“I am monarch of all I survey,” I usually began with--the place really belonged to me. The old farmer who came after his cows every night thought he owned the land, but I knew and the old tree knew who was the real owner. For years, as a child and a girl, I kept tryst with this tree; and for years only the cows and I knew just where it was that I went when I stole away “to the willows,” for I guarded the exact spot jealously. Often in going past it with others, I have feigned indifference, lest someone note its natural seat. I wanted it all to myself. I used to feel uneasy when I had to climb down, about supper-time; for the cows, eager for their own supper, came near the bars and insisted on coming close to me. Although my heart beat wildly at their approach, I would try to brave it out and look them down as I had heard one should do. On they always came, bland and peaceable. Facing them as long as I could, ashamed to show fright, even to cows, I finally had to cut and run, and then how chagrined I felt! Once in running from them, in my hurry to get under the fence, I flung my book ahead of me, and it went into the creek--my beloved Cathcart’s Literary Reader! To this day its stained leaves and warped cover remind me of the fright I got from the harmless, curious cows. “Oh, aren’t they cute, they must be twins,” was a remark Sister and I often heard, long before we knew what twins really meant. Mother would follow such remarks with, “No, there’s eighteen months’ difference between them.” We thought “twins” must be something pretty nice, and learned to feel the disappointment that we saw on the faces of strangers when Mother set them right. Once at camp-meeting we were playing together, when some ladies stopped us asking, “Little girls, are you twins?” Mother was not near. Kate and I looked at each other and knew that our time had come to be twins. With one accord we nodded yes, and had some few minutes of unalloyed pleasure. Days later, while playing in our tent door, the same lady and another passed. Pausing and noting us as we sat with our big wax dolls (they, too, dressed just alike) the one lady told the other that we were twins. “Oh, no, there’s eighteen months’ difference between them,” said Mother, sitting near. “But they told me they were twins,” insisted the lady. We were covered with confusion; tears, chidings, shame, and repentance followed. Though I am not sure whether at that time we knew what twins really meant, still we knew very well that we were not twins.