Once I was dressed she ushered me out into the kitchen and instructed me to go and collect eggs from the chicken coops for breakfast. This I did unhesitatingly, we were playing a game of course. I returned half an hour later with a full basket of eggs and a handful of wild flowers, my hair full of small pieces of hay. When my Aunt saw me she scolded me for dawdling and sent me to go get cleaned up.

I found this a bit of a shock, considering the ease and frivolous nature of the past years, but nevertheless I took the hay out of my hair and skipped into the kitchen. Here again my Aunt scolded me, saying it was inappropriate to skip within the house. She bid me lay the table. When I begun to lay it for all four of us she took my hands and crouched down in front of me. “Dana,” she said. “You are only setting the table for two, your Uncle and your Cousin”

I replied with a childs naiveity “But why Aunt Mary?”

“Because they are men sweet one,” she explained. “They take the higher status in the household”