One day, my mother said
to me, "Now I will play 'house' with you." Who does not remember when to
"play house" was their chief of plays? And to whose later thought has it
not occurred that in this mimic little show lay bound up the whole of
life? My mother was the liveliest of playmates, she took the worst doll,
the broken tea-set, the shabby furniture, and the least convenient corner
of the room for her establishment. Social life became a round of
festivities when she kept house as my opposite neighbor. At last, after
the washing-day, and the baking-day, and the day when she took dinner with
me, and the day when we took our children and walked out together, came
the day for me to take my oldest child and go across to make a call at her
house. Chill discomfort struck me on the very threshold of my visit. Where
was the genial, laughing, talking lady who had been my friend up to that
moment? There she sat, stock-still, dumb, staring first at my bonnet, then
at my shawl, then at my gown, then at my feet; up and down, down and up,
she scanned me, barely replying in monosyllables to my attempts at
conversation; finally getting up, and coming nearer, and examining my
clothes, and my child's still more closely.
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