Katie Clifford was a very bright child. She almost knew enough to keep out of fire and water, but not quite. She looked like other little girls, only so wise,-O, so very wise!-that you couldn't tell her any news about the earth, or the sun, moon, and stars, for she knew all about it "byfore."
Her hair was soft and flying like corn-silk, and when the wind took it you would think it meant to blow it off like a dandelion top. She was so light and breezy, and so little for her age, that her father said "they must put a cent in her pocket to keep her from flying away;" so, after that, the family began to call her Flyaway. She thought it was her name, and that when people said "Katie," it was a gentle way they had of scolding.
Everybody petted her. Her brother Horace put his heart right under her feet, and she danced over it. Her "uncle Eddard" said "she drove round the world in a little chariot, and all her friends were harnessed to it, only they didn't know it."
Her shoulders were very little, but they bore a crushing weight of care. From the time she began to talk, she took upon herself the burden of the whole family. When Mrs. Clifford had a headache, Flyaway was so full of pity that nothing could keep her from climbing upon the sufferer, stroking her face, and saying, "O, my dee mamma," or perhaps breaking the camphor bottle over her nose.