Yet, it just might be possible that they were partial to me on account of the wen, and later on, my paralysis--these factors coupled with the fact that within the last four years along about the time I was born, they had suffered the loss of a two-year-old son, a two-week-old daughter, Mama's favorite brother, Hugh, and Grandpa Johnson. Who can measure the thoughts of loving parents as they view their newborn child for the first time, anxious to know whether he or she is beautiful and healthy and without blemish. And who knows the anxiety of parents who, after seeing their child with blemish, must wonder how his condition will affect his relationship with others, how it will affect his outlook on life, and whether it might grow worse and shorten his days. CHAPTER 4 SOCIAL LIVING; LOVING, LISTENING, LEARNING There were so many little stories unfolding simultaneously that I am going to be unable to keep them all up to date as I go along. While I have been telling about some of our working habits and our little family customs, I find that the story of my love life has been neglected. I must go back a way now and bring some of my social living up to date. Oh, yes! I had a sweetheart. Her name was Gladys, and I must tell you about her. You see, when we moved to the Exum farm, I was a little boy barely five years old. But then, when we had lived there a year and a half, I was no longer just a little kid. I was getting to be a big boy, six and a half and going on seven. And my ears were getting bigger also. I began to hear about sweethearts. Susie was thirteen and was just the very one to explain it to me. She told me once, jokingly, "A sweetheart is a chicken heart baked in molasses." But seriously, what she explained about sweethearts amounted to something like this, "Sweethearts are one boy and one girl about the same age who like each other and like to go together and like to do things together. He is her sweetheart and she is his sweetheart." Now the Flints, who had moved onto our old farm, had a bunch of boys and girls and we all played together. The one I liked best was Gladys. She was just my size, she was six years old, and she and I liked to go play together. So, when I learned what sweethearts were, I knew for a fact that Gladys was my sweetheart because we liked each other and played together. Of course, I didn't tell anyone, not even Gladys. I didn't feel any differently toward her. We just went right on playing together as we had been doing. But I had this newly acquired knowledge that she was my sweetheart. No more than I knew or could understand about it all, I wondered why boys and girls had sweethearts at all. They were just like other boys and girls except they were your own age.