I had lung fever when I was a baby. That was what they called it then. I
nearly died of it. It left me very frail in body.

* * * * *

As soon as I could walk and talk my mother made a great companion of me.
She didn't treat me as if I were only a child. She treated me like a
grown-up companion. I am told that I would follow her about the house
from room to room, clutching at her skirts, while she was dusting and
sweeping and working. And to hear us two talking with each other, you
would have imagined there was a houseful of people.

* * * * *

My father's anguish over my mother's death caused him to break loose
from all ties. His grief goaded him so that he went about aimlessly. He
roamed from state to state, haunted by her memory. He worked at all
sorts of jobs. Once he even dug ditches for seventy-five cents a day. He
had all sorts of adventures, roaming about.

As for me, I was left alone with my grandmother, his mother,--in the big
house which stood back under the trees, aloof from the wide, dusty road
that led to the mills.

With us lived my young, unmarried aunt, Millie....

My grandmother had no education. She could barely read and write.

And she believed in everybody.