Title:  That Old-Time Child, Roberta

Author:  Sophie Fox Sea

Release Date:  February 5, 2005 [eBook #14897]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ISO-646-us (us-ASCII)

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THAT OLD-TIME CHILD, ROBERTA

Her Home-Life on the Farm

by

SOPHIE FOX SEA

Louisville
Printed by John P. Morton and Company

1892

[Illustration:  “Must I look so when I die?  Boo-oo!” “I’ll cross my heart, Lil Missus, ’twuz dem drefful men dat sed ‘Boo-oo!’”]

To my revered and beloved friend,
Mrs. Preston Pope,
I dedicate this child’s story.  It was she whose love of
children first suggested it, and whose words of
kind appreciation and encouragement have
been to me “As apples of gold in
pictures of silver.”

Roberta Marsden, or Lil Missus, as the negroes called her, for the opening of my story dates back several years before the Civil War began, lived on a country place in Kentucky.  She was a beautiful child, and despite a few foibles that all flesh is heir to, such a really lovable one that she was fairly worshiped by mother, aunt and uncle, and every one of the negroes, from old Caleb, the testy and ancient coachman, to the veriest pickaninny, who thought it a great feat to catch hold with grimy fingers to the fluttering strings of the little girl’s white apron when she came among them at Christmas and on other occasions to distribute sweets and more substantial tokens.

It was a great wonder that the child was not utterly spoiled.  But it seemed that her nature reflected the love lavished on her as a mirror the face that looks into it.