small. I can remember when he and I
would go out to a vacant lot that he owned near Indianapolis and I
would sit on the fence and watch him ride and perform circus tricks on
horseback, riding around in a circle. Though his hands were so small
and fair, with rosy palms and delicately pointed fingers, they were
strong hands and capable, for they fashioned the cradle my mother
rocked me in, and the chest of drawers made of maple-wood stained to
imitate mahogany, where she stored my baby linen with those
old-fashioned herbs, ambrosia and sweet basil. Years ago the cradle
was passed on to a neighbor who needed it more than we, but the chest
of drawers is still in use, a sound and very serviceable piece of
furniture, good for several generations more. It was an eventful day
in my childhood when, perched on a high chair, I was allowed to
explore the mysteries of the top drawer and hold in my own hands the
trinkets, ear-rings, brooches, and fine laces worn by my mother in her
youth, but now laid aside as useless in this new, strange, and busy
life of the backwoods. There, too, were pieces of my maternal
grandmother's (Kitty Weaver's) gowns, satin that shimmered and changed
from purple to gold, 'stiff enough,' as my mother said, 'to stand
alone,' and my great-grandfather Miller's tortoise-shell snuff-box
containing a tonquin bean that had not yet lost its peculiar
fragrance.

"While I gazed reverently on these treasures, the tale of Kitty
Weaver's death, which I already knew by heart, was told me once again.
She was a beauty and loved gaiety, and got her death by going to a
ball in thin slippers. I supposed, in my childish ignorance, that this
radiant creature went about all day long in shining silks that stood
alone, and never by any chance wore other than red satin slippers. My
paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Miller, sniffed a little at my
enthusiasm, and averred that she, too, in her time, had worn silks
that stood alone and slippers of a much smaller size than those of
Kitty Weaver. But when I looked at my grandmother, with her high
hooked nose, her large black-browed blue eyes, as keen as swords, the
haughty outline of her curved lips, her massive shoulders and deep
chest, her domineering expression, and listened to her imperious
voice, doubts assailed me. I could believe that she had led an army of
amazons in cuirass and buckler, but my imagination refused to picture
her in a silken train smiling at gallants from behind