twenty years at hull house

My great veneration and pride in my father manifested itself in curb

ous ways. On several Sundays, doubtless occurring in two or three different years, the Union Sunday School of the village was visited by

strangers, some of those "strange people" who live outside a child's

realm, yet constantly thrill it by their close approach. My father taught

the large Bible class in the left-hand corner of the church next to the

pulpit, and to my eyes at least, was a most imposing figure in his Sunday frock coat, his fine head rising high above all the others. 1 imagined that the strangers were filled with admiration for this dignified

person, and I prayed with all my heart that the ugly, pigeon-toed little

girl, whose crooked hack obliged her to walk with her head held very

much upon one side, would never he pointed out to these visitors as

the daughter of this fine man. In order to lessen the possibility of a

connection being made, on these particular Sundays I did not walk beside my father, although this walk was the great event of the week, hut

attached myself firmly to the side of my Uncle James Addams, in the

hope that I should he mistaken for his child, or at least that I should

not remain so conspicuously unattached that troublesome questions

might identify an Ugly Duckling with her imposing parent. My uncle,

who had many children of his own, must have been mildly surprised at

this unwonted attention, but he would look down kindly at me, and

say, "So you are going to walk with me to-day.7 " "Yes, please, Uncle

James," would he my meek reply. He fortunately never explored my

motives, nor do I remember that my father ever did, so that in all probability my machinations have been safe from public knowledge

until this hour.

It is hard to account for the manifestations of a child's adoring affection, so emotional, so irrational, so tangled with the affairs of the

imagination. I simply could not endure the thought that "strange

people" should know that my handsome father owned this homely

little girl. But even in my chivalric desire to protect him from his fate,

I was not quite easy in the sacrifice of my uncle, although I quieted my

scruples with the reflection that the contrast was less marked and that,

anyway, his own little girl "was not so very pretty." I do not know that

I commonly dwelt much upon my personal appearance, save as it

thrust itself as an incongruity into my father's life, and in spite of unending evidence to the contrary, there were even black moments

when I allowed myself to speculate as to whether he might not share