Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

204 LETTERS.
her mother asked what was the matter, she burst out
vehemently, " Oh, what if I should marry a machine
man? What should I do? " "Don't cry about
that, dear," replied her mother, trying to repress
laughter, "Perhaps you won't be married." " Oh
yes I shall! " exclaimed the little Mary (who ought
to have been named the little Martha); " They will
marry me to a machine man; and then, if he tears
his arm, I sha'n't know what to do." She is now
fifteen or sixteen, and is always betraying the same
forecasting tendencies. She has learned to swim, and
is very expert in the water. A little while ago she
swam up to a child on the bank of the river and
said, " Please get on my back, and let me carry you
across. I want to see if I could save you, if we should
be aboard the same ship and get wrecked." The
child consented, and Mary was exultant to find that
she could swim with such a burden.
TO THE SAME.
1870.
Mrs. J, the author of " Linda," spent a couple
of nights here a few weeks ago. She told me one
little anecdote which reminded me of the Puritan soldiers of old. She said that one day, during the war,
she was gathering vegetables in the garden of the
hospital where she was nursing the wounded. A
soldier passed by, and seeing some roses in bloom he
said, "Auntie, will you give me a rose?" Mrs.
J was sensitive about being called Auntie, that
being the universal way of addressing middle-aged
slaves. So she answered, "I will give you some roses
with all my heart, for I am always willing to give
nnything to a soldier of the United States. But I am