Margaret Ogilvy

On the day I was born we bought six hair-bottomed chairs, and in our little house it was anevent, the first great victory in a woman's long campaign; how they had been laboured for,the pound-note and the thirty threepenny-bits they cost, what anxiety there was about thepurchase, the show they made in possession of the west room, my father's unnaturalcoolness when he brought them in (but his face was white)--I so often heard the taleafterwards, and shared as boy and man in so many...
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On the day I was born we bought six hair-bottomed chairs, and in our little house it was anevent, the first great victory in a woman's long campaign; how they had been laboured for,the pound-note and the thirty threepenny-bits they cost, what anxiety there was about thepurchase, the show they made in possession of the west room, my father's unnaturalcoolness when he brought them in (but his face was white)--I so often heard the taleafterwards, and shared as boy and man in so many similar triumphs, that the coming of thechairs seems to be something I remember, as if I had jumped out of bed on that first day,and run ben to see how they looked. I am sure my mother's feet were ettling to be ben longbefore they could be trusted, and that the moment after she was left alone with me she wasdiscovered barefooted in the west room, doctoring a scar (which she had been the first todetect) on one of the chairs, or sitting on them regally, or withdrawing and re-opening thedoor suddenly to take the six by surprise. And then, I think, a shawl was flung over her (itis strange to me to think it was not I who ran after her with the shawl), and she wasescorted sternly back to bed and reminded that she had promised not to budge, to whichher reply was probably that she had been gone but an instant, and the implication thattherefore she had not been gone at all. Thus was one little bit of her revealed to me at once:I wonder if I took note of it. Neighbours came in to see the boy and the chairs. I wonder ifshe deceived me when she affected to think that there were others like us, or whether I sawthrough her from the first, she was so easily seen through. When she seemed to agree withthem that it would be impossible to give me a college education, was I so easily taken in, ordid I know already what ambitions burned behind that dear face? when they spoke of thechairs as the goal quickly reached, was I such a newcomer that her timid lips must say'They are but a beginning' before I heard the words? And when we were left together, did Ilaugh at the great things that were in her mind, or had she to whisper them to me first, andthen did I put my arm round her and tell her that I would help? Thus it was for such a longtime: it is strange to me to feel that it was not so from the beginning.