When I awoke, it was afternoon. I was lying in a little room, scarcely
larger than the bed that held me, and the window-shade at my head was
flapping softly in a warm wind. A tall woman, with wrinkled brown skin
and black hair, stood looking down at me; I knew that she must be my
grandmother. She had been crying, I could see, but when I opened my eyes
she smiled, peered at me anxiously, and sat down on the foot of my bed.

'Had a good sleep, Jimmy?' she asked briskly. Then in a very different
tone she said, as if to herself, 'My, how you do look like your father!'
I remembered that my father had been her little boy; she must often
have come to wake him like this when he overslept. 'Here are your clean
clothes,' she went on, stroking my coverlid with her brown hand as she
talked. 'But first you come down to the kitchen with me, and have a nice
warm bath behind the stove. Bring your things; there's nobody about.'

'Down to the kitchen' struck me as curious; it was always 'out in the
kitchen' at home. I picked up my shoes and stockings and followed her
through the living-room and down a flight of stairs into a basement.
This basement was divided into a dining-room at the right of the
stairs and a kitchen at the left. Both rooms were plastered and
whitewashed--the plaster laid directly upon the earth walls, as it used
to be in dugouts. The floor was of hard cement. Up under the wooden
ceiling there were little half-windows with white curtains, and pots of
geraniums and wandering Jew in the deep sills. As I entered the kitchen,
I sniffed a pleasant smell of gingerbread baking. The stove was very
large, with bright nickel trimmings, and behind it there was a long
wooden bench against the wall, and a tin washtub, into which grandmother
poured hot and cold water. When she brought the soap and towels, I told
her that I was used to taking my bath without help. 'Can you do your
ears, Jimmy? Are you sure? Well, now, I call you a right smart little
boy.'

It was pleasant there in the kitchen. The sun shone into my bath-water
through the west half-window, and a big Maltese cat came up and rubbed
himself against the tub, watching me curiously. While I scrubbed, my
grandmother busied herself in the dining-room until I called anxiously,
'Grandmother, I'm afraid the cakes are burning!' Then she came laughing,
waving her apron before her as if she were shooing chickens.

She was a spare, tall woman, a little stooped, and she was apt t