If he made any mistake she cried, "Hollis!" in a tone as sweet as a wind-harp, though she meant it to be terribly severe, adding to the effect by shaking the corn-silk on her head in high displeasure.

If she could correct him she thought she had done as much good in the family as if she had behaved well herself.

He received all rebukes very meekly, with a "Thank you, little Topknot.

What would be done here without you to preserve order ?" Flyaway could remember as far back as the beginning of the world,--that is to say, she could remember when _her_ world began.
It is strange to think of, but the first thing she really knew for a certainty, she was standing in a yellow chair, in her grandmother Parlin's kitchen! It was as if she had always been asleep till that minute.

People did say she had once been a baby, but she could not recollect that, "it was so MANY years ago." Her mind, you see, had always been as soft as a bag of feathers; and nothing that she did, or that any one else did, made much impression.
But now something remarkable was taking place, and she would never forget it.
It was this: she was grinding coffee.