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At the age of eighty Aunt Sarah was a good hand with an ax. As a little boy I have watched her go into the woodshed, take off her shawl and poke bonnet and mittens, and cut short sticks for the parlor fireplace. At such times she used to regale me with an anecdote. Years ago when she was there in the woodshed splitting logs, the ax slipped and cut a deep gash just above her knee. She walked to the house, got out her oval sewing basket, threaded a needle with her best white silk thread, and sewed up the wound herself.

"Yes, yes," said Aunt Sarah, "it was the only thing to do. Who else was there to do it?"

A great many adults seem to forget how easily they accepted things when they were young, when, from the distance of their maturer years, they pity small children who must face a series of adjustments. Usually they are entirely wrong, at least according to my experience, for childhood seems capable of adapting itself to nearly any situation that does not entail fear or physical suffering. Thus when my parents died and when I was sent to Wickford Point to live with my great-aunt Sarah and her niece, my cousin Sue, it all seemed natural by the time a year was over.