It is I, Patricia : An Artist's Childhood

It was arranged, then, that the organist, being more per- manent, should live in the main part of the parsonage, the minister in the upstairs apartment and the custodian in the basement. [...] A big pendulum clock outside his shop at the corner of Union and Coburg Streets was known as “Martin’s Time” and the shop itself was said to have the finest mahoga ny counters, the finest of everything this side of Boston. [...] I was to say “It is I,” not “It’s me,” and if I made a mistake he would say “No, no.” I must al- ways re mem ber the “ings,” to say “singing” not “singin’.” In the back of a garage where he kept his car he built a stage for me to sing and recite from, and to direct my friends in little plays, all of us speaking correctly. [...] I’m good at that.” So when I got there I didn’t make a fuss right away but I looked at the doll and I said to my great-aunt “This is the ugliest doll I ever saw in my life and I will never play with it.” I never did. [...] I knew what death was because my dog had fallen in the creek and suffocated in the red mud that was there until the tidal bore came up, a very dangerous place.