The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

164

THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

"Thar, now you begin, sist' Jenny," again burst in Dick,
in tones of desperation. "Thar never was such girls born!
They don't know nothin' in the world but books, an9 music,
an' po'try, an' drawin'1-"
"Dick Henderson!" interrupted Jenny, whose patience
had given way She advanced towards him, her blue eyes
blazing, her little figure dilating with indignation, and
shaking her finger at him, she admonished him with immense solemnity and earnestness. "Dick Henderson!
you're an awful lazy boy, too lazy to breathe; an' that's
the truth! You hate everything but laziness, runnin' round
with the servants, an' huntin', and fishin'.!"
At this his sisters opened fire upon him. With one
voice they reiterated Jenny's charge, and set his sins duly
in order before him. Jamie helped them by declaring that
Dick laid down on the horse's back when he rode. Laura
testified that she had seen him reading, while he made
"Black Peter" hold the book before him and turn the
leaves. And Mary had caught him in a peach orchard,
standing under a tree with both hands in his pockets, eating
ripe peaches from the lower limbs. They all agreed with
wonderful unanimity, that there was not so lazy a boy in all
Virginia as their brother Dick, and they predicted in
chorus, that "he would grow up a regular do-less man, and
be no better than the meanest white trash."
Dick was not the least disturbed by this fusilade. He
was used to it, for the whole household were continually
overhauling him for his indolence.
"Don't you make yoursels' one bit oneasy on my account, young ladies!" was his nonchalant reply, as he
spread his feet apart, plunged both hands deep. in his
pockets, cocked his head to one side, and half shutting one
eye, looked down at them quizzically.