Pawtucket Falls had
always been one of their favorite camping-places. Their strange
endeavors, to combine civilization with savagery were a great
source of amusement to us; men and women clad alike in loose
gowns, stove-pipe hats, and moccasons; grotesque relies of
aboriginal forest-life. The sight of these uncouth-looking red
men made the romance fade entirely out of the Indian stories we
had heard. Still their wigwam camp was a show we would not
willingly have missed.
The transition from childhood to girlhood, when a little girl has
had an almost unlimited freedom of out-of-door life, is
practically the toning down of a mild sort of barbarianism, and
is often attended by a painfully awkward self-consciousness. I
had an innate dislike of conventionalities. I clung to the
child's inalienable privilege of running half wild; and when I
found that I really was growing up, I felt quite rebellious.
I was as tall as a woman at thirteen, and my older sisters
insisted upon lengthening my dresses, and putting up my mop of
hair with a comb.
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