The adjective is literal. This dear old lady, almost sightless,
sitting in a low chair far in the chimney corner, where she had
been placed on her first call to see the new baby, took me upon
her lap, and--so they say--unconsciously let me slip off into the
coals. I was rescued unsinged, however, and it was one of the
earliest accomplishments of my infancy to thread my poor, half-
blind Aunt Stanley's needles for her. We were close neighbors and
gossips until my fourth year. Many an hour I sat by her side
drawing a needle and thread through a bit of calico, under the
delusion that I was sewing, while she repeated all sorts of
juvenile singsongs of which her memory seemed full, for my
entertainment. There used to be a legend current among my
brothers and sisters that this aunt unwittingly taught me to use
a reprehensible word. One of her ditties began with the lines:--
"Miss Lucy was a charming child;
She never said, 'I won't.'"
After bearing this once or twice, the willful negative was
continually upon my lips; doubtless a symptom of what was dormant
within--a will perhaps not quite so aggressive as it was
obstinate.
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