Note 65 — Chapter Thirty-nine

... nor was Dave an exception. Mother reacted toward Dora, even back in her childhood, precisely as she had reacted to all of her “in-laws,” Sam, Rita, and Winslow. A dear, darling kind of jealousy of these pirate persons who came to carry off her children. There came a time, of course, when Mother would laughingly relate all this to Dora. Her jealousy of the little girl in pigtails, even back in the days when she had watched the squirmy form of her son, his blue-denim trousers-seats usually patched, wriggling through the hedge. Her prophetic awareness of these two, long before the boy and the girl had yet come into their rapture! I always say of Mother, she knew about Winslow and me before I had ever even clapped eyes on him. Oh, my dear Mother, sometimes, when I think back, it seems I must tear away this veil that divides you in your hereafter from me, and make up to you in sweetness what I fear me I may have failed in during your life....