The photographer went behind the great, awkward machine which he called a camera and covered up his head and part of the camera, with what looked to Anna like a tablecloth. She almost laughed, and the photographer, who was looking through the camera, told her almost sharply not to smile so much because it made her open her mouth.
"Say 'Flip' to make your mouth small and get it into shape again," he directed.
Anna said "Flip," anxious at the same time to try "Flop" to see if it would make a large mouth. It was just as well she did not delay matters just then by trying, for only a very little later she actually read in the Boston _Transcript_: "For a small mouth 'Flip,' for a large mouth 'Cabbage.'"
"All ready," said the man at last, after he had taken his head from under the shawl several times to arrange the folds of Anna's skirt, to turn her head a little more, or to straighten her shoulders. Then he slipped the plate for the picture into place in the camera and said, "Now look pleasant."
Anna did her best to do so, but her mouth felt stiff, and she wanted both to wink and to swallow, and, worst of all, her nose itched. It seemed one hundred twenty minutes instead of one hundred twenty seconds to the little girl, but at last the photographer said, "All done."
In those early days of photography the completed picture was the very plate which had been placed in the camera. They did not know then how to print from the plate as photographers do now, and so the plate on which the image was made was developed and "fixed" and then mounted under glass in such little cases as Abigail's. Only one picture could be made at a time, and pictures were consequently expensive.
It did not take long, however, to develop a daguerreotype and mount it. Soon Anna was looking at her own picture. She thought it very good indeed and secretly felt it more elegant than Abigail's, because she was seated and showed the whole figure, and Abigail's was only of head and shoulders.
"Good!" said Anna's father when he saw it. "I didn't believe there was much in this new process of photography, but there is. Monsieur Daguerre and all those who have made improvements on his discovery certainly deserve great honor. This is really a picture of my little girl. If this is Aunt Anna's, then I must have another to keep myself."