She said that Christ had humbled himself to be born of a Virgin, and that
every woman had this honor to sustain. Of course such lectures as that
made us call her an old maid all the more. Still, I don't think
that being mischievous or teasing her made any difference with her.
Frank used to worry her more than any one else, even than Joe,
and I am sure she liked him best of all. That may perhaps have been
because he was the best-looking of us. She said once that he reminded her
of some one she used to know a long time before, when she was young.
That must have been a long time before, indeed. He used to
tease the life out of her.
She was extraordinarily credulous -- would believe anything on earth
anyone told her, because, although she had plenty of humor,
she herself never would deviate from the absolute truth a moment,
even in jest. I do not think she would have told an untruth to save her life.
Well, of course we used to play on her to tease her. Frank would tell her
the most unbelievable and impossible lies: such as that he thought he saw
a mouse yesterday on the back of the sofa she was lying on
(this would make her bounce up like a ball), or that he believed he heard --
he was not sure -- that Mr. Scroggs (the man who had rented her old home)
had cut down all the old trees in the yard, and pulled down the house because
he wanted the bricks to make brick ovens.
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