I did not love books; I wanted people. When I
walked home under the shady trees in the street I could not be happy, for
when I passed the houses I heard music, and saw faces between the curtains.
I did not want any of them, but I wanted some one for mine, for me. I
could not help it. I wanted a finer life.
"Only one day something made me happy. A nurse came to the store with a
little girl belonging to one of our clerks. While the maid went into the
office to give a message to its father, the little child stood looking at
me. Presently she came close to me and peeped up into my face.
"'Nice curls, pretty curls,' she said; 'I like curls.'
"She felt my hair all over, with her little hands. When I put out my arm
she let me take her and sit her on my knee. She kissed me with her soft
mouth. We were happy till the nurse-girl came and shook her, and asked her
if she was not ashamed to sit on the knee of that strange man. But I do
not think my little one minded. She laughed at me as she went out.
"If the world was all children I could like it; but men and women draw me
so strangely, and then press me away, till I am in agony. I was not meant
to live among people. Perhaps some day, when I am grown older, I will be
able to go and live among them and look at them as I look at the rocks, and
bushes, without letting them disturb me, and take myself from me; but not
now.
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