She had company
to dinner and was in a hurry. It was a fine silk shawl with fringe
longer than my hand. Uncle Henry brought it over the mountains as a
present. But Adeline come in and saw the fringe and thought what nice
doll hair it would make. So by and by mother has an errand in the
bedroom, and she sees her shawl travelling down behind the bed, and
doesn't know what to think. Then she hears something snip, snip, and
lifts up the valance and looks under the bed, and there sets Adeline
cutting the fringe off her shawl! She had it half cut off."
"And what did Grandma do then?" aunt Corinne omitted not to ask.
"Oh, she punished Adeline. But that never had any effect on her.
Adeline was a funny child," said Grandma Padgett, retrospective
tenderness showing through her blue glasses. "I remember once she got
to eatin' brown paper, and mother told her it would kill her if she
didn't quit it. Adeline--made up her mind she was going to eat brown
paper if it did kill her. She never doubted that it would come true
as mother said. But she prepared to die, and made her will and
divided her things. Mother found it out and put a stop to the
business. I remember," said Grandma Padgett, laughing, "that I was
disappointed, because I had to give back what she willed to me! yet I
didn't want Adeline to die.
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