Memoir, page 2: nurses' fairness, the nursery windows, Dad's roaring fires and family breakfast
Book 2, Page 8 ·1890–1950
Transcription
[Page numbered “2” at upper left in the writer’s hand.]
I never had a nurse who made you feel that she liked one child better than the other — Or house, and yard servants either. No partiality — fair ness in every way — (I can’t say the same for our governesses!) — They [interlinear above: our nurses ] never let us misbehave. We could play [interlinear above: there ] to our hearts content — but our toys were not allowed out of that room — unless there was some thing we wanted to take with us where we went to play in the yard. And when evening came the nurse saw that every thing was in place and the room in perfect order.
Mammie had window boxes inside the nursery windows — and there were always some thing blooming there — Begonias, alyssum, Roman Hyacinths. A few Sweet-pea seeds were put on each end of the box and the vines trained up the sides of the window.
Dad got up very early and made roaring fires in his room and the nursery. At 7 o’clock the nurses came up stairs. She gave us our baths and saw that we were dressed in time for breakfast. That was a family meal — at a certain hour — and you were
AI Notes
Continuation of the memoir, numbered ‘2’ at the upper left corner of the page (the writer’s own pagination — this is sheet 2 of her childhood memoir, hence the album-page number is 8 but the writer’s page is 2). Recalls the nurses’ fairness — never having a nurse who favored one child over another, neither nurses nor house and yard servants — the nursery windows with Begonias, alyssum, and Roman Hyacinths, and a few Sweet-pea seeds on each end of the box, vines trained up the sides — and Dad rising early to build roaring fires in his room and the nursery before 7 o’clock so the nurses could come up, bathe the children, and dress them in time for the family breakfast at a certain hour. Two interlinear insertions appear above the line: ‘our nurses’ inserted after ‘They’ (clarifying the antecedent) and ‘there’ inserted after ‘play’.