She talked most of all with Mrs. Catlin, the woman who did fine needlework and used to make my grandfather’s shirts. She was a caretaker in one of the great big houses in Ormonde Terrace, and she used to look so young and innocent that everybody called her the “little woman,” when she wasn’t there. When she had finished some work she used to bring it round in the evening after her babies were in bed, and then she’d stand near the dresser and talk, but she never sat down round the table with the others. She was rather plump and she always looked pink and clean as though she’d come straight out of a bath. She had nice fluffy hair and blue eyes, and her nose turned up just a little at the end, but gently and not suddenly like Tommy Haughty’s mother’s. She talked a good deal too, but she had a pretty tinkling voice. She said when you’d been shut up in a great big barracks of a place the whole day long you simply must let loose or burst. Sometimes she and the charwoman talked both at once for a long time. They seemed not to hear at all what the others said, but it made no difference. Cook said it was like pandemonium in a hailstorm when those two get together. From _Chapters from Childhood_ by Juliet Soskice. Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REMINISCENT NARRATIVE The editors have found these additional selections very useful in teaching reminiscent narrative: Adams, Henry. _The Education of Henry Adams_, the early chapters. Houghton Mifflin Company. Burroughs, John. _My Boyhood._ Doubleday, Page & Company. Hudson, W. H. _Far Away and Long Ago._ E. P. Dutton & Company. Lubbock, Percy. _Earlham_, particularly the early chapters. Charles Scribner’s Sons. Muir, John. _The Story of My Boyhood and Youth._ Houghton Mifflin Company. Pater, Walter. _The Child in the House._ CHAPTER IX _Narratives of Adventure_ Of all forms of narrative the account of adventure is, it is safe to say, the very oldest. It dates back, indeed, to the childhood of all races. Not only was it written on Egyptian papyrus four thousand years before Christ, but it was told and sung around camp and council fires long before written history begins. Nor has its popularity decreased with age and with the advance of civilization. Young and old alike still delight in accounts of physical prowess, in stories of danger and disaster, in tales of experiences in far-away places and among unfamiliar peoples. Boy scouts reluctantly leave their camp-fires to dream of hunting and trapping in the far north or in the African jungle; college students swap adventures upon their return in the fall; and the Arctic explorer speaks to houses crowded with all sorts and conditions of men.