orfuns and she wanted a big one and she found falt with me +for not being bigger now what do you think of that? She wanted some +body to help with the dishes and such she called it light work and +the maytrun said if she would send me to school and not work me hevy +she could have me. + +I didn like her looks but I thot praps she would do for sorta plane +mother not the sunday mother of my hart so do not be jellus dear one +I love but you and that is true and our secret. + +When I got to her house I never saw such a durty kitshen and she +made me clean it good and her mop was something fearce it smelt like +garbige. I gess she hadn washt her dishes most never. I washt and +washt and I washt and her dish rag it smelt the same. + +She had a little boy and he walkt on the floor when it was wet and I +told him no and he kickt me and I slapt him good and his ma slapt me +gooder on the eres. + +Finely she said I could go to bed and the sheets was durty and I +cried for back at the sylum but it was far on 2 street cars so I didn +know the way. I cried and I cried but I said whats the use she gotta +take me back if am bad enufh. I will be bad like--no I didn say it +out loud so it was no sware. + +The next day I busted dishes like anything I sast her fearce and all +I dun was misssteaks and such. Her little boy was much a frade. She +said she would brake me but she coodn. She said much more I must not +write for it was sware and I can not spell it anyway. She slapt me +100 times on my head and eres but I would not cry. I bit her good and +she screamed. Finely she said you durty brat I take you back where I +got you and I was glad but I said nuthing for fere she wouldn. + +The maytrun was not mad on me for she told the wuman I was not vishus +when treeted well. The wuman wanted to trade me for a better orfun +but the maytrun wouldn let her goody! + +I seem more near to you mother of my hart now I am back at the sylum. +I lost your picksure outa my head when I was bad. I will be good for +you, darlling, so you can be proud of your dawter. If I have thinks +of you allways praps the thinks will fly to you like little birds. I +will pray God to put wings to them. + + Goodby with fond regards, Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Swete mother of my hart_, + +Was it a dream you was here today? You lookt a little older and your +dress was gray trimmed in pink. How funy I was that I could not +speak. I guess you said she is a quere one. I was like a dum orfun +they took her off to an other sylum. I was so full inside there +couldn nun of it get out so you thot I did not remember you as if +that could be. + +I can not forget any word you said to me. You told you was happy +which makes me glad you bet. You said you had thots of me and ast and +ast till you come where I was. I bleve that was because I had them +thots of you and God gave them wings like I prayed. I am writing all +so you won’t think I am dum like I ack. + +Now you are a goner and praps aint coming back for you didn say +nuthing but I ran for the letters safe and tite under my matres and +put them in your hand and you stuft them in your little bag made of +silver chanes and you kist me goodby that is no dream. + + [Illustration: “You took me on your lap like I was a little + orphun” Page 21] + +Maybe praps you will write me a letter O there wont be a orfun in the +wurld happy same as me! I won’t be eggspecting it and Ile play I aint +watching for the post man and when he comes and gives letters to the +maytrun and she speaks my name Ile play I aint sure she menes me and +Ile say did you call me maam and Ile run with the letter and hide +under my bed in the dormit I can not spell it and Ile read and read. +O you will write wont you dear dear darlling dear mother of my +hart or I guess I will die I want you to so bad. + + Your big old long black dawter, + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Mother of my hart_, + +I got spots all over me from bunting in to the furnishure when Ime +trying to know is it true or not. I can’t never tell you how I felt +inside when you took me on your lap like I was a little orfun and my +legs hung down most to the floor and I am too hevy for you. + +You said to think you had a dawter like me and you never knew it and +I was awful chokt and couldn find my hanky and you gave me yours and +you needed it too and had to swipe up your tears on the other corner. + +I said I guess you will write me a leter and you said letter nuthing +I was your own preshus dawter and should go with you and I cried so +hard you ast me didn I want to go and I was scared for fere you would +leve me agen. + +You said my letters was full of puns. I am sorry but I don’t see how +it could be for the maytrun is very care full and kepes dope to kill +them dead. + +When ever I think of you down on my knees I flop and I think so awfun +it would be cheeper to just walk round on my knees but it would ware +out my stockings and the maytrun would be mad at me and I can’t bare +to make anybody mad when I am so happy. + +O I will be good to you mother of my hart. When you are poor I work +for you. When you get sick I sit all night by your bed. I get crazzy +with the clock and I like nights best for I can sleep or eles ly on +my pillo and make picksures of you in my head. + +O don’t be long gone dear angle mother of my hart and don’t let me +be ever away from you one day all my life any more. + + Your own dawter, + Giovanna. + + + + + THE TRANSLATION OF GIOVANNA + + +_Preshus angle Mother_-- + +yes I will be payshunt not to come live by you. I awto be satisfide +when you are somewhere loving me and I am somewhere loving you but I +gotta sorry spot inside that you must be gone so far and long from me. + +I usto hate my sylum close but now no more for its gotta pockit to +keep your darling letter in. All day I love it with my hand and all +night with my cheek. It makes a wisper in my pockit and I wisper back +to it. I must be alright with God for him to let you come to me but I +do not see how that can be for I am awfun nawty in my temper. + +There is a hole orfun in this sylum with big moufh and little sents +and stufs all in it like a baby. She grabt your letter and I grabt it +back. I most slapt her but it ain’t 2 weeks since I was an orfun my +own self and she gotta be it all her life for a big moufh and little +sents is wurse to adop than long and black like me and I didnt slap +her. + +My burthday usto be lost but now I gotta new one and its the day you +took me for a dawter forever and ever Amen. But does that make me now +a baby squawling on my cot? No it is the day when happyness sprowted +in my sowl which the preecher says we all got one to be lost if we +are wicket. + +A new big orfun sleeps in our dormitory the maytrun spelt it. She +wears a pompydoor on a mouse she made outa the maps in her joggerfry. +She keeps a flurt book and a whiches dream book under her pillo and +learns the girls of nights to dream and flurt but they cannot flurt +much for their hankys are pined to their close and gloves fans and +parysawls orfuns has nun. I put the sheet in my ears not to lissen +because I know you wouldnt like me to. I could write how I love you +on all the paper in the wurld and not have enufh. + + your feckshunate dawter + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Angle darling Mother_-- + +I leve the sylum tomorrow for the boarding school like you want me +to. I am yours to put where you pleaze. + +I will tell you all that past today. I had a bath tho it was only the +middel of the week. We allways walk 2 and 2 and we reech all down the +block but this morning it was me with the maytrun and no more. I was +much afrade the orfuns would brake themselves outa the windos where +they lookt and wigled their hands to me. + +P. S. They didnt. + +We went to a big big big store and I lookt in a glass where I seen +myself all of one peace for the furst time. I guessed I was humly but +not like that. I scrooocht down for my dress to fall more on my legs +but it wouldnt. + +A lady made a shampoo on my head and a manycure on my nails. I felt +cheep to let her do for me like I was a baby and I thankt her all +I could and I felt awful nice and funny when it was finisht. The +maytrun smiled and smiled like I never knew she could and she put +dear on me as nobody does on orfuns. + +O the close and close she bawt for me with your preshus money! White +pettys like angles must wear and button shoes with tassels. O my toes +wigle wigle how glad they are and I bleve I could go anywhere in 3 +jumps. And a red silk dress that wispers wispers all the time like +your letter in my pocket. Mother of my hart dont think I love you +more for the close because I loved you the most I could all ready. I +got so much love for you in me there aint hardly room for my brefh. + +I ast the maytrun to let me take my orfun close for a remember what I +usto wear before you took me. + +The orfuns lookt and lookt and her of the big moufh and little sents +put her finger on my red dress and I let her. I am not glad for +going. Orfuns is not the wurst compny and this is where you was at 2 +times with me. I will be awful good at the school so you will not be +mortyfide on me. + + your obeedyent dawter + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Angle Mother of my hart_-- + +this is the night of my furst day at the Eggsloosif School where you +got me put to learn manners and gramer. + +I will write some good to prepair you for the wurst. The dining room +is butyfull the lights is in red flowers and the plates is deckrated +with roses and the glasses is made of diamons and there is pink babys +stuck to the ceeling. The Eggsloosifs wear rings and lockits and +bows. They laff laff fast and happy all the time. I lookt at them +very much and was glad you put me so high by your love. + +Orfuns pass the food but talk not. Eggsloosifs talk but pass not. A +lady with teeny aprun must tote the food all round the table. The +Principle sits at the end. If anybody is bad she does not speke it +out for Eggsloosifs has tender sowls. She writes it on a peace of +paper and the lady with the teeny aprun gives it to the girl on the +quiet. She brung me one and I thot it must be lessons at dinner so I +read it out loud and it said for me to look how the other girls ust +their spoons and they all lafft and lafft at me to read it out. O it +was no fare! It was no fare! They was mean to laff wasnt they Mother? +I never knew it was on the quiet and I never knew my spoon must fall +backward in my soup. I didnt feel my red dress no more. I felt all +scrooocht down like I had on my orfun close. I was full of cry but I +wouldnt let it out. + +Then the lady clered off the table and set it agen with us looking +and not helping nun. That seemed mean. I thot she did so for brekfas +but no it was to ete some more. I couldnt so I wisht the orfuns had +my shair. I tried so as not to be quere but my swallo wouldnt ack. + +I never seen when the lady come to me with gravey and I hit it with +my elbow and it spilt on a girls dress and I pollygized the best I +could but she was mad and she said the ideah of you being goose enufh +to adop me and think you could make a lady outa me. I said I aint +nuthing but she is and you let her be. I slapt that girl good on the +cheek. When you slap poorness she will slap back but richness has +histerick awful for her mother never gave her no spanks so this was +her furst blow. + +The Principle called me ungreatful protee jay to you or I wouldnt a +dun what I dun. I ans. no mam I am a greatful jay to her no matter +how I ack and she sorta chokt and sent me upstairs to think it over +with my conshents and my conshents will ever say the same it was my +falt to hit the gravey but the slap was not on me it was on her to +put that name to you. When this letter flys where you are at there +will fly the letter of the Principle to tell how bad I was all ready. +I don’t care! I don’t care! O its fearce how I dont care and I got +tear spots all over my red dress. + +I guess its no use mother of my hart. I am not worth you should have +such pains on me and thats the true. The ways of poorness is not the +ways of richness the ways of badness is not the ways of goodness. I +aint no more fittn to be your dawter than the orfun of the big moufh +and little sents. But O write to me that you do not hate me in your +hart. Write that I am not all misssteak to you. Write how you kinda +like me a little nawty and unfittn tho I be. + + your awful sorry + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Preshus goner angle Mother_-- + +it is now the night of my furst week at this school and you aint sent +no ans. to my letter. + +The Eggsloosifs say I am low to slap a girl so they got tayboo on +me. They never speak to a tayboo cept they have to before a teacher +and if anybody was good to that one they would put tayboo on her the +same. They made a line with chak round my desk that nobody must cross +to come by me. Then they talk how low I am like I had no ears. The +class pote says I am a weed in the middel of the flowers. I never cry +because I wouldnt do them that much good. I just hate them with my +eyes. What’s the good of a Jim suit when the music dont say nothing +to your toes? I am so sorry all days that no lesson can stick to my +mind. + +But tayboos and such is not my big wo. I know in my hart you are +sorry you took me for a dawter. I see now the kind you want like +these Eggsloosifs but I got no good start to be that class. I was +not made to be a parlor dawter to you Mother of my hart but let me +be a kitshen dawter. No dishes would be greesy if I wash for you. No +floors would be big and durty if I scrub for you! O dear dear mother +dont throw me away for no good but keep me for a kitshen dawter. + + your back door + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Dear lady what usto be my Mother_-- + +today I was in the class of gramer and the teacher said Giovanna what +is chair and I ans. chair is a noun on which to set and the girls +lafft and I had much mad and shame. I heard out on the street some +one to cry potaytoes potaytoes. + + [Illustration: “I put on my sylum dress and pined on my hanky” + Page 35] + +It was the voice of Luigi a daygo he peddels by the sylum and he +usto be frends with my father. I run out of that school awful quick. +Luigi did not know me in my Eggsloosif dress and he ast do you want +some potaytoes Miss? Then he knew me and I clum upon the wagon and I +said go fast I wanto lope with you back to the sylum for I hate this +school and all contaned. He whipt the horse round the corner and then +more slow for it skun the potaytoes and I told him all and no lies. +He ans. lopes was no fare to you so he stopt the wagon and down I +clum and a teacher of the school come running and she held me by the +hand like I would lope some more but I wouldnt. The girls lafft +very much and teezed me till I felt sick with shame and mad. The +class pote made a song. + + see how low daygoes + run for potaytoes. + +I hate that class pote I do indede. I hate all the fokes I got and I +lost all the fokes I love. I will go now and put on my sylum close so +as to be ready for back when the Principle will say you want me to. +That dress would be alright with me if it only had an angle letter +from you to wisper in the pockit but now no more so my good days are +all dun. I guess God knew I was not good enufh to be your dawter for +that he let me to spill the gravey and slap the Eggsloosif so your +love to me all friz up in your hart. + + her which usto be your dawter + Giovanna. + +P. S. I put on my sylum dress and pined on my hanky like I usto and I +come where the girls was and they lookt and lookt and I said I wear +the kind of close like what I am. I hate you all give me tin spoons +and no tayboo. The girls lookt and lookt some more and lafft not. +Then they was took with much shame on themselves and they pollygized +for what they dun to me. They said I was darling and we cried some +and lafft some and huged and kist very much and all said they ast me +furst to borro my sylum dress for to ware in a play and we huged more +and now I love Eggsloosifs same as orfuns. + +O but the best was to get your dear dear dear letter. O to think it +was just a storm mussed up the railroad and you love me ever and +allways the same! + +Xcuse the funny spots my tears made them when I thot the chane +between us 2 was busted. Now we can play they are laffs I am so glad! + + G. + + + + + “LITTLE SISTER IN CAGE OF GOLD” + + +_Mother Mother Mother_,-- + +When I make the start with that precous word I do not know to stop. O +I love how you make G on envelops. I allways kiss that G I do indeed. + +My new beautiful duster razen tailer soot came in a box today. If God +had not dyed me so Daygo brown at first, Mother, I could look just +like the Eggsloosifs of this school in that duster razen tailer soot. +I cannot help my color but I would be no more Daygo inside because +you are not. This is not mean to my dear parents for they are all +dead and Tony got T. B. in his joynts and died in the ospittle poor +Tony. Isabella was a little brunet beauty and a kind lady took her +for her own and I know not if she is dead also but I think yes for +that is like our famly. + +I have a sorry spot in me for what past today. Luigi--you know the +man of fruits and potaytoes who was friend to my father--came to see +me but he never because the maid called the same teacher that ran +behind me the day I loped with Luigi back to the sylum because the +girls put tayboo on me. That teacher has bad ideahs of Luigi that are +no fair because Luigi didnt stand for lopes atall but she wouldnt let +him make more talk in the door but shut it tight. + +The class poet name Dolly was sent to the office for wispering which +is by the door so she heard all. She is a real poet because she cant +help it no more than a fitty orfun we had once at the sylum she ran +the maytrun most crazy. Dolly had to write the poetry on Venusses +back or she said it woulda been lost to the world and what a pity. +Venus is a little white saint in the office. Dolly has a nawty +way not respeckfull of her betters but she says when she acts like +badness it is only jeenyus in the fire. Here is the poetry. I dont +like it for not respeckfull of Luigi. + + The Daygo shook his earings gold + And begged he might the child behold + The Teacher froze him with her glasses + Sir you keep me from my classes + Avaunt thou son of garlick do! + Giovanna flys too high for you! + +P. S. Dolly says such was not the words of that teacher but you +cannot write the true in poetry or it will not stand right on its +ends. + +O I have a fraid Luigi will believe I am grown hawty and how could I +when I would be a whole orfun in the sylum this minute just the same +like I was if you hadnt took me out by your love. + + Your ownest ownest + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Dear Mother Mother Dear_,-- + +I guess it was God who got me sent to the office not for badness but +3 pencils. The Principle said listen Giovanna all days that old fruit +peddler friend of yours makes one same song up to this school when +he goes by on his waggon. I listened and shook and shook for it was +Luigi and he made no song but only to play sing in Daygo talk “I know +where is one little bird name Isabella in cage of gold.” He did that +way to tell me because he got such scare on that teacher he hadnt +dare to ring the bell. I beg the Principle please xcuse all shakes +because Isabella usto be my sister and she was a little brunet beauty +and a kind lady took her for her own. + +The Principle sent the maid quick to run behind Luigi which she done +and he had a fraid to whoa but he did and sat on the big black chair +in the office and the Principle was not hawty but treated him grand +like he was a payrent of this school. + +Luigi tell of sell the orange and the apple in one street of rich. He +tell one house most big and wide and high and wonderfull. He tell the +curtains like vail of Virgin in church of Italy where his madre do +kiss that vail in its corner. He tell one little miss come put back +curtins with her hands to look--little miss dressed in pink silk all +ruffledy like biggest doll in Christmas window. Little miss got long +black curls and face of Isabella. No he not make catch the mistake +for didnt he see her since bambina to play with his own bambinas? +Was he old to have eyes of blind beggar? No it was Isabella--he say +Isabella till he die and no mistake. Then Luigi went away. + +The Principle said Giovanna Saterday a teacher will take you to see +your sister. I answer that cannot be for the kind lady wished her to +forget me and all her past. She will never let me in. The Principle +said real hawty but not at me “you got a Bennyfactor now good as her +and a teacher of this school will company you. That is enough.” + +So I went back upstairs and the teacher said where are the pencils? I +answer please what pencils? The teacher saw my looks and she thought +I was sick but I wasnt. It was just my thinks of Isabella jumping +round in me. Soon we were dissmist and I ran quick here to my room to +tell you all. + +Today is Wensday and I got to live Thursday and Friday before I can +get to Saterday. For it is a rule of this school not to make visits +in the middle of weeks. + +O but 3 days is not so long as perhaps never and to think my darling +sister is not dead in her grave like I expected. When God made the +start to be good to me He dont forget a thing. + + Your adoring Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Angel Mother of my life_,-- + +It is my joy that to-morrow is Saterday when a teacher will take me +to visit Isabella. Can my little sister forget me in one year? Can +she forget how I held her on our doorstep at the tenement and how I +made curls on her and washed her dress and licked any kid that would +teeze her and ate myself the most spoiled sides of apples which Papa +gave us that could not sell? He was a man of fruits like Luigi but +more stile for he had a stand and no waggon. Can she forget how she +slept with me and the bannannas and I all times put more blankit to +her and not to me? But if she has gone and forgot all I will not have +mean feels at her because she was little. + +But O Mother the Eggsloosifs all say that kind lady was crule and +selfish to separate 2 sisters like she done and its the true. She was +jellus that Isabella would love anybody else but her. Now perhaps my +baby sister has gone and lost her love for me out of her heart and +all by the fault of that kind lady. The priest says on Sunday that +hate is wicket but I cant help to hate hate hate her hard and fierce. +If she has woe I care not for look at the woe she made to me. I didnt +ask her to adopt me the long brown old thing nobody could want but +you and I dont know how you did but I begged her only to let me see +Isabella 2 or 3 × in a year because God put her to me for a sister +but she wouldnt. I have no sure she will let me in for I know her +hawty and jellus as she is but she cannot help I should walk by her +house and look for Isabella at the window. But I hope in no window to +see that kind lady for the hate I got on her. + +Now I will shut her out of my head and only keep in my thoughts of +Isabella. + +It is bedtime but my eyes dont want to sleep for my thinks of +Isabella and they do too so I can get quicker to Saterday. When I +say my prayers and my goodnight to you by my bed I will say also +goodnight my baby sister in cage of gold. I love down to Isabella +Mother like I love up to you. I pray God will not let her feckshun +for me get lost out of her. + + Your O so happy Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Only Mother of my Soul_,-- + +We found the place me and the teacher. It was a palace that house but +O mother by the front door was big bow of black. I know what means +black bows for we had them all times in our famly not so big but 25 +dolars is no cheap funrals and must make stile for the naybors and +the man takes the bow the minute the cawfin is gone out of the door +but for funrals of 15 dolars he wont lend his bow to nobody. + +I shook and shook and say I might a known Isabella would be dead for +my family is like that but the teacher answer it would not be so +black and big for a child. I said no she was little and curly and I +felt some better but queer for it is sorry anybody must die. The +teacher rang the door bell and the maid came and her eyes were pink +with weeps. She told that the lady didnt want to see nobody because +she was dead. The teacher asked could we speak to the child Isabella +and the maid said no she was asleep after much crys but she let us in +a room by the door with gold chairs and talked like wispering. + +She told how Isabella was to that lady her apple in the eye and never +did she want the child one minute not by her side and Isabella was +all times fechshunate with her and sweet in her temper. The lady +bought her clothes always to put her beauty in other dress like a +doll. The little girl sing like bright angel up in the sky and the +lady have every day expensif teacher of voice to come. Upstairs was +big room of prettys just for her to play and the lady usto take her +to stores and when Isabella point her finger to anything it got +bought awful quick. + +O Mother the shame I felt in me to think of my wicket hate and her so +good to put Isabella like a princess in the green book you gave me. + +The maid spoke more to wisper as she tell how the lady went dead in +the night when Isabella didnt know and in the morning she which her +name is Vicktoria led the child to look fairwell and Isabella cry +and cry with grief and kiss her Bennyfactor and beg her to wake up +and speak but the lady couldnt for she was dead. Then Vicktoria took +Isabella away and she cry very much but now she sleep her nap and +forget her woe. + +The teacher said “letersleep.” She said also “This girl is her sister +name Giovanna.” The maid looked surprised like she seen a booger +man in the dark. She tell how she got some words the lady gave her +for me before she died. “Vicktoria find that girl of hungry eyes +sister to my Isabella and beg her forgive a selfish woman who was so +lonesome she wanted some person to love her most and not love worse a +sister or anybody.” + +I chokt and chokt and reached for my hanky. I said “O tell her for +me--” but what was the good to say anything with the black bow on the +door and her deadngone? The teacher said better for us to go now and +we so went. + +Mother I wish you could hold me on your lap tonight like I was +little as Isabella. I got such shame on my hate of my sister’s good +Bennyfactor seems as if it will burn me up. O if I could just beg her +please excuse my nawty hate all gone! Look Mother how I hated these +darling Eggsloosifs at first. But this is worse for the Eggsloosifs +are not deadngone. + +Now Isabella is back to orfun and I spose they will send her again +to the sylum. She must have forgot all her orfun ways like ugly +dress and no cake and nobody to call dear on you. It will be better +than for her little hands to reach for breakfast in cans of garbige +but she will not have those thinks of comfort. She will have thinks +instead of the princess she was in the house of her Bennyfactor. I +have a fraid she will die of grief and differents. Mother I know in +my conshents what I ought. It is to go and be her in the sylum so she +can come here and be me. That is my duty. I am a mean selfish pig +sister if I dont and her so little and tender and no more ust. I can +stand to give her my shiny bed of brass and my deserts and my duster +razen tailer soot. I can stand to give her the Eggsloosifs dear +though they be to me and Dolly my precious chum and the teachers and +the Principle. But when I think to give you to Isabella, Mother of +my heart, O how can I do that? All of me just holds tight to you and +dont want to let go never! + +Please write very quick and say your good thinks what I must do and +perhaps by that time I wont mind quite so awful. + +I know God dont want no prayer tonight out of any person wicket like +me to hate that Bennyfactor lady so I will make none. + + Giovanna of the bad heart. + + * * * * * + +_Wonderfullest Mother in the big world_,-- + +Today I was doing my practice and to think how that piano is full of +scales and will the postman bring your darling letter and when can I +see Isabella. The maid came and said company in the recepshun room +and I told her Mary you mean another girl because companys I never do +have in my long life but she said Miss Giovanna it is 2 company to +ask for you. So I went. + +O the feelings that did jump in me when I see it was Isabella with +Vicktoria! My sister is longer in the legs and curls. Her dress black +for sadness but plenty of stile and no hanky pinned on. Vicktoria +was dressed in sadness also. That is a way of richness. Poorness is +just as sorry to lose a piece of the famly but must cry in same dress +red or pink except to borrow of naybors black vails and skirts not to +shame the dead one at its funral. + +I looked and looked and Isabella looked and looked. Vicktoria said +Miss Isabella kiss your sister and she did very polite and we looked +more and more. A teacher came and said the children need lonesome for +break the eyes. Giovanna take her to your room which I done. + +We never did break our eyes like that teacher said but we made the +start and Isabella let me hug her like crazy and she was glad and +loved me the same like she usto. I showed her your picture and told +her of your goodness and she said that was just like her Mama and +her pretty face all fussed up to weep but I kissed her and talked +her back past the sylum to the doorstep of the tenement and she +remembered how a mean kid squoze his orange in her eye on purpose and +how I whailed that kid and she laughed. She did not want to go so +soon with Vicktoria but Vicktoria said it was time. + +I never knew how anybody could make wills for people to mind when +that person is deadngone. That Bennyfactor lady make a will about +Isabella to go to a school in other city where the Principle of that +school usto be girls with her and that Isabella have lessons to sing +and bynby sail to Italy for the best. So Isabella will be some lost +to me again but not bad for now we can have stamps. + +And O Mother Mother, I have no duty to give you to Isabella and go +back to the sylum! I got a glad in me big as a house for that! I have +no duty not to be the same + + Long brown Giovanna of your heart. + + + + + THE MERRY CHRISTMAS OF GIOVANNA + + +_Mother of my thankful heart_,-- + +Yesterday was Thanksgiving and the Principal said in chapel for us to +count our bennyfits up to God. That was easy like anything because +when he gave you to me seems like he said “Giovanna, here is all your +bennyfits in one package.” + +Our school turkey was big as a little ash barrel and the dinner so +many courses it was like a week of meals tied together. + +I fell awake in the middle of Thankful Night and first believed me to +be back in the sylum for the many girls in white nightys. But when I +saw those nightys all embroidery and my shiny bed of brass and one +girl to toast marshmallows on the steam heat I knew the difference +and was glad. Dolly my poet chum now rooms with me by both our wish. +Dolly stood on her bed making her arms act like the priest’s and +whispered a speech most out loud to say she had been taken with an +idea in her sleep very grand even noble. + + [Illustration: “Dolly’s grand idea was for the Eggsloosifs to + give the orphuns a Christmas” Page 54] + +The Eggsloosifs laughed much and whispered “Here! here!” and sat +on our beds and floors to listen and passed chockylet creams. Only +one was sleepy and said pickle that idea but the rest put shame and +pillows on her. I asked “Dolly, is it a new poem?” and she answered +“no but better for a poem is just litteryture and this idea is all +true izem.” I asked “What’s izem Dolly?” but she never explained. +She made more speech but low for teachers wake easy. She said there +is us pampered darlings of our doting parents and there’s orfuns who +are Miss Fortune’s wafes and poor things. Her grand idea was for the +Eggsloosifs to give the orfuns of the sylum a Christmas like they +never dreamed could be in this world. The girls jumped themselves +up and danced in their bear feet for glad of my chum’s noble idea and +I never loved Eggsloosifs quite so hard as that minute. + +Dolly put me in her speech to name me cyclopede of orfun lore who +must understand their habits and for me to all times speak up. + +One girl said the orfuns could use her tree the next day after +the day after Christmas. I said did they truly want the cyclopede +of orfun lore to speak up? They answered “Yes, lay on mack duff.” +I shook some in my bed but lay on like they said and explained +how orfuns must be ever grateful for trees but all years to have +Christmas not on the hollyday but after other persons have finished +tastes like cold potatoes to their souls. + +The girls said this must be no cold potato Christmas. They decided to +beg their parents to sellybrate their presents at home Christmas Eve +and to let them eat early Christmas Day so as to fetch the orfuns to +the school before dark and all so promised except one girl that lives +far off in the geography. + +Another girl said “Lets give the orfuns turkey dinner before the +tree,” but some complained so many relayshuns wait for presents they +could not put that much allowance onto orfuns. + +But an Eggsloosif named Bessie made to answer “Lets ask the Principal +if we have no deserts on our dinners from now to Christmas perhaps +she will give us turkey dinner for the orfuns.” + +The girl of sleepy replied “That is easy now to say when we have +just finished mints pie and plum pudding and cake and ice cream and +raisins and nuts all in one Thankful dinner but a month of no deserts +would be terrible and must reduce us all to skinnybone.” The other +Eggsloosifs made laughs on her and more pillows and said no deserts +was allright with them for orfuns’ sake. + +Dolly poeted when she never knew she was going to. + + “Dear cyclopede of orfun lore, + O wont you please to tell us more?” + +So I told how the presents of orfuns are most times the same for all. +You look at your present and then 3 or 4 dozen orfuns hold the same +in their hands and if you let go of it you can tell no more if it is +really that one except yours was not broken and the one you now got +is so. + +The Eggsloosifs had serious looks on them and said all gifts must be +different. They sang to me Dolly’s poetry. + + “Dear cyclopede of orfun lore, + O wont you please to tell us more?” + +So I told that if not the same then orfun presents must be already +busted prettys of richness. In my sylum Christmas one time I got a +doll like I prayed by my bed very beautiful except she missed one +foot and one hand and one eye and a crack in her cheek. I tried to +think onto her all that was missed but I never could so I played +instead how she had been whaled by a cruel father but was now a whole +and adopt by me to love better for her misseds and whales. + +Dolly hugged me and all promised no gifts must be busted and sang +Dolly’s poetry at me again to speak up more. + +I answered “This next is too much for orfuns but O the ache I usto +have in me for a present tied in tisshoe paper with a red ribbon! I +ached and ached and ached for that like a pain to take medicine with +a spoon for cure.” + +All exclaimed tisshoe paper with red ribbon must be wrapped round the +gifts like for relayshuns or anybody. + +I said I must wear my orfuns clothes for them not to see me that usto +be orfun now in dress of richness. Dolly made her arms act like 6 +priests for telling all to wear orfun dress same as me and look like +wholes. The Eggsloosifs cried “O lets! lets! lets!” and the girl who +lives far in the geography said she would write her family to let her +stay and have cold potato Christmas at home after all had finished so +she could wear a sylum dress. + +But I said that is no fair because orfuns want to stare at pretty +clothes and not come here to see like their own selves in the +lookinglass. + +Dolly was taken with another idea so big it made her most crazy--that +was to put the pretty clothes on the orfuns’ backs to keep. She asked +me how many orfuns and I answered I believed the orfuns to be about +the same thickness of Eggsloosifs and she declared one girl must +dress one orfun perhaps not new but good and pretty. + +All got excited and forgot teachers and the Principal opened the door +in a keemono. Dolly disappeared under the blanket but her head was +wrong way round to her feet on the pillow. + +The Principal went to look haughty but her eyes laughed and the girls +begged her in which she came and they told her all. She said we might +make Christmas for orfuns and econymze by no deserts for orfun turkey +but now to bed and not catch our deathycolds which all so done very +happy. + +It is my turn to practice scales on the piano so I will say goodbye, +darling bennyfit Mother of me. + + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Angel Christmas present Mother_,-- + +We have so much orfun business in this school we almost cannot do our +practice and lessons. The girls all secured easy the dresses but now +have much trouble to find the right orfun which fits in the dress. +All Saturdays go committys of Eggsloosifs to the sylum for measuring +orfuns but just with their guess not to spoil the surprise. + +Dolly begged her dress off an Aunt with a little girl cousin. It is +navy blue silk deckrated with ruffles so her orfun must be 7 like the +dress. She picked out a whole named Lizzie to fit it fine so that is +not her grief and woe but it comes of asking Lizzie what she wants +for presents and Lizzie begged “O please a Mama and a Papa.” Dolly +has that kind of heart to promise first and then wonder if she can +so now she’s got to anyway and it puts her most crazy. If Lizzie +could just be the pretty kind but her compleckshun is pale trimmed +with freckles and her teeth are some gone and not grown in yet. Her +hair is red pigtales. Her nose skwints up a little but not enough to +notice much and she has a good blue eye and a feckshunate dishpishin. +Dolly names her hair tisshen but the Eggsloosifs laugh and say no, +plain carrots. They all times advise Dolly to raffel her off at +the tree with tickets but my noble chum will ever answer “Heethen +creatures! raffel off your own orfuns if you want to but my Lizzie +never do I raffel! I will find her sootybell parents or adopt her +myself.” + +It’s a tight secret only Dolly lets me tell just you she’s got the +parents of Lizzie all picked but they don’t know it yet and Dolly has +awful scares to imagine how they will act when the news gets broke +on them. It is an Aunt and Uncle not the one she begged the dress +off of but another named Winnyfred and John with no child and rich +like anything. Dolly makes little tacks on their hearts like to say +“What is home without an orfun?” But her Uncle will ever answer “When +orfun comes in at the door piece flies out of the window” which is a +mistake for Lizzie is not the kind to break the window like Dolly’s +Uncle thinks. + +This does not discourage my poet chum. She has a skeem to fix all +Christmas night at the tree. The Eggsloosifs will invite their +relayshuns and the halfs their whichever they got lefts and the +maytrun will company the wholes. Dolly says anybody must give thanks +for presents and never look like it is not the best thing they want +in the big world so she will give Lizzie to her Aunt and Uncle for +a present and them to Lizzie for a present and all live happy ever +after and three off her list. I tell Dolly a present can be no fair +like a lady in our tennyment O awful poor and a daygo organist made +a present to her little boy of a sick monkey that must all days eat +cream and bannannas. Dolly says the cases are different but she will +ask the Principal so I may be satisfied. + +Mother I had to choose the orfun of big mouth and little sense +because nobody else could like her looks and ways but I know what +feels you have to be that kind no person wants. She is most my size +and will fit in my plain brown rainy dress or my red silk. The +Principal says in chapel “mind your conshents” so I asked mine which +dress? One conshent says “Shame Giovanna selfish pig girl, think how +that orfun put her finger to that red silk dress at the sylum the +day it was bought and said ‘pretty pretty’ and now with that dress +on her she will be happy up to the sky and believe she is an angel.” +And then another conshent will speak “Ungrateful one to give away +the so beautiful dress of red whistling silk the first bought you by +your darling Bennyfactor Mother that whistles all the time of her! +What can it whistle to that orfun of big mouth and little sense?” Now +Mother what do I make with those conshents? Our letters must go far +so it will be done before I get your advice to tell what conshent I +shall mind. + +O if you could visit me that would be my Christmas present of the +whole world but you say that cannot happen. I will try and not make +too much sadness to myself for that because when I am your daughter +every day is Christmas for my thinks of you. + + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Mother of my Christmas heart_,-- + +There stays just your me tonight in this school of many girls. All +the Eggsloosifs sellybrate Christmas Eve at home except her that +lives far in the geography and she went to Dolly’s tree not to notice +homesick aches in her soul like she got simptums. + +Dolly invited me so hard she most got mad on me not to go but I never +could for lonesome. Here I have no lonesome but glad instead because +you said in your preciousest letter of all that this Eve I could know +you were writing to me. Last Christmas I was mixed with many orfuns +but felt like sollytude. This Christmas I got such company as nobody +ever had that together we write to each other. Last Christmas at the +sylum I received a work basket with two spools and thimbel but no +surprise for they were all on the maytrun’s bed when I swept her room +and no names just any basket to whatever orfun. The maytrun named +me ungrateful to cry but Mother how could Christmas be glad when my +surprise was lost? + +I usto not think so much of Santa Claus as some to treat richness all +times better than poorness but I learned off a kid on our doorstep +at the tennyment that there isn’t any. So its no fair to blame a +person who never was anybody and I believe a really truly Santa Claus +would act like his photograf looks and not forget the stockings of +poorness-- + + [Illustration: “O the teeny gold watch with G on it” + Page 67] + +The _s_ of poorness has the long tale because in that minute the maid +knocked with a bundle for me. This is my thoughts to open that box. +O! O! O! O! O! O! O! To think you put in prettys for me to give to +all the names in my letters. Dolly will jump and dance at the nugget +buckle. Luigi will put a smile on him like anything to see the yellow +pipe. O Mother never before in my long life did I give a present to +any person. For somebody to look on me with present looks that will +be my all new joy with this first Christmas to be your daughter. + +In the boxes corner stayed a little package in tisshoe paper tied +with red ribbon. O the teeny gold watch with G on it in pearls and +a pearl pin to fasten it on top of my heart! O Mother it never can +be me that usto be orfun Giovanna to own that watch! It must be a +fairy dream and I will wake up in the sylum to say “What a dream I +dreamed!” Always your presents talk to me of you or look at me with +your looks but this watch speaks most of all not to stop in day +or night or get tired. I say to it “Little angel watch she is the +Mother of my--” And that watch so smart ticks back “heart, heart, +heart, heart.” No other watch could be smart like this of pearly G +and teeny golden hands. + +O but it makes me feel twice as dreadful about your Christmas present +you won’t get from me for an awful long time like next summer. If you +are thinking this minute I forgot your present that is not the true +but despare and most wear out my brains that is the true and now what +looks like no gift. + +I was going to buy you a pretty with the money you sent for a swetter +but the Principal said in chapel to take the money of your parents +to buy them gifts what love in that? Give them what costs you effort +and self denial. And she talked more to say never give debty presents +just because you owe them or hopeful presents to get one back. Dolly +raised her hand and asked “What if somebody needs a present which +they don’t want?” The girls giggled to guess she meant Lizzie. The +Principal replied “Decide that yourself with love and tact. Young +ladies you are dismissed to your classrooms.” + +Dolly says love and tact and the Principal and a quarter which fell +heads up are all on her side to give Lizzie to her Uncle and Aunt at +the tree. She made a poem for her parents out of her own poetry but +I cannot poet for you Mother because it must fall on one out of the +sky or its no good. A musical girl dedycated her parents many staffs +full of tunes but I could only make you some scales what are notes +upstairs and downstairs and that would be no present. A very smart +girl in lessons was to give her prize if earned which made me worse +despare for many girls shorter in their skirts are longer than me in +their grades which must put shame on you and the prize for spelling +is past my hope so how could I think to earn a prize except for +stupid and faults? + +Friday was the last day of this school turn, and the Principal gave +out the prizes with many cheers from all and her of smartness earned +the one for grammar which was a poetry book. At last the Principal +said there was one more prize to decide by vote of all the girls +which pupil had got most better in manners by trying hard. O Mother +that prize was given to me and not by fair because no other girl here +was ever orfun so I had the head start in backness. I was so scared I +almost could not hold out my hand and to walk back to my seat I did +not know where it stood with the Eggsloosifs to clap clap their hands +so much. By and by when I opened the package the Principal asked me +why I look so disapointed. I answered “It is very beautiful and never +did I earn it but what can my Mother make with a Girl’s Memory Book +of School for a Christmas present?” She explained that if I wrote it +full of memorys for you Mother it would be a piece of real daughter +present same as Dolly’s and the musical girl’s and her of smartness. +But it is my grief and woe you will not get it in time for Christmas +because I cannot write in it memorys that are not to happen yet but +must wait till they happen. + +I have decided to give away my red silk dress because my Christmas +conshent says “Giovanna you got such lots and that orfun so little.” +O my little darling watch! It now ticks “You got to stop, you got to +stop” because the electric will be off in one minute and so goodnight +Darling Mother from little watch and me. + + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Mother of my Merry Christmas Heart_,-- + +The candles are just blown out on the orfun tree and I took a pink +one not much burnt to put in the teeny silver candlestick Dolly gave +me so I can write to you after electric is off. I believe this candle +likes to burn itself up for that because it waves round its little +flame as if to speak “Giovanna remember me to your Mother.” + +The Eggsloosifs all rushed back today quick as possible after their +deserts to dress themselves orfun style. Such laughs never were heard +in the real kind. Then came the jenuine orfuns and O the looks on +them to behold the immitashun orfuns! That orfun which usto make tall +her pompydoor with the maps out of her geography said if she had +known she was invited just to other sylum she never woulda come. + +The Eggsloosifs took each one her orfun to her room and dressed her +all sweet and pretty and stylish like a girl of richness with two +parents. One orfun said to her Eggsloosif “I thank you but keep this +dress to your own self because you look worse poor than me.” And the +father of that Eggsloosif is a 1000000air. + +Mine which was her of big mouth and little sense all times touched +the red silk with her finger and repeated “My red dress, my red +dress” like my watch ticks and I was glad to see her love it that +hard. + +Dolly’s Lizzie turned not pretty but so Dolly named her quaint and +said that was more distinggay. Lizzie asked “Will my new Mama like me +better in this dress?” And Dolly kissed her and pinned a card on her +“Merry Christmas to dear Aunt Winnyfred and Uncle John from Dolly.” +But Lizzie never saw Dolly wring her hands to me on the quiet to show +what scares she got on herself. + +Mother when all was finished the orfuns made immitashun Eggsloosifs +like the Eggsloosifs made immitashun orfuns--I guess because the +Eggsloosifs in dress of poorness acted like fixed grand for a party +and the orfuns could not forget so quick their scroocht down +feelings even in dress of richness. + +Next was the turkey dinner with the orfuns in the chairs and the +Eggsloosifs to act like maids. All their swallows could work fine and +they were very satisfied except Lizzie teased to sit between her Mama +and Papa but Dolly told her they were not yet come. + +After turkey dinner all went to the big hall of the Christmas tree +and there stayed the parents and relayshuns and whichevers. Dolly +looked so pityfull for her feelings on Lizzie a kind old man thought +she was a jenuine and tried to give her a dollar in her hand but she +explaned no thank you. + +The janitor played he was Santa Claus and passed the presents and O +the joy and surprise of those orfuns most paralized them. I gave mine +a doll because her sense is younger than she is and it seemed as if +she couldn’t hug it enough and I was glad. + +But poor little Lizzie looked like weeps and said to Dolly “Where +is my Mama and Papa like you promised?” My chum led her pretty near +to her Uncle and Aunt where they sat and whispered to Lizzie which +they were and ran to hide behind the tree. Lizzie stept close and +close till Uncle John said “Whose little girl are you?” and she +answered “I am yours, Papa,” and the surprise that Uncle had on him +was wonderful. Aunt Winnyfred spoke “What nonsents! Run to your Mama, +child,” but she answered “You are my Mama.” + +Uncle John looked on her card and exclaimed “O that Dolly!” Aunt +Winnyfred explaned to Lizzie how she did not want a little girl and +all was mistake. + +Lizzie got that kind of disapoint which hurts so bad you don’t cry +the first minute and they thought she was satisfied but she fell +herself down on the floor and her grief and woe were dreadful and she +all times talked in her cry “O my Papa don’t want me! O my Mama don’t +want me!” + +Dolly ran to comfort her but she would take no comfort. Aunt +Winnyfred stood up and spoke, “Let us go! this is very painful! Dolly +you must be punished!” But Uncle John answered “Why not take her +along and look her over? Anyway she said first she was mine.” Aunt +Winnyfred talked back “Just because you sat on that side so she came +first to you.” So Uncle John carried her but Aunt Winnyfred held her +hand. + +The little candle is most gone and so is my first merry Christmas +but I got plenty of merryness this time to catch up on all I missed +before. + +O Mother what a long chain you started by your goodness to me. The +Eggsloosifs tied some more to that chain by this wonderful surprise +on the sylum; Aunt Winnyfred and Uncle John made another piece to +adopt Lizzie. And I never did a thing to make it longer but perhaps I +can some day. That is my wish. + +I have just one more minute to say Merry Christmas so with that +I will stop my letter. Merry Christmas, Mother! Merry Christmas, +Isabella! Merry Christmas, orfuns! Merry Christmas, Eggsloosifs! +Merry Christmas, all the people in the big world! Merry Christmas, +dear God up in heaven! + + Giovanna. + + + + + GIOVANNA’S ITALIAN RENAISSANCE + + +_Mother of my Italian heart_,-- + +Such wonderful bran news I got today for you and me to be glad +about--the teacher spoke it right out to all the class of geography. +She said that Dago is just the disrespeckfull for Italian and she +names Italians grand and wonderful with songs in their throats and +pictures in their eyes and hands to make statyous. And Mr. Columbus +who discovered America was a Dago! So Americans needn’t feel set up +over us because where would they be this minute if he never had? +Besides they are all named after Mr. Amerigo, another Italian man who +put them first on any map or they must have got omitted out of the +geography and then think how mortifide they would have felt! + +So Mother, it is not mean for me to be Dago and need not put shame on +you as I always supposed it must indeed. It was my guess to myself +you had hopes to erase all my Dago part in this school except my +looks which are very brunetty and no powder can help that because +I tried and it showed on top of my brownness like chalk on the +blackboard and the Principal said “Giovanna, go wash your face; I did +not believe you were that silly kind of girl.” So I cried and washed +hard and threw away that powder box awful quick but explained not to +the Principal because it would have been like telling a secret of +yours and mine, Mother, to explain and I never did. Now you don’t +need powder to stay on me any more. + +O Mother, my proudness is up to the top of the highest mountain +in the red atlas! I wish I could go and tell all the folks in +our tenement that they are no more Ginneys but very grand and +respecktable Italians and must have no shame on themselves for that +but all glad and hawty. + +I had thoughts of asking you to change my name to Jane but now I +rejoyce to be + + Your Italian daughter, + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Mother of my Dago heart_,-- + +There was a reception in this school today very grand from three +to five. O the surprise that happened on me right in the middle of +this reception! If I gave you 1,000,000 guesses and 3 more you could +not tell who came and not invited, for how could I think to invite +rellytives never seen in my long life and most forgotten and also +believed by me to stay in Italy shaped like a rubber boot and washed +by many seas? + +I was sitting some behind a screen and the music talked of you and +my love as I never can write in my letters because it would take +words I do not know. I wore my new pink silk which is that kind to +try to stick to my fingers as if it says it likes to be my dress and +the best beautiful sign of your love. + +Dolly came and pulled me by the hand to the window quick as we could +go for the many ladies not to step our feet on their elegant trains. +There stayed Luigi on his wagon full of oranges and bananas. An +Italian woman sat by him not his wife for I know her looks and a girl +about my bigness. Down in front of the seat was a boy not so big and +another girl not so big as the boy and another girl with curls not so +big as that girl and a baby in the Italian woman’s lap which she gave +Luigi to hold while she clum out and pulled down all the rest except +the boy who jumped himself off and stufft two bananas in his shirt +not seen by Luigi. Then Luigi pointed with his whip to the door of +our school and drove away very quick like he still had scares on that +teacher. + +Wrinkeldy and poor was the Italian lady with a little square shawl +on her head. The girl of my bigness was dressed pretty but curyous. +Her black velvet corset was on top of her white waist. She wore a red +skirt and an apron crost by many stripes. The toes of all the littler +ones looked out of their shoes and no wraps on their thinness. I had +a big sorry for them in my heart. + +Then Dolly was called by her Mother to play a piece on the piano for +some person in the music room. + +Very soon that family off Luigi’s wagon stood in our hall and all +stared at them like they were brickyards and not people. I had no +dream who they could be, but Dago must ever go to Dago so I went. + +When I walked close to her of the wrinkeldy face and little shawl, +she screecht “Giovanna! Mia cara! Mia cara!” and hugged me long long +in her arms and many times kissed my cheeks and hugged me more and +more and tears ran down in her wrinkles. + +I let her hug and kiss me, Mother, but I shook and shook and wished +not to be so much kissed with all to stare and stare as they done. +Nobody hugs like that in receptions which are not any good form place +for jenuine feelings like hers but just touch your fingers and talk +politeness. The feelings that Italian lady had on me were terrible +and I could not understand what for with this the first time I ever +walked in her sight. + +By and by she calmed off a teeny bit and held my face with her hands +and looked and looked and said she was my Aunt Maddalena. + +I was embearest dreadful and sorry to make her such dizzypoint but I +begged her please excuse me not to be her niece and her not to be my +Aunt Maddalena. + +The girl of my bigness had eyes black and looks proud like anything. +She spoke American but slow and funny and full of try as if her +tongue could just walk and not run. + +“Why notta your Aunt?” + +I answered “It is the true that my Mama who died had a sister named +Maddalena and she usto tell me how they cried and hugged much when my +Mama started for America in the big ship, but this lady never can be +my Aunt.” + +That girl asked again, “Why notta your Aunt?” + +I explained just like my Mama that died usto tell me plenty of times. +“My Aunt Maddalena is so beautiful in looks that artiss men make +her picture with many paints. Nobody in her village can dance the +tarantella like my Aunt Maddalena; any person will travel a mile +and be glad to see the steps of her teeny feet. She wrote a letter +how she marrys my Uncle Nicolo who sings long songs and walks on the +grapes to make them wine. By and by she wrote another letter that she +has a baby girl, cousin to me named Concetta. Then no more letters or +else lost. Now you understand why this Italian lady is all mistake +and no Aunt.” + +That girl spoke again awful proud. + +“Little fool! Can she no getta old? When young she was moddle for +artiss men and this dress I wear now is her moddle dress because my +dress gotta the holes. Your Uncle Nicolo no come today, he hunts the +work. You think that baby girl Concetta no getta big never? I am +Concetta and this is your Aunt Maddalena.” + +Then I believed she spoke the true and I was more embearest like I +would die with all my thinks tip side up and no chance to get them +fixed. My voice came out of me little and funny. + +“I am very pleased to meet you.” + +“Notta so!” said Concetta awfuller proud. “You no wanta us! One year +in America we look look ask ask for you. Now I wish we never hadda +found you! You gotta the shame of us and I hate you!” + +I did not answer that Concetta but I led them to chairs which were +very quick plenty when they walked near. It is the rule not to just +have your own talk with your rellytives at a reception but you must +make presents to them of your schoolmates. I did not mind that rule, +Mother because of the feelings I had for the Exclusives to look on my +cousins so wretcheddy and my Aunt Maddalena all poor and wrinkled up. +I was trying to swallow down my cry when our dear Principal came and +saylooted my rellytives fine and polite as if they were the best in +elegant trains instead of short in the skirts and big in the shoes +as my Aunt, only Concetta hid her hands under her apron crost by many +stripes. What sort of manners was that? + +The boy begged me, “Swipe a feller some cake. Say, do you guys have +ice cream?” I made the start to get him some but Concetta said, +“Notta swipe--better he starve first,” so I sat still and swiped not. + +I wanted to make good from talk with my rellytives but it was skarce +in me. Pretty soon Concetta said to her Mother in Italian that no +longer must they put shame on Giovanna with her grand friends so they +went and fine riddants to that Concetta. + +O Mother, what is the good to call Italians grand and wonderful and +then all to stare at them like brickybacks when they stand in your +hall? How can they have that glad the teacher says they may for the +songs in their throats and the pictures in their eyes and their +hands to make statyous when they got those scroochtdown Dago feelings +on themselves (not counting Concetta) and you got the same on them to +be their rellytives? My Italian proudness is all spoiled. + + Your unhappy + Jane. + + * * * * * + +_Dearest and Best_,-- + +I am writing to you in my cloak and my hat is still on my head +because my feelings fizzed and fizzed all the way home from the call +on my Italian rellytives and will not stay shut up in me one more +minute. + +All days I felt as if there was a string on my soul and Aunt +Maddalena was pulling it and I knew Dago must go to Dago. The +Principal said a teacher might company me this afternoon which she so +done. + +O Mother, rellytives are no good but to make grief and woe! I wish +mine were back in Italy like a rubber boot washed by many seas, +I do indeed. No, I would save out Aunt Maddalena because love is +sprouting in my heart for her and how she does not look all homely +as at first. And the baby with eyes like chockylet creams, it is a +dear baby. Giuseppe is a newsy and newsys are ever desprit characters +and usto pull my braids, but Giuseppe has not done it yet and he has +a hello grin on him so you got to like him anyway and I do not wish +away my cousin Giuseppe. Marietta next to Giuseppe is very good and +quiet and pityful to be so thin and pale and nobody could wish her +away. Assunta between Marietta and the baby has long black curls and +dimples, and I ached to hug and hug her but I never could for the +eyes of Concetta kept me all friz up on my bench so I sat still and +hugged not. + +Aunt Maddalena would have embrased me the same as at the reception +but Concetta had to put in her Italian talk “Have care, little +Mother, for the fine clothes of our grand lady cousin.” + +All the time of this visit I felt as if my heart was a pincushion +and every word of Cousin Concetta stuck another pin in that cushion +for the hate she got against me. She asked me in her own talk why +I brought that teacher to show her how poor they live. Was it not +enought for me to know it myself and come where I was wanted by +nobody? + +They are terrible poor, Mother, and live way upstairs in the +back tennyment with no window to look on the street but just at +clothes-lines and for furniture some big and little benches such as +my Uncle could make with boards loose from the back fence if he got +them first and not the neighbors to burn and a little old busted +stove and a bed very ricketty and the plaster to fall off in many +spots. + +They must take coats home to finish just for some cents each one. +Aunt Maddalena sewed like crazy and Concetta the same hard and fierce +and Marietta pale and pityful must sew and little Assunta pulled the +bastings and minded the baby. She cried to go sit on the doorstep and +Aunt Maddalena shook her, not for mad but because tears would drop on +that coat of fine cloth and ruin them all. + +Uncle Nicolo is a man of ditches in America because we walk not on +our grapes to make them wine, and when he cannot get ditches to dig +he is out of work which is dreadful and all must finish more coats. +He walked in at the door and I saw him for the first time ever. He +bowed polite to the teacher and me and shook our hands. He did not +laugh nor sing long songs nor take his piccolo out of his pocket as +my Mama that died said he had those habbits but sat on a bench with +his head to hang down in front and his hands to fall between his +knees. + +The teacher spoke with him very friendly and he told her O if he had +fifty $ to buy a fruitstand of an Italian man who must take his poor +sick wife back to Italy to die in the arms of her old Mother, then +the family could live fine and not finish the coats. After telling +this Uncle Nicolo fell back into his sorry thinks and talked no more. + +Giuseppe was gone to sell his papers, the teacher could not speak all +the time about nothing, Aunt Maddalena in English can only smile and +smile, the little girls were too bashful and the baby too young and +Uncle Nicolo too sad and Concetta too mean to talk so nobody did. + +By and by Aunt Maddalena begged me to tell of my Mama that died and +all our family, but I have lost the habbit to speak Italian and was +afraid to say it funny and full of mistakes for Cousin Concetta to +laugh so I answered “Aunt I cannot.” + +Then Concetta went and made this lie, “Little Mother, our grand lady +cousin has forgot she was ever poor like us. Do not make her the pain +to remember.” + +O Mother, that was mean and mean and mean! I hated Concetta to say +that lie of me, so I begged the teacher please let us go and we went. + +I will never go back to see them any more--I’m all finished up with +them forever and forever world without hen! + +Goodbye Aunt Maddalena, dear Aunt no more ugly but good and sweet. +Goodbye Giuseppe of the hello grin. Goodbye poor little Marietta so +pityful. Goodbye Assunta with the Isabella looks and curls. Goodbye +baby of the big eyes like chockylet creams. Goodbye Uncle Nicolo. I +hope you get plenty of ditches to dig and can buy that fruit stand. +I do indeed. Goodbye Cousin Concetta with your manners like snow to +freeze me and your words like mustard to burn me. + +Mother darling, I feel some unfizzed and I just have time to put away +my hat and coat before the supper bell. + + Goodbye from + Jane. + + * * * * * + +_Dear Mother_, + +Your letter hurt fierce and awful but I guess it’s what the Principal +calls a merryted reebuke. You say you have no daughter Jane and want +none of that name if my last letters are her kind to write. You +tell the great dizzypoint you got in me to be so snubbish and your +surprise that I can so quick forget the feelings I usto have in my +soul when the Exclusives were hawty with me the same. O how you put +big big Selfish on me to fuss all times at my own mortifide and not +considder the mortifide of my rellytives at the reception to find +themselves such differents. In the call also you feel Scorn for me +as a horrid silly Prig not to talk Italian with my dear Aunt. And my +Mama that died--how dreadful she must have felt to lean over in her +Heavenly seat and see me act like that to her used-to-be-beautiful +sister and I guess God has His oppinion of me too. + +The repentants I got on all the family is big as a house but it don’t +reach to my Cousin Concetta--no ma’am it don’t! Her I must ever hate +as she does me and she made its start when I never did. Last night I +had trouble with my prayers all on account of her. This morning when +I woke I felt as if I had caught meazles in my soul for my thinks of +her. + +Yes, ma’am, I will go spend the whole Saturday to visit those +rellytives I thought never to see again in my long life but Dago must +go to Dago and that’s the true. Yes, ma’am, I will help finish the +coats. Yes, Mother, to please you, I will love that Cousin of my +bommynation just this Saturday, since you say that on Sunday I have +your permission to hate her again if I can’t help it. + +This is your first time to scold me, Mother, and it felt like spanks +on my soul, but O you put such love and forgiveness at the end and +now to be all confessed and promised up, why I feel more daughterish +than ever. + + Your never-more Jane + But always + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Mother of my happy love_,-- + +On Saturday morning the Principal was to shop herself a new dress but +she took me first to the house of my Aunt. They were terribly busy. +This time the coats belonged to boys and all must sew sew like crazy +to get finished that day for the rent. Poor little Marietta most +fell off her bench with sleepy because all had sewed in the night. +Giuseppe was gone to sell his papers and Uncle Nicolo to hunt his +ditch to dig with little hope for ditches are scarce and many beg for +shovels. + +I said “Concetta, today I love you, give me a coat to sew.” She tost +her head and mocked me back. “Very kind the grand lady Giovanna to +love her poor cousin and sew a coat, very very kind! I thank you.” I +did not get any mad but I just thought how mad I would be tomorrow +for her to speak that way. I took a coat to finish off the pile but +I sewed clear through and the stitches showed and Concetta must +stop and pull them out. She said awful cross “Thank you, fine lady +Giovanna, for the splendid help which will put us back three coats to +get over. Why don’t you stay with your grand friends and let us be?” + +I was much mortifide but not mad today or tomorrow because I had a +big sorry on myself to put them back three coats by my fault. + +When it was dinner time Concetta said “We have only polenta because +this is the day of the rent. I fear our grand Cousin will starve.” + +I answered “My Mama that died usto talk of polenta how good, so +polenta is all right with me.” We had no tablecloth, just a big dish +of polenta which is corn pudding made out of mutton. Giuseppe came +and saylooted me with his hello grin but no words. O Mother, when +I tasted that polenta I thought what will I do what will I do not +to offend more Concetta because so fierce I did not like it that +scarcely could my swallow act and besides there was not plenty for +all. In that minute Giuseppe winkt his eye on my side and I slipt my +share to him under the table which he ate with much joy and me the +same that he should. + +Very quick was finished the polenta because it was not much and all +must hurry hurry to finish more coats. I begged very humble to try +again and Concetta let me most scornful but I finished one all right +and felt proud but there was no time for proudness, just grab another +and another. At first it was like play to try to get through quick as +the rest which I could not for even Marietta would beat me by both +sleeves. I liked to wonder what was the color of hair now growing on +the boy whose Papa would buy him this coat but soon no more because +I got a little ache in my back which spread and spread and my arms +ached fierce and my feet got asleep and my neck full of cricks. The +black color would come off on my hands to make them horrid and ugly. +I was hungry like I would starve and all my bones were full of pains +but I had shame to stop first, so it was grab another and another +till it seemed as if I had to sew down a long long road with no end +but just coats and coats until I died. + +O Mother, all at once I lost my Giovanna feelings and caught Concetta +feelings instead. It was as if I was not me but her all poor and +tired and ever sewing and hungry and sleepy and anksyus. I could see +me, Giovanna, sitting there in the good clothes of your love clean +and fed up and lazy and smarty and selfish and crittykle. O Mother, I +hated me and not her so fierce that I cried to think how mean I was +and all times putting it on her. + +Concetta got big astonish to see my cry, but said real sweet as I +never knew she could “Notta more sew--you tired, no? You stop now.” + +Then I tried to explain and we all stopped and hugged and Concetta +embraced me most of all and said I was not proud and hawty like she +thought and for me to forgive and I hugged back most crazy with glad. + +Uncle Nicolo came in and Concetta begged him to play the piccolo so +they might dance to sellybrate. It is a fine father who can always +have music in his pocket that his children may dance. I told Uncle +Nicolo how my Mama that died said the neighbors called him Mr. +Piccolo instead and he laughed a little for the first time in America +I guess by his looks. + +Isn’t it funny that my feet have not forgot the tarantella learned +from my Mama that died while my head forgets many capitals of States +in vacation? So Concetta and I were fine in love and danced it to +each other like our Mothers usto, only Uncle Nicolo would have his +sad thoughts again and forget to blow. + +The Principal stood in the door and Dolly with her because Dolly had +met her in a store and wanted to come. They begged and begged and +coaxed and coaxed until Aunt Maddalena took her little shoes out of a +chest and nobody could dance the tarantella like her. She looked old +but danced young just as when all would walk miles to see the steps +of her teeny feet. + +O Mother, what do you think our dear Principal said--that her grand +wonderful actress friend who visited us once at the school wants +to learn the tarantella because she must dance it in a play named +“Ibsen’s doll’s house” and nobody could teach her to do it like my +Aunt Maddalena and the actress lady will pay Aunt Maddalena plenty of +money to be taught. In that minute I got back my Italian proudness to +think of that way-way-up-to-the-sky actress lady taking lessons off +my Aunt. + +O and Uncle Nicolo can buy that fruit stand and he was so glad he +sang a long song which the Principal named grand opera. All the time +he sang Dolly was scribbling with her pencil on the cuffs of my white +waist but not so anybody would notice her much and then she whispered +to me “Don’t send my limmyricks to the laundry.” + +Next Uncle Nicolo played like he would break his cheeks and we all +danced. Even the Principal made some whirls with Marietta. + +We parted in joy and now I am home back at the school and happy +happy! And I have looked in Dolly’s closet but I can’t find any +limmyricks not to send to the laundry. I know all her clothes and she +never said she wore any or what color. + +Here is the poetry off my left cuff. + + “There was an Aunt Maddalena + Whom Giovanna never had seena + She’s wrinkled and old + But her heart is fine gold + So her looks don’t count for a beana.” + +Here is her poetry on my right cuff. + + “There was a proud Cousin Concetta + Whose eyes were black as the jetta + She seemed full of hate + But that’s all a mistake + She’s so darling we’re glad to have metta.” + +That’s the true just as if it wasn’t poetry, but all the rellytives +in this big world dont = one precious darling Mother always first in +the heart of + + Giovanna. + + + + + GIOVANNA’S FIRST REMEMBERS + + +_Angelickal Mother of my gloryous new times_, + +Such a hurry I got to put my first remembers in this letter because +to-morrow we girls must fix them in compositions to oblige the Chair +of Professor Sighkology who lectured to us in Assembly and I cannot +make secrets with that Chair away from you who must ever be the Queen +of all my deepmost thinks. + +A senior said Professor Sighkology’s smile was Heavenly, but Dolly +answered it was so impursynal it fell down between the desks. I never +noticed which way flew his smile for wondering what sort of magic +Chair to read my writing and put red ink on top of my mistakes. I’d +like to see it only to feel that Chair staring at me without eyes +would be worse than the evil eye of the old shoeman--I’ll tell about +him when I get to his spot in my letter. + +The girls are Odearing something dreadful about this composition +(except Dolly who says hers will then be ready for her byography) but +they don’t really mind--it’s just their Odear habit. Boosted up here +as I am by your love and my orphan feelings not forgotten, I don’t +see how they can fuss and fuss at nothing, I don’t indeed. But then +a beggar of the street might peep in at the asylum window and hear +the orphans Odear the same and say “What have those orphans all safe +and fed got to Odear about?” and wonder at them just as I do at the +Exclusives of this school. + +No other girl here could make news to her mother of her first +remembers since they had them together which we never could the ones +I got now, because if I had been your daughter from the beginning +all these first remembers would have been diferents. Anyway no +daughter could belong any fiercer than I do now, _could_ they Mother? +My days are trimmed up and deckorated with my thinks of you. And when +I tell you these remembers we will belong some more for you to know +all that passed with me in my years before I sewed by your side at +the College Settlement where we used to take our first start with +each other. + +And even if we didn’t begin so early to belong, I hope we can finish +up together and have our funerals the same afternoon. Sometimes I get +scares in my bed to wonder if, you being older, God expects you to +die first, but please live to be an aged lady and I won’t mind dying +some young not to be left orphan again. + +How strange that Dolly and I were babies in the world at the same +time and her with a nurse of white cap and apron to ride her in the +Park and embroidery dresses and her rattle silver, so no angel could +guess she would ever be chums with the brown tenement baby which +grew up me. And you, Precious Mother, were in the world too and God +had you waiting for me like a grand surprise hid way back on the top +cubboard shelf. + +Dolly read a book out of the library so her composition is very +intelleckchewel. She writes about her infantyle conceps but they were +too much style for a Dago tenement kid so I am very sure I had none. + +O Mother, wouldn’t it be fun if we could remember way far backer than +we can and not forget how it feels to be teeny in laps and pull hair +and talk guggy guggy? But no--we must grow to some bigness before +memory sprouts in us. + +Dolly’s earlyest reckylection is shook in church for badness to +go sit on the pulpit steps and hug and kiss her new hat with the +minister up there preaching how wicked is vanity. Can’t you just see +her looking dear and cute and funny like anything? + +I will tell you my own very firstest remember I got. I never knew +there was any me in this world until the day the saloon burned across +our street. All stands in my head just like a picture only myself I +cannot see though I feel I am in the middle of it and little to hold +on that way to the back of the chair where my Papa lifted me up to +look. He was an awful handsome man of big black mustash. I can see +very plain my Mama that died and hear her prayers of scare that our +house would not burn also. All the front of that picture is blazing +fire close close till it seems as if I could reach it with my hands. +I had not then my “dawn of conshus fear” but jumped and danced on the +chair like a little crazy with joy of the big red and yellow flames. + +Dolly’s best scare was on a ghost which never skooted in at the +window all white with eyes green and ringing its hands and moaning +fierce to fly her off into the dark, but of nights she lay on her +little bed expecting and expecting that ghost which the nurse said +would come if she did not go quick to sleep, and she could not for +scare of the ghost. It was all just a wicked lie of that nurse so she +could run talk with her bow over the fence. + + [Illustration: “I must hold my horny hand at my back for + politeness” Page 110] + +My first afraid was on that old Dago shoeman. He pozest the evil eye +and always plenty of work because the neighbors had scares of what +would fall on them if another should mend their shoes. He sat close +to the door in his little shop where I must pass on errands to the +grocery. My Mama that died hung a charm about my neck to keep off +his bad looks; also she showed me how to make horns with my hand but +I must hold my horny hand at my back for politeness. With the charm +and horns I felt safe when I was in the house just going to start, +but soon as I heard his hammer tinky tinky I would go slow and slow +grabbing my charm and making my horns and shake and shake and whisper +little prayers and creep soft on my tippy toes till I was half past +and then run like crazyness. + +Dolly says her scare was worse than mine because the old shoeman +stayed in his shop and didn’t go flopping round into windows. I told +her but he was really in the world and the ghost was not, and she +answers that’s the eyedentickle reason for the ghost to be worst. + +I never dreamed that richness living upstairs and downstairs in its +house could think of anything to want and not get it and there Dolly +and I had the same wish which was a new baby in the family, girl for +choice. Poorness got waited on up in Heaven and richness didn’t, so +my going-to-be-chum Dolly had to stay an only like she was. + +I wish she could have had hers too. She needed it worse than me +because I was not quite an only on account of Tony. I never noticed +when he came. He was in our house not so big as I when I first +thought about him. He was too big though to make a good baby and +wouldn’t play it anyway. All the girls my size on the tenement +doorstep had babies to tend, so it was no good form to be without and +I must ever play old maid which is very stupid with no children to +lick. It was only nice when the hand organ would come to our block +because a baby is awful heavy to dance with for several tunes while +an old maid can dance all tunes very free and glad. + +My best friend was named Katy. She was proud to be Irish and no Dago. +Her father was a man of pollyticks who could shake hands with the +alderman just whenever he pleased, and the alderman got him a job to +sweep the dirt of the streets into a great big dustpan with a long +handle. Katy was so haughty for that she would not be much friends +with Dago kids but with me yes, because we had the other front +tenement to look on the street and lived in good style with always +something to pawn when there was not money enough for the rent. So +she liked me at home but not at school--there she walked at recess +with her arms around the Irish and not me. But after school she was +my friend again and said the rest in our tenement were ginneys and +could not sit on the top step along with us. + +One day when Katy got home from school she found a bran new baby in +her house and she was stucker up than ever because it was a sister +which is more stylish than brothers and it was blonde white with +teeny gold curls like no other baby in that tenement. I was its old +maid Aunt and must hold it most all the time while Katy was busy +chasing kids off the top step. + +I loved Katy’s baby so fierce I had most forgotten to want one of +my own when Isabella came in the night and the next morning I heard +her cry in Mama’s bed and was crazy glad and ran to look but such a +dizzypoint fell on me for her to be little and red and blackfuzzy and +Katy’s baby so beautiful. O Mother, I write this with red shame on +my cheeks to think of me so mean and wicked but I must tell you all +even if it makes you have a black spot of dispizement for me in your +soul _I tried to trade babies with Katy_! I offered her all my hair +ribbons and my red beads and even my badeye charm but she said not on +her sweet life for mine was the common Dago kind so if you dropped +her on the steps you couldn’t tell again which one she was and so +little I would be getting ten pounds more baby. + +God was good to me as I never deserved not to let her trade since +her baby died and I would have been left without any little sister +and serve me right for my evil heart. I saw that dear baby just the +day before in Katy’s house and I thought it not to be sick as they +said with its cheeks so pink, but the next tomorrow it was dead. +The Chairs asks which is your beautifullest remember and that is +mine--Katy’s baby lying on the table among its candles, its face all +over clean at once and dressed in white embroidery like richness. It +seemed as if it must wake up in surprise and reach for those teeny +blue shoes such as it never dreamed on itself. The look on its face +was just as though an angel was whispering creepymouse in its ear. +I cried more than Katy which she said was no fair and I kissed many +times its little hands like cold snow. They took it away with grand +style and much weeps out loud and three carriages and a white hurse +and a bouquet of genuine flowers bigger than it, a present from the +alderman which must have cost plenty. + +Isabella had grown some bigger by that time and her curls had started +only they were still black and not gold. When the funeral proceshun +was gone, I went again upstairs and hugged her not to be dead and +cold and whispered did she forgive her wicked sister to try to trade +and she guggled “yes” and I cried some more into her apron for my +little Irish niece deadngone to the semitary. + +Katy returned from her funeral very sad and hawty. I offered her +Isabella to hold for comfort but she sobbed “no, thanks, her own or +none” and she let everybody sit by her side on the top step. I saw by +such politeness her heart to be broke intirely as she said it was. + +Katy’s family moved away pretty soon because the alderman fixed her +Papa with a better job to drive a big sweep-the-streets machine of +nights and they went to a grand Irish tenement with a bathtub and +foldup bed in the parlor glorybe. + +I truly love this school, Mother, but not more than I loved the +First-Grade in that time. It was fine to be the monitor to all +the pencils in my row and the teacher’s petticoat rustled grand +and silken down the aisle and her smile was hardly ever off her +face--just when some boy was mean. My hand would most wave itself +broke to say the words on the blackboard and I loved to sing + + “Twenty froggys went to school + Down beside the Russhen pool.” + +I went home different ways to find that pool but none on our block +was Russhen, just all Dago with men hitting little balls and no +froggys to see. + +You must have been the Dolly kind of little girl, Mother and O +so fine and wonderful! Please please write your youthfullest +rememberants to me in your next precious letter. My Mama that died +used to tell me about when she was a little girl in Italy. She would +get glad to talk of Italy--how it is warm, fresh and light, the +neighbors sing like the fountins; fig and olive trees grow thick +there as the garbige cans of America. We would dance the tarantella +very happy but pretty soon it would make worse her cough and then +she would cry and say how cold, sad, dark and ugly is this country +and all times like Good Friday. She was a very good kind of Mama and +where she was that place seemed ever sweet and shiney unto me. + +The curious chair wants to know how we made our first start to feel +grownup. Dolly says her shoes keep climbing higher and higher up her +ankels and her skirts keep falling down lower and lower. When they +meet she will be a young lady. + +I must have stayed kiddish forever to wait for that because my +dresses not like Dolly’s would get shrinker and shrinker and my legs +would grow longer and longer so my shoes and skirts must get more +apart for boys at school to holler “broomsticks! broomsticks!” as I +hated them to so holler. + +I guess my grownup feelings sprouted in me one tragicky winter full +of woe when Papa’s fruit would freeze and freeze and lose him plenty +of money and we got all pawned out and had to move back into an old +behind tenement very dark and cold so I was glad Katy was gone not +to see. The cough of my Mama that died got awful worse and no fire +seemed to warm us with the little coal we had and Tony sat by the +stove and wouldn’t play anything but lame boy and his knee was bad +but he never said it was real--only his play. It was a good thing I +was eight that birthday to do the work. My Papa fixed a box by the +stove and a box by the cubboard so I could reach and also put our tub +on to wash, only Isabella always tried to fall in that tub and be +drounded. I had no time for doorsteps and anyway it was too cold. + +The walk-in districk nurse came every day to put a new bandige on +Tony’s knee and fix Mama what comfy she could. One morning I put +Mama and Tony’s breakfast on the box by the stove while I filled +the teakettle and Tony never noticed and put his foot in it and I +slapped him--my poor little lame brother with a bandige on his knee! +O Mother, when he was awful sicker in the hospital I begged him to +slap me back but he wouldn’t, so that slap I put on Tony must stay on +me till I die. + +And I can’t have the delishus dinner I got now in a basket and take +it to Mama and Tony to make them glad. When persons are in some other +place perhaps you can get there to walk enough, but you cannot walk +to them in a new time after theirs is all past and finished up. + +I know that winter was when I got the habit of growing up for the +nurse to say as she did “you poor little old woman!” + +Then one day very sudden it was spring and warm by the sun and some +grass trying to grow itself in a crack of the sidewalk and Tony went +outdoors with his new crutch. That day the walk-in nurse helped me +like a sick one into a pink dress terrible short with a big spot +where Isabella spillt her mackyrony on me but the best I had. She +led me to a beautiful house like no tenement because its rooms had +not beds or stoves but pictures and prettys and many parlors which +must be bigger and grander than the glorybe parlor of Katy. Some +children were firing little pillows full of beans at a hole--so silly +I thought and beans good to eat. + +Then the walk-in nurse opened a door and that was the door to all my +joy. Many girls sewed in a club and one hollered very mean “I know +her--that’s Giovanna Long-legs,” and all laughed. My wish was to cry +and run home, but O the wonderfulest enchantingest lady which was you +hugged me with your arm and put shame on those girls and asked me did +I want to sew doll rags? I was embearest dreadful but answered “no, +please I am too old.” Your smile was truly Heavenly as you gave me a +dress to make for Isabella and put me close by your side. That was +the day my love for you got planted in the ground of my heart. + +But, Mother, I could not have sat there and sewed so happy if I had +known God was planning all those funerals for our family. And if +any angel had whispered in your ear that day how the funny little +new Dago kid of the long legs would get to be your ownest ownest +daughter, I think you would have told that angel “Guess again and +don’t be abzurd!” + +Now in this letter you got me from the start and I am for keeps and +keeps and keeps + + Your Giovanna. + + + + + GIOVANNA AS THE WRONG PRINCESS + + +_Adorablest Mother_, + +My times in this school get better and better and now my tiptopest +joy of all is that I am to act in a real play. The Principal divided +us girls into program groops and my Dolly chum is writing O a gorjous +drama just out of her own thinks for our groop to give next month. + +First Dolly read a book from the library how to make plays, but that +book only gave her much discurage and her head to ache therefore +she decided younity and atmosphear are too much style for a school +play and not to have them in hers. So she writes it absolootly by +inspuration same as poetry only worse for long and often which is +terrible. That inspuration falls on her in the middle of nights and +just in front of dessert and once when climbing the trapeeze so she +lost her hold, but on the floor stayed her play notebook and when the +gym teacher came running to see how bad she was hurt, there she lay +to scribble, scribble like crazy and never knew her bumps until they +turned their bumpy color. O Mother, how wonderful is genius! + +The Age of Dolly’s play is Middle because then all persons wore +costumes instead of clothes and were romantic every minute. Dolly +adores romance which it is her grief and woe to be now so scarce and +most extinkt. The Principal likes that time because petticoats were +good form for gentlemen, so the King girl can be real modish in a red +kimono trimmed by bands of cotton decorated with ink blots, and the +other mail characters will keep on their long cloaks so their gym +suits won’t show. + +Dolly can’t dyvulge the plot yet because the characters are so +opstreperus that whatever she writes them to do they fuss back at her +to fix it all different. She says that’s because, being the children +of her brains, they must take after her in temperment. But we girls +coaxed and teased her most crazy till she consented to give us just +an introduckshun no more to those desperit tempermental characters. + +Dolly will act the Right Princess as the playwrite must ever be +leading lady or no fair, and I am the Wrong Princess which is the +next best part for being her chum. The rest are the King, Queen, +Noble, Prince of the Long Feather, Cruel Jailer, Wicked Witch, and +four Hop-livelys who must be sometimes pezzents (which means not +birds but the poor and humble obliged to dust with their aprons the +chairs of nobility) sometimes kitchen sculpins and sometimes pop-up +ghosts. + +Dolly says the Wrong Princess gets taken for the real kind at first +but by and by she is expozed and found out to be nothing but a half +orphan of the Wicked Witch. Already I love my part because to be +any princess whatsoever will be magnificent like I never dreamed. I +try hard with my manners, Mother, I do indeed, but they are not the +teeniest bit enough good for even the wrong kind of princess. I must +just watch them now like cats and mice not to put shame on you by the +rudeness of my princess ways. But the half orphan piece of my part I +guess I will understand to act as some girl of two parents might not. + +I knew a little girl in another dormitory of our asylum who was fairy +once at a genuine theater and she told how in a play you are always +fine and wonderful like makebelieve come true only she always wished +it wouldn’t be over so dreadful quick. + +O Mother, I go upstairs and downstairs in all the rooms of this +school so happy to think on my character in Dolly’s drama that +scarcely can my feet walk and not skippity skippity as would be no +proper princess manners. I love Dolly more than I ever did, which was +lots already, to see her write in her play notebook those good grand +words for me to speak. It is diffycult not to feel haughty when I +think that a backward like me has genius for her chum. + + Your joyful-up-to-the-sky + Wrong Princess. + + * * * * * + +_O Mother Dear and Only Comfort_, + +I most wish I was an old old lady dead in my peaceful grave so Dolly +would get repentants on herself for her perfiddy and she calls +perfiddy on me the same when I perfidded nothing and she all. Now we +are no more chums and never can be in our long lives. + +Dolly had promised, when the play was finished up, to read it first +to me like a secret, so last night after supper I ran with her very +happy to our room, and O dear! O dear! how I wish that inspuration +had never dropped on her. When she began to read we were the +lovingest friends and when she stopped we were the hatingest enemies. + +The play makes its start with the King and Queen discovered on top +of their thrones talking about their believed-to-be child, the Wrong +Princess--how vile and evil is her dishpishum and how dark her +looks--just like me. Her name is Zeerooty as any girl so wicked must +have her name spelled with Z to hiss like the snakes in her black +heart. + +The King says “Adzooks! cheer up, Mrs. Queen. This is the day the +Noble Prince of the Long Feather comes to be her sooter. He will +marry her away from us and good riddants to our Zeerooty.” The Queen +has scares the Noble Prince won’t like the blackness and tempers of +Zeerooty and says weddings in the dark are real stylish among her +set, but the king only zooks some more. + +Dolly must read hard and fast to finish before the electric light +would go off, so she never looked at me to know the feelings +sprouting in my soul. I kept myself still and spoke not with hopes +the King and Queen were some mistaken and me not to be so mean as +their thinks. + +Then in the play a Hop-lively announces the Noble Prince of the Long +Feather who enters the stage followed by the other three Hop-livelys. +When all finish their politeness, that Zeerooty comes along tagged by +Dolly dressed in her white silk with a big black patch basted on its +front breath to show how poor and dispized she is because believed +to be just the child of the Wicked Witch and given to Zeerooty for +a sort of slave since the Witch has got everybody spelled so they +don’t know that Zeerooty is her own black brat and Dolly the Right +Princess. + +Zeerooty never notices the Prince and all those Hop-livelys though I +don’t see how she can help it and not be blind. She saucys her Mama +Queen and kicks her Papa King on his foot. Then she discovers the +Prince and has much astonish for that. She likes him fine and her +manners are quick honeytaffy. She puts out her hand for him to kiss +like she is the sunflower of the world, but scarcely can the Prince +kiss that hand for his looks of love on Dolly. + +Zeerooty perceeves those looks and goes back to acting like scandles. +She throws her gloves, hat, and hanky on the floor for Dolly to pick +them up and slaps her on the cheek. + +O that slap was the worst ever to go from me to Dolly in her drama! +It is the true, Mother, I slapped Dolly my first day in this school +because I spilled the gravy on her and she put the name goosey to you +for thinking I could get made into a lady. But that is so long past +and see how we have been chums ever since the girls took the tayboo +off me and now for her to go put that slap in her play when I thought +it all forgiven up--O Mother, it hurt so bad I couldn’t even speak +that first minute like once when I caught my finger in the door. + +When Dolly read on, our electric study lamp went to bobbing itself +round in funny ways and throwing out long strings of light into my +eyes. + +In the second act, Dolly is discovered dusting and dusting those +thrones and the Prince tells her how sweetysweet she is and that +Zeerooty so bominable which is the true--I could put no blame on him +for that. He wants to marry Dolly instead of me and her young heart +beats for him alone. Then I, which is Zeerooty come on and catch +them in their actions. I stamp and yell so fierce all the court rush +there with scares of fire. Zeerooty demands to have the Noble Prince +boiled in oil with chilly sauce, mean old thing that I am! The King +answers boiling a guest would be inhospittable and no good form and +make war with his parents but to our lowest dunjun let him go until +he can love Zeerooty and he is halled off by the Cruel Jailor while +Dolly weeps into her hanky. + +After that things are truly awfuller than they can be Dolly tries +to rescew the Noble Prince and gets caught and dunjuned herself by +the cruel Jailer, so it looks like all is over with the lovery pair. +But the Cruel Jailer gets a tender spot in his tough breast and the +Wicked Witch falls into her own kettle and then her spells don’t work +and Zeerooty is found out to be the Wrong Princess and Dolly the +Right One. Dolly is let to marry the Noble Prince of the Long Feather +and Zeerooty is put out the castle gate scratching firce all the +Hop-livelys who got the job to reject her and screeching swears of +“Zounds! Zounds!” like the cat vickson she is to the last and no lady! + +When she finished reading, my used-to-be chum actually asked if my +part wasn’t just grand? I felt as a volcano when it is volcanoizing. +I told her my opinion of that despizable old black snubbish Zeerooty +mean as mud. I asked her what sort of mad she had kept hid away in +her heart all our months of being chums that she could make me such +a part to slap Dollys in her play and saucy mothers and kick fathers +and boil princes like a cannible heathen? + +Dolly just laughed and said Zeerooty was dandy and a real actress +would know her for a splendid part. + +I answered I was awear that while I might be Dago black and lean +like broomsticks and used to be a slapper when I came, I was one no +more but had learned better in this school where my Mother put me +for such manners not to stay on me any more as the manners of that +Zeerooty whom I hated and detested and bominated like a poison weed +and never would I play myself to be her! + +Then Dolly got mad at me like I already was at her, only she had no +cause as she can ask her consceince and let it tell her what she did +first to me--not counting that way-back slap. + +Dolly exclaimed that genius never gets its dews this side of the +silentomb, so she don’t expect it, but to think I could take such an +ignoranty pursonal view of Zeerooty. She asked if after she wrote +special for me that almost starry part did I really refuse to be it? + +I answered “Yes, I refuse forever and ever and all the time after +that to be Zeerooty.” Dolly said “This breaks the chain which binds +us” and I spoke back that chain to be already busted when she read +me about that mean slapping Zeerooty thing she wrote to put me into. + +Dolly answered she would never never speak to me again and I told her +I would not to her in all my long life and we both cried on our beds. +When we must get up to undress, Dolly took off the nugget bracelet I +gave her Christmas and put it on my bureau and me the same on hers +with the silver candlestick she gave me. + +So now I lost my chum all on account of that Zeerooty. I never +expected to slap any girl again but I would Zeerooty if she were only +in the world to receive my slap. And I won’t play her! I won’t! I +won’t! I wont! + + Your mad and Sorry + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Angel Mother All I Got_, + +It is now three days that Dolly and I don’t speak any more than +frozen icicles and I most wish I was one to fall down and break +into little pieces and be finished. My heart is so heavy, it’s like +carrying the coal-hod at the asylum to get upstairs with it to my +room. Dolly and I both got the proudness not to tell what our mad is +about so the other girls guess much but know nothing. + +O Mother, if I had never been born, what troubles I would have +missed, most of all this cold mad lonesome to be a deafndumb with +Dolly studying on her side of our room a deafndumb also, and she my +used-to-be-dearest next to you. + +If Dolly would only say she is sorry she wrote that Zeerooty on me I +could forgive her in a minute, but she never will. And I don’t blame +Dolly, Mother, as I do Zeerooty her own self. You know how Dolly told +that those characters would fuss back at her and dicktate how they +wanted to be fixed. Dolly is ever a quick forgiver and never would +have thought to stick in that blow for all the girls to remember me +as I was in my slapping days if Zeerooty has not hipnotized her to +do it. + +But now she has chozen between me and that Zeerooty whom she loves +like a mother her bad child to think all its meanness darling and +cute. She cannot see me write in this letter “Dear Dolly, take me and +not your old Zeerooty,” but I wouldn’t say it to her out loud, not +for the big round world in my pocket. Goodbye my Dolly chum, I hope +Zeerooty makes you happy you don’t look happy though, but sorry and +frozeup same as me. + +I feel my cry is coming Mother, and I must get to bed quick and sqush +it in the pillow for Dolly not to hear. I’m glad you are not a chum +to bandon me for some old Zeerooty. Mothers are just the one thing in +the world you can always keep unless God takes them up to Heaven. + + Goodnight truest and darlingist, + Giovanna. + + * * * * * + +_Treasure Mother_, + +A real lady actress, friend to the Principal, came and performed like +Lady Macbeth in Assembly this afternoon just for us girls. I was +so blue I didn’t want to go but we all must. She was dressed very +curious and talked for her husband Mr. Macbeth also just as I used +to for my doll only she made her voice big instead of little. He +wanted to be king as the witches proffyside but he had some feelings +not to kill the nice gentle old really truly king come to visit him +like an uncle and explained how murdering your company is not good +form. I guess Lady Macbeth’s first name must begin with Z. O Mother, +I shook till it squeeked the seat when she dared him and called him +old fraidcat. Of course he didn’t have to mind her but a wife ought +to keep her husband out of meanness all she can and not put him up to +more like Lady Macbeth. + +I was sure that actress lady must be very bad by nature to look +like that out of her eyes and dangerous, ever full of meanness to do +somebody. I wondered how our dear Principal could stand her for a +friend. + +When she came in the reception room after she had acted I did not +know her in a tailor suit and smiling sweet, not a bit like that Lady +Macbeth. I was standing close by the Principal and my astonish jumped +right out of me to say how she looked not mean but a lovely lady. The +Principal laughed and told how good that actress is to her little +brothers and orphans and beggars and adored by all. + +O the Principal made me most die of mortifide to lead me to the +actress lady and introdoose me by telling right out loud my thinks of +her. But she was so Heavenly tackfull Mother, that by and by I could +ask her the question sticking right out of my soul to be asked--how +she could act herself into a mean one like Lady Macbeth whom she must +ever hate and put on her looks and ways for all persons to detest +and not love. + +When she was gone I ran quick upstairs with my heart no more like +coal hods. There sat Dolly on her side writing like crazy in her +play notebook. I never thought not to speak first and I cried out, +“O Dolly, it is the duty of my face to be a picture of Zeerooty’s +face and my voice to sound like hers and my actions to be same as her +actions to show the audients what Zeerooty is like and not what I am +like which does not count at such a time. What a silly I was--all +ignoranty and pursynal like you said--so please forgive and I will +play Zeerooty dandy as I can.” + +Dolly looked up awful sweet out of her writing and answered, “No, +Giovanna, you had the right to hate Zeerooty because that actress +explained it to be the smartness of Shakespeare for Lady Macbeth +to have some good feelings mixed in with her badness and those +repentants in her sleep and to be no monster. My Zeerooty was a +fusser and a scowler and a screecher every minute which is to be a +monster. I’m glad you hated her; she is now detestable to me the +same, so here I sit writing some good feelings and repentants into +her.” + +I asked “Shall Zeerooty walk in my sleep?” and she answered she would +be no copycat to Shakespeare but ever origynal and make me into a nun +at the last instead of a scratcher of Hop-livelys. + +Then I remembered what my real maddest mad was about, only it was +so good to be speaking with my Dolly chum again I didn’t much care, +but I just asked, “Dolly, would it be the same with you if Zeerooty +should pull your hair instead of slap, for the girls to not remember +my dreadful scandle of slapping you during my first dinner in this +school?” + +O Mother, Dolly had forgotten all about that slap or she never would +have put it in her play and she begged please forgive. We hugged and +kissed like crazy and went down to dinner with our arms around as +always. I am so happy I love even poor old naughty Zeerooty. + + Your devoted daughter + The Wrong Princess. + + + + + GIOVANNA’S COMMENCEMENT + + +_O Mother Dear_, + +Such high sky cheer but feelings queer rezembling fear though love +burns clear to know that we’re so close and near. + +Why I almost made a sonnut! I must be catching poetry off Dolly’s +Muse. A Muse, Mother, is a ghosty person only not made of fog and +clam like a real ghost but just of air. It hawnts round waiting to +help you write poetry but you got to be a true genius first. No +other girl in this school has a Muse except Dolly and I don’t mind +it hawnting in our room because all it does is to keep the poetry +stirred up in Dolly’s soul. + +This is not a real letter for the post office or for you to read +ever, but just scribble in the back of my composition book which +cannot be dissybedient now the term is over all but fun and exes. +Dolly down in the studyroom crams and crams till she daresent talk +for fear of losing something out of her mind. I am writing this +sortof letter just to keep myself out of crazyness while I wait alone +in my room the long, long, long hours before you come. My imaginer +can see you in the cars this minute. You seem to be looking out of +the window and I wonder if you got little thinks of your Giovanna +waiting here. On the seat by your side is some big package of my +surprise for which you did not wish me to meet you at the train, +but please I don’t need that surprise--just you! you! you! Since +receiving your letter, the big school clock has ever ticked “Mother’s +coming! Mother’s coming!” till I wrote it all round the edge of my +music book when I never knew I did. + +I want you to come so bad I can hardly live and yet--O Dearest, all +the corners of my soul are full of scares. I stare in the mirror +until Dolly tells I am getting vanity on myself, but it is my wonder, +wonder what my looks and ways will be to you. I hope you do not +forget how Dago black I am and have dizzypoint in me for that. And my +manners--I have not worn them so long as the other girls--sometimes I +lose them off when I am embearest or forget. + +Let’s count me up together, Mother, now before you come. I’m +bigger--that’s by the grace of God as the preacher says. I wear the +clothes of grandeur--that’s by the grace of your love. I am a teeny +smarter in my head--that’s by the grace of my teachers. + +Spelling is still my ennemy. I don’t see why God made so many ways to +spell words and then only put one way in the Dictionery which He must +have written like the Bible and Encyclopedia since too big for any +person to write in his long life. + +Fractions are mean too and I hate them! What is the good to divide +units in all those stingey parts which the denommynator shows how +many and the numerator what you give each person? Fractions is how +they used to cut the pie at the asylum on Saturday. If it wasn’t +for fractions there would be no poors in this world for everybody +would have good and plenty of all things. O Darlingest, there is no +numerator and denommynator between you and me; you are my entire +Mother instead of 1-90 of a matron I used to have. + +And deffynitions are what Dolly calls my pon sassy norum which is +Latin for the hardest ever. I could not remember moonshiner away from +honeymoon till Dolly explained which one makes whisky on the still +and which one is two going off alone after the wedding on a journey +away from all encumbrants. They are still romantics and just hate to +have anybody close except themselves, especially children big enough +to be obzervant. Dolly learned that last outside of the book. + +I was sure, Mother, I had scribbled away this whole hour and when I +saw it to be only half gone, I shook my little watch and then kissed +it to forgive me. + +It is Commencement Week in this school and with me the same because +I commence to live by your side. I wonder if I will ever acheeve +the Senior kind to wear a graduated dress and make a grand bow +(down, head, neck and chest; up chest, neck and head) to receive my +dipploma tied with blue ribbon and you in the front row quite an +old lady (though plenty young now) for all the grades and classes I +must get promoted through. Dolly is a Freshy which is to be despized +by Seniors, but anyway Freshies have class things like a yell, a +color, and a spirit, while the grades have not and so are despized by +Freshies the same. + +Mother, so near, so near.... O O I believe there comes the maid to +call me downstairs.... + + * * * * * + +Sweet Mother dear did wait below, and I to talk with her did go, but +acted like when I was young, they used to say “Cat’s got your tongue.” + +O Muse, go way and let me alone! Can’t you see I’m too miserable to +fool with poetry? Go and hawnt Dolly down in the study-room; only +you’ll find she’s dreadfully busy cramming math and she won’t bother +with you either; she’s got real troubles same as me--not the fancy +poetical kind! + +Please excuse me, Muse, to be so cross and rude, but it’s real +aggervating of you when i’m just writing down my woe in this same old +composition book and you change it into doggyrells which is all the +kind you can unwind in me since I am no genius like my Dolly chum. I +suppose it’s missing her makes you try to poetize me. Now be good +and you may look over my shoulder though the Principal says for that +not to be polite. + +I shook some as I opened the reception room door and there was +Mother, grander and wonderfuller than even my remembers. She met me +on the first oriental rug and hugged me in her arms and kissed my +cheeks and I was Heavenly happy. + +But Odear! my orgins of speech wouldn’t act hardly at all. A teacher +says we are full of orgins--not the music kind which would be nicer +only I guess we wouldn’t stay in tune and then how bad we would +sound up to God. Mother sat down and me too just like any other +time to sit in a chair. O it was so funny and gloryous to have her +close like that, it got me awful dazzled up and all I could talk was +“Yes, Mother,” “No, Mother” like some silly doll when you pull its +string. Why didn’t you come down stairs Muse, and hawnt some poetry +into me--even that would have been better than “Yes, Mother,” “No, +Mother” every minute. + +My orgin of thought worked right along but of course Mother couldn’t +hear it. When she asked was I in a hurry for my surprise I said +outside “No, Mother,” but my think spoke “Before you came, Dearest, +my soul was boiling over with hurry like a teakettle but by your side +I got no hurry in the big world.” + +Mother asked didn’t I wish I had a father and I answered “No, Mother” +but my think exclaimed: “For the stupid I am, Mother Dear must +take up any question she can, like some tackfull lady talking to a +nidiot.” I felt so mortified I was almost some glad when she kissed +me goodbye on the red rug in the hall. O all the night I dreamed and +dreamed that first visit and the words we were going to speak, Mother +to me and me to Mother! O dear! O dear! O dear! + +Come hawnt me, O Muse, if you want to, for Mother Sweet was just +sitting in that chair by the table right in this room, mine and +Dolly’s. It is evening but it seemed as if the sun shone in all the +windows at once! + +Mother said “Here I am again, now don’t be so diffydent and sollum.” + +My thinks hollered that I wouldn’t but “No, Mother,” was all I could +speak and there I was the same chumpy nidiot of the afternoon. + +Mother laughed. O Musie, her laugh rezembles Men--somebody’s “Spring +Song” which Dolly ever plays on the piano for company, only Mother +tinklies softer and more sweet. + +Then she wanted to see my “Girl’s School Memory Book” and I sat close +on my stool of putting on shoes to explain all with gladness, since +its writings and pasteings were done for her precious eyes. I got +my tongue back from the cat and talked and talked and talked--now, O +Muse, what do you think of that? + +When the book was finished, Mother meddytated to herself. By and by +I put a little kiss to her hand and it fell on her rings, a diamond +solitary and another unfancy, “Daughter,” she said, “I love those +rings better than my fingers.” She meddytated some more while little +watch on top of my heart ticked “Mother’s here! Mother’s here!” + +Pretty soon she sortof waked herself up and said, “Giovanna, when you +have a Mother and no father, you are still half of an orphan.” + +I told her, “I don’t feel the least bit halffy, Mother, but so +wrapped all round by your love there isn’t any chilly side to my +soul!” + +She spoke how splendid for me to own a father like Dolly and the +other girls. + +I answered: “No thank you, please, because a father would divide our +loves and so bring fractions into our family, now a Heavenly unit of +you and me.” + +I remembered her asking me in the reception room about wanting a +father and now I understood it was not just for tackfull but for +really truly. All my time as her daughter it has been her angelical +wish for me nevermore to see other girls with any pretty and me not. + +I asked her, “If he is my father, mustn’t that make him your weddy +husband?” + +“Yes,” answered Mother, and blushed as any really lady must all times +do when talk is about their husbands and they have none. + +Then we meddytated some more and I thought how every man in the big +world who sees Mother must wish he could have her for his weddy wife +to sit forever by his side. + +O Muse, I was afraid not to be respeckfull if I talked more to Mother +on that blushy subject, but she asked me for my thinks so I spoke +them out. + +“Mother, he mightn’t suit you the leastest bit and perhaps you don’t +care for husbands anyways so please don’t trouble yourself since you +are to me plenty of parents.” + +The Principal says there isn’t any joy like selfsacryfice and that +is the true, for Mother’s face was just angel shiney with happiness +to think of providing me to a father which she got to stand his long +life as an old weddy husband always round in her way. + +She just tinklied some more laugh and told me I could come tomorrow +to her room at the hotel and receive my grand surprise. Then she went +away. Goodnight, O Dolly’s Muse. + + * * * * * + +_Precious, Funny, Darling Mother_, + +It seems like the night of day after tomorrow but it isn’t it’s the +same evening tied right on to the same day of the afternoon I went +to receive my surprise. O I must write all down here quick, quick or +I will believe it to be just some perhaps I made up with myself and +it isn’t--it’s the true--the great big wonderful gloryous true! This +time I got to write it like a letter to you, Mother, as I so long +have the habit and not to any Muse of slim air. Anyway Musie is busy +this evening wispering a class song into Dolly. + +In your room waited a big tall high bundle like no other in the whole +world tied round and round with white paper and white ribbon. + +I cried out was it a statyou to stand in my room and you said a +little like that. + +I asked was it a Pollo, god of handsome looks? You said better than a +Pollo, and the bundle shook as if wind was blowing it. I pulled some +paper off and there was cloth like a coat and I said I was glad for +my statyou to not be cold and pitiful like the Pollo of the Museum +seemed when I put my hand on him. That bundle shook more like mice +running up and down inside the paper and I felt creepyfied but I +pulled again and there was the real hand of a man. + +I shreeked it was a burglar and ran away to you and shook and shook +but you laughed and said “Goosey, would I bring you a burglar for a +present?” + +“O! O! O!” I screamed, “It’s my new father!” But I couldn’t pull any +more paper off him for shakes, so he did himself and stood there, a +big, grand, fine, dandy, shiverlrous gentleman! I said “Thank you, +Mother for this nice father which is handsomer than Dolly’s or a +Pollo but don’t make trouble to yourself just on account of me--does +he suit you for a weddy husband?” + +How you both laughed and ran together and hugged and laughed like +anything and explained you were already married and having your +honeymoons! + + [Illustration: “I pulled again and there was the real hand + of a man” Page 156] + +O and then my happiness got an awful bumpy ripple when I had quick +remembers of Dolly explaining how honeymooners are romantic solitarys +with their worst hate on children old enough to be obzervant. + +I ran and looked out of the window and twinkled my eyes hard not to +cry. I stared at a girl walking with a blue parrysol and I had awful +jealous feelings to be just an old rag doll adoption out of an asylum +and now not wanted by you any more. I had those feelings while that +girl passed by seven lamp posts and then I saw what a mean, selfish, +horrid, piggy thing I was, not to like you to be a romantic and have +such happy looks on you as I never saw there before! + +Then you and Daddy hugged me on both sides and asked what was my +sadness and I was ashamed but must tell with all those coaxes and +you both said this wasn’t any Dolly deffynition kind of honeymoon +but you two wanted it all trimmed up with children. For that we are +going next week to a cottage by the same lake where the orphans stay +in a big camp with the money out of the kind old gentleman’s hat at +Christmas. And Daddy says in its turn of ten at once every orphan +gets a ride in his gassylean launch on the lake. + +I can’t hardly believe yet that Isabella is to come for her vacation +from the school where she was put by the will of her deadngone +Bennyfactor and that Dolly is to visit for a month and my Italian +cousins out of their tenement. Joy! joy! joy! joy! + +O! O! O! and Daddy Dear took a dockument out of his pocket about you +and him adopting me leegully for all my life! That dockument is my +dipploma to be graduated out of the orphan school; only I made no +down-head, up-chest bow but plenty of hugs to you and Daddy Dear +instead. + +O and he don’t bring fractions in our family and divide our loves +as I was afraid! It was before he came we were fractionary but now +complete. And my love for him is not cut off my love for you but is +new by itself. + +This is my last blank page, but I don’t need any more because now I’m +all finished up like a once-on-a-time story in my green fairy book to +“live happy ever after” with my adored parents. Amen! Amen! Amen! + + Giovanna. + + + THE END. + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: + +Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like +this_. Final stops missing at the end of sentences were added. +Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent +hyphenation in the text. Misspelled words were not corrected. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79015 *** |