Twenty years at Hull-house, with autobiographical notes . treally was, but at least it seemed enough so tocollapse or to pass into the limbo of forgottenspecters. I made still other almost equally grotesqueattempts to express this doglike affection. Thehouse at the end of the village in which I was born,and which was my home until I moved to Hull-House, in my earliest childhood had opposite toit — only across the road and then across a littlestretch of greensward — two mills belonging to myfather; one flour mill, to which the various grainswere brought by the neighboring farmers, and onesawmil
Twenty years at Hull-house, with autobiographical notes . treally was, but at least it seemed enough so tocollapse or to pass into the limbo of forgottenspecters. I made still other almost equally grotesqueattempts to express this doglike affection. Thehouse at the end of the village in which I was born,and which was my home until I moved to Hull-House, in my earliest childhood had opposite toit — only across the road and then across a littlestretch of greensward — two mills belonging to myfather; one flour mill, to which the various grainswere brought by the neighboring farmers, and onesawmill, in which the logs of the native timber weresawed into lumber. The latter offered the greatexcitement of sitting on a log while it slowly ap-proached the buzzing saw which was cutting itinto slabs, and of getting off just in time to escapea sudden and gory death. But the flouring millwas much more beloved. It was full of dusky,floury places which we adored, of empty bins inwhich we might play house; it had a basement, lo TWENTY YEARS AT HULL-HOUSE. Mill at Cedarville. EARLIEST IMPRESSIONS ii with piles of bran and shorts which were almost asgood as sand to play in, whenever the miller letus wet the edges of the pile with water brought inhis sprinkling pot from the mill-race. In addition to these fascinations was the associa-tion of the mill with my fathers activities, for doubt-less at that time I centered upon him all that care-ful imitation which a little girl ordinarily gives toher mothers ways and habits. My mother haddied when I was a baby and my fathers secondmarriage did not occur until my eighth year. I had a consuming ambition to possess a millersthumb, and would sit contentedly for a long timerubbing between my thumb and fingers the groundwheat as it fell from between the millstones, beforeit was taken up on an endless chain of mysteriouslittle buckets to be bolted into flour. I believeI have never since wanted anything more desper-ately than I wanted my right t
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