Lawrence just stuck it out that he hated Cousin Parnelia and he wouldn’t give a bit.  But he was so little that he only had thirty cents or something like that in a tin bank, so it didn’t matter.  When we put it all together it wasn’t nearly enough of course, and we took the rest out of our own little family savings-bank rainy-day savings and bought the tiny house and lot.  Father wanted to ‘surprise’ Cousin Parnelia with the deed.  He wanted to lay it under some flowers in a basket, or slip it into her pocket, or send it to her with some eggs or something.  But Mother—­it was so like her!—­the first time Cousin Parnelia happened to come to the house, Mother picked up the deed from her desk and said offhand, ‘Oh, Parnelia, we bought the little Garens house for you,’ and handed her the paper, and 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.