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out of that enormous thing. Aunt Carrie couldn't hold me and put me on the train so the porter grabbed me and took me on to the train and put me in her lap so then I was alright. Bro and Mrs. Downing had five girls and two boys and several grandchildren and some of the girls were my age so I was content when there with them.
When I went back to my own home with my daddy and stepmother, she and I couldn't get along because in the first place I resented her being there. I didn't think she belonged in my home. She could have been good to me if I had let her, she believed in one moving the minute they were spoken too and I can remember how I'd take my own good time. So then she'd make for me and I'd run and she couldn't catch me, round and round the house we'd go until she'd finally give up. I'd stay outside until she'd get over her mad spell. Then when my daddy would come home she'd tell him how I ran from her and say aren't you going to punish her? and he'd say, that was just your hard luck if you couldn't out run a six year old, then she would get furious. Then when he'd get me to myself he'd give me a good talking to and shame me, but it went in one ear and out the other one.
So then Emma took me back with her for awhile or at least till I was eight or nine years old. She had four children by then and they had moved from little town called Westonia to Napoleon in the country. I went to school just a little ways from where they lived. The house was right close to the Pearl River, the river I was named for. And the school was only a short distance from the house. My school teachers name was Miss Perry and she boarded with us. Emma always had an early supper and it was my job to wash the dishes so one evening Emma kept telling me I'd better hurry and get the dishes cleaned up because I'd be afraid after dark. So I kept fooling around until it was getting dusk, so I started washing dishes and all of a sudden I heard the awfullest racket under the kitchen and it scared my mule so bad I ran out on to the back gallery and down to the main part of the house where Emma, Miss Perry and her boy friend was and I beat and banged on the door until she finally let me in, but I want you to know I cleaned up the kitchen after that before dark. The noise I heard were cats holding conference under the house.
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