My father, Arthur H. Keller, was a captain in the Confederate
Army, and my mother, Kate Adams, was his second wife and many
years younger. Her grandfather, Benjamin Adams, married Susanna
E. Goodhue, and lived in Newbury, Massachusetts, for many years.
Their son, Charles Adams, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts,
and moved to Helena, Arkansas. When the Civil War broke out, he
fought on the side of the South and became a brigadier-general.
He married Lucy Helen Everett, who belonged to the same family of
Everetts as Edward Everett and Dr. Edward Everett Hale. After the
war was over the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

I lived, up to the time of the illness that deprived me of my
sight and hearing, in a tiny house consisting of a large square
room and a small one, in which the servant slept. It is a custom
in the South to build a small house near the homestead as an
annex to be used on occasion. Such a house my father built after
the Civil War, and when he married my mother they went to live in
it. It was completely covered with vines, climbing roses and
honeysuckles. From the garden it looked like an arbour. The
little porch was hidden from view by a screen of yellow roses and
Southern smilax. It was the favourite haunt of humming-birds and
bees.

The Keller homestead, where the family lived, was a few steps
from our little rose-bower. It was called "Ivy Green" because the
house and the surrounding trees and fences were covered with
beautiful English ivy. Its old-fashioned garden was the paradise
of my childhood.

Even in the days before my teacher came, I used to feel along the