“Wicked?” she said, in her way of soft surprise. “I didn’t know you knew such a word.” “It’s a word you learn at Sunday school,” I explained importantly. “Come over here and tell me about it,” she invited, and led the way toward the Eating Apple tree. And she sat down in the swing! Of course whatever difference of condition exists between your grandmother and yourself vanishes when she sits down casually in your swing. My Grandmother Beers was a little woman, whose years, in England, in “New York state,” and in her adopted Middle West, had brought her only peace within, though much had beset her from without. She loved Four-o’clocks, and royal purple. When she said “royal purple,” it was as if the words were queens. She was among the few who sympathized with my longing to own a blue or red or green jar from a drug store window. We had first understood each other in a matter of window-sill food: This would be a crust, or a bit of baked apple, or a cracker which I used to lay behind the dining-room window-shutter--the closed one. For in the house at evening it was warm and light and Just-had-your-supper, while outside it was dark and damp and big, and I conceived that it must be lonely and hungry. The Dark was like a great helpless something, filling the air and not wanting particularly to be there. Surely It would much rather be light, with voices and three meals, than the Dark, with nobody and no food. So I used to set out a little offering, and once my Grandmother Beers had caught me paying tribute. “Once something _did_ come and get it,” I defended myself over my shoulder, and before she could say a word. “Likely enough, likely enough, child,” she assented, and did not chide me. Neither did she chide me when once she surprised me into mentioning the Little Things, who had the use of my playthings when I was not there. It was one dusk when she had come upon me setting my toy cupboard to rights, and had commended me. And I had explained that it was so the Little Things could find the toys when they came, that night and every night, to play with them. I remember that all she did was to squeeze my hand; but I felt that I was wholly understood.