No, I shall never forget it! They had
chores to do ... as though they had been hired men!"
Aunt Harriet never meant to say any of this when Elizabeth Ann could
hear, but the little girl's ears were as sharp as little girls' ears
always are, and long before she was nine she knew all about the opinion
Aunt Harriet had of the Putneys. She did not know, to be sure, what
"chores" were, but she took it confidently from Aunt Harriet's voice
that they were something very, very dreadful.
There was certainly neither coldness nor hardness in the way Aunt
Harriet and Aunt Frances treated Elizabeth Ann. They had really given
themselves up to the new responsibility, especially Aunt Frances, who
was very conscientious about everything. As soon as the baby came there
to live, Aunt Frances stopped reading novels and magazines, and re-read
one book after another which told her how to bring up children. And she
joined a Mothers' Club which met once a week. And she took a
correspondence course in mothercraft from a school in Chicago which
teaches that business by mail. So you can see that by the time Elizabeth
Ann was nine years old Aunt Frances must have known all that anybody can
know about how to bring up children. And Elizabeth Ann got the benefit
of it all.
She and her Aunt Frances were simply inseparable. Aunt Frances shared in
all Elizabeth Ann's doings and even in all her thoughts.
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