Free Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith Page A

said as much. Of coarse we did not ware a bathing costume to do so, I rember I wuld ware Victors old jeans and a shirt.
    Molly lets me ware anything, so when I look in the glass sometimes I think it is her but insted, it is me!
    Molly wants to have freckles moren anything just like mine but I hate them, I want to have dark dark hair like hers and Mrs. Browns, not red like mine, dark is more royal I think. When we pull up our hair the same way and put Mollys ribands in it, when we put our faces together then starring into Mrs. Browns glass, why then it is hard to tell who is who, and who has got freckles and dark hair, and who aint. One time I started a sentence and Molly finished it, and one nigt we dremp the same dream about walking down a long, long road.
    Molly is so smart thogh, she has read ever book in the world it seems like.
    But Molly is a only child. So she axes me and axes me, Where do you all sleep? What do you all eat? What is it like to have so many? I can not say. Molly has everthing she wants without lifting a finger, this is clear. But she is not spoilt.
    In fact she is so sad sometimes and cries like her hart is braking, this is because her Momma is indisposed. It is what Mrs. Brown says, indisposed. It means her Momma is laying in a hospital due to her nerves, while her Father practices Law, Molly says he is very grand and very busy, he has hired a German lady to cook and take care of Molly. Molly has not met her yet but if she hates her she will run away to New York City and join up with a show! This is what she says. Molly is so full of spunk she has wore out her Father who just grubs after the almighty doller acording to Mister Brown, he said if he had to live with Robert Bainbridge he too wuld be indisposed. Molly crys to think of her Mother, she cryed to hear Mister Brown talk so mean about her Father.
    So althogh Molly the nice has everthing I wuld want in the whole world including a cocker spanel at home that can do five tricks and a house as big as a hotel with running water and who knows what all, she has so many trubles and crys and is not happy, now are you all suprised?
    I wish she culd live here forever with Mister and Mrs. Brown but her Father will not let her do so. He says Mister and Mrs. Brown are mining fools gold anyway, but they are not mining atall so far as I can tell, except for Molly and me in the creek with our seve.
    I am writting this letter at Mister Browns desk, it is a real desk with many little drawers to put things, I wuld so love to have a desk like this one. Early Cook made it for Mister Brown and brung it over here, he is so proud of it too. He has not ever had a call to make nothing like it before. For Mister Brown is a writter I think not a preacher atall, he walks the mountain for pleasure, carrying a walking stick and a notebook, and does not come home all day long. He has many notebooks I see here numbered one, two, three. Molly says he has studdied to be a preacher but he does not preach as you know, nor does he act like one. I have never knowed anybody to act like him atall!
    First off, well you have seed Mister Brown and you know how he looks, aint nobody looks like him nether, that wild white hair sticking out around his head like dandelion fluff it is so fine, and his eyes real blue and extra big behind his glasses with the little gold frames. His hair is prematerly white Molly says, and says it runs in his family, but I think myself that it migt of turned white from all the books he has read, you can look in Mister Browns eyes and tell he knows moren most folks has ever thoght of.
    Mister Brown calls me Brigt Eyes and talks to me a lot. One time when I toled him mine and Mollys favorite poem rigt now is young Lochinvar, he grabbed up both my hands and said, Oh lovely lovely Brigt Eyes! as if he wuld cry, now why wuld he act this way?
    What I did not tell is, young Lochinvar reminds me of Whitebear Whittington, some way. Because sometimes when I say things, Mister