d went to talking about cutworms or
Bordeaux mixture."

Page smiled, appreciative of the picture. "I see her. I see your
mother--Vermont to the core."

"Well, it was only about two weeks after that, I was practising and
Mother was rubbing down a table she was fixing over. Nobody else
happened to be at home. Cousin Parnelia came in, her old battered
black straw hat on one ear as usual. She was all stirred up and
pleased about a new 'method' of using planchette. You know what
planchette is, don't you? The little heart-shaped piece of wood
spiritualists use, with a pencil fast to it, to take down their silly
'messages,' Some spiritualistic fake was visiting town conducting
seances and he claimed he'd discovered some sort of method for
inducing greater receptivity--or something like that. I don't know
anything about spiritualism but little tags I've picked up from
hearing Cousin Parnelia talk. Anyway, he was 'teaching' other mediums
for a big price. And it came out that Cousin Parnelia had mortgaged
the house for more than it was worth, and had used the money to take
those 'lessons.' I couldn't believe it for a minute. When I really
understood what she'd done, I was so angry I felt like smashing
both fists down on the piano keys and howling! I thought of my blue
corduroy I'd given up--I was only fourteen and just crazy about
clothes. Mother was sitting on the floor, scraping away at the
table-leg. She got up, laid down her sandpaper, and asked Cousin
Parnelia if she'd excuse us for a few minutes. Then she took me by
the hand, as though I was a little girl. I felt like one too, I felt
almost frightened by Mother's face, and we both marched out of the
house. She didn't say a word. She took me down to our swimming-hole
in the river. There is a big maple-tree leaning over that. It was a
perfectly breathless autumn day like this, and the tree was shedding
its leaves like that birch, just gently, slowly, steadily letting them
go down into the still water. We sat down on the bank and watched
them. The air was full of them, yet all so quiet, without any hurry.
The water was red with them, they floated down on our shoulders, on
our heads, in our laps--not a sound--so peaceful--so calm--so perfect.
It was like the andante of the Kreutzer.

"I knew what Mother wanted, to get over being angry with Cousin
Parnelia. And she was. I could see it in her face, like somebody in
church. I felt it myself--all over, like an E string that's b