men ... and the man ... you wait till you see him
... you'll like him ... he's such a good provider, Johnnie; he draws a
steady pension of sixty dollars a month from the Government, and he'll
give me a good home."

"But any of my aunts and uncles would do the same."

"Yes, Johnnie, but it ain't the same as having a man of your own around
... there's nothing like that, Johnnie, for a woman."

"But your own children welcome you and treat you well?"

"Oh, yes, Johnnie, my little boy, but in spite of that, I feel in the
way. And, no matter how much they love me, it's better for me to have a
home of my own and a man of my own."

"Besides, Billy loves me so much," she continued, wistfully, "and even
though he's seventy whereas I'm eighty past, he says his being younger
don't make no difference ... and he's always so jolly ... always
laughing and joking."

* * * * *

"We must begin to allow for Granma," Aunt Alice told me, "she's coming
into her second childhood."

* * * * *

Granma believed thoroughly in my aspirations to become a poet. With
great delight she retailed incidents of my childhood, reminding me of a
thousand youthful escapades of which she constituted me the hero,
drawing therefrom auguries of my future greatness.

One of the incidents which alone sticks in my memory:

"Do you 'mind,'" she would say, "how you used to follow Millie about
when she papered the pantry shelves with newspapers with scalloped
edges? and how you would turn the papers and read them, right after her,
as she laid them down, and make her frantic?"

"Yes," I would respond, highly gratified with the anecdote, "and you
would say, Oh, Millie, don't get mad at the little codger, some day he
might turn out to be a great man!'"

* * * * *

Uncle Beck had a fine collection of American Letters. I found a complete
set of Hawthorne and straightway became a moody and sombre Puritan ...
and I wrote in Hawthornian prose, quaint essays and stories. And I lived
in a world of old lace and lavender, of crinoline and brocade.

And then I discovered my uncle's books on gynecology and obstetrics ...
full of guilty fevers I waited until he had gone out on a call and then
slunk into his office to read....

One afternoon my doctor-uncle came suddenly upon me, taking me unaware.

* * * * *

"Johnnie, what are you up to?"