I think it must have had honeysuckle over the parlor window and lilacs in the front yard and lilies of the valley just inside the gate . Yes , and muslin curtains in all the windows . Muslin curtains give a house such an air . I was born in that house . Mrs. Thomas said I was the homeliest baby she ever saw , I was so scrawny and tiny and nothing but eyes , but that mother thought I was perfectly beautiful . I should think a mother would be a better judge than a poor woman who came in to scrub , would n't you ? I 'm glad she was satisfied with me anyhow , I would feel so sad if I thought I was a disappointment to her -- because she did n't live very long after that , you see . She died of fever when I was just three months old . I do wish she 'd lived long enough for me to remember calling her mother . I think it would be so sweet to say ` mother , ' do n't you ? And father died four days afterwards from fever too . That left me an orphan and folks were at their wits ' end , so Mrs. Thomas said , what to do with me . You see , nobody wanted me even then . It seems to be my fate . Father and mother had both come from places far away and it was well known they had n't any relatives living . Finally Mrs. Thomas said she 'd take me , though she was poor and had a drunken husband . She brought me up by hand . Do you know if there is anything in being brought up by hand that ought to make people who are brought up that way better than other people ? Because whenever I was naughty Mrs. Thomas would ask me how I could be such a bad girl when she had brought me up by hand -- reproachful-like . `` Mr. and Mrs. Thomas moved away from Bolingbroke to Marysville , and I lived with them until I was eight years old .
I helped look after the Thomas children -- there were four of them younger XXXXX me -- and I can tell you they took a lot of looking after .
after by for if inside of over than that though