If I'd
been a poor person it would have been plain sore throat, and I'd had
some peace. Timkins says his little girl was a heap sicker than I
was, and her mother nursed her all the time, and she got well long
before I did. Are we very rich, Uncle Winthrop?"
"You are not billionaires. Your father has been fortunate and made
some money--"
"Is making money fortunate? Of course, I like nice things; but a
whole lot of us children feel like"--Dorothea's arms waved as if to
free herself from unseen strappings--"feel like Chinese children.
Our feet aren't really bound, sure enough, but we can't do like we
like. Sometimes I just want to run as fast as a racehorse, and
holler as loud as the poor children do in the park. I hate
regulations and proper things. If father were to lose his money, do
you suppose we would have to have a special time for everything we
do? Go to bed, and get up, and eat, and say lessons, and study
lessons, and take lessons, and go out, and come in, and lie down in a
dark room, and go again to drive or walk, and in between everything
you do dress over again, and never, _never_ run or climb trees or
tear your clothes and have just plain fun? I love dirt. I do! I
have to be so careful with my finger nails and my clothes that if
ever I have children I am going to let them get right down in the
dirt and roll in it and make all the noise they want.
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