Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/26

22 with me for a bridesmaid. I was awfully glad, but I felt real mean not to warn Daddy about how cross Mamma got sometimes. He thought she was an angel and used to tell her so, and she would look like one, too. Mamma was as pretty as pretty can be, and Daddy used to make poetry to her. Daddy was a poet, you know, but he didn't make a living writing poetry, but had to write what he called 'rot' for Sunday papers to make money.

"We got along pretty well for awhile, although every now and then Mamma would fly off the handle and make things hum for Daddy and me, and then we'd go out walking, and sometimes go spend the day at the Zoo or down to Coney Island, and when we'd come back she would have quieted down. I was nine then. I don't know what I'd have done without Daddy. He was the dearest little man and so kind and so clever I think he got over being in love with Mamma because she had a limited intelligence. I got that from him, but he was sorry he said it and asked me to forget it. She had more sense in her toes than in her head.

"Suddenly Mamma got so she didn't like me any more. I had been the biggest kind of pet, and all of a heap she began treating me like she did poor Papa, only she couldn't call me loafer