Then we walked into the outer halls, and I saw some beautiful pictures of Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, in Charlottesville, Virginia, in a Viewmaster slide machine. I just had to have it because there are all kinds of pictures you could look at in it. I wanted it so very, very much.

I opened up my little green money purse, and I took out the money to buy it. Mommy bought the slides for me. After that, we looked often at the Jefferson Memorial and other Viewmaster picture stories.

I had a nice little collection of slides after a while. It was a wonderful education for children. The pictures looked so real, and the machine was small and easy to use.

One day, Mommy stopped at a seafood stand on the road to Annapolis. It was not far from Granddaddy's office in South Baltimore.

Sometimes we could ride as far as the Baltimore & Ohio Camden Station on Bus #22. That was near 122 West Lee Street where Grandaddy had his office. The #10 trackless trolley went all the way downtown too.

One day not long ago, Mommy drove there, again, to the seafood stand. Mommy saw a man come out in the cold.

She thought he was one of the owners. She spoke very gaily to him and asked him how he was.

I guess he was surprised, for he had just finished eating six Ocean Cove oysters, and he was a customer like Mommy.

But he liked her being friendly like that, and he said, "I always stop here when I come from Virginia. They have the best oysters."

Mommy didn't say anything about thinking he was going to wait on her, and she said, when he asked her how she fixed the jumbo shrimp she bought, "Oh, I split them down the back after I take off the shell and fry them in butter."

He said, "Don't you like to cook them in egg and cracker meal?"

Mommy said, "Sometimes." She thought he was a very kind man, and she said, "Do you always buy seafood here?"

He said, "I'm a captain with the National Bulk, a federal line, and I like to buy the shrimp here. We get oysters that are just as good in Virginia."

"What part of Virginia?" asked Mommy. "I don't know much about Virginia, but my grandfather settled a colony there somewhere, when he came from Europe."

"Oh, I'm from one of the early settlers' families. I own a royal grant of land in Gloucester County," he said. "I'm related to George Washington and to the Queen of England."

Mommy perked up her ears and said, "Oh, that's very, very interesting. Will you tell me all about it?"

"I will be very happy to," he said.

"My name is Captain Deal. I am descended from John Robins who came in 1642 to Gloucester, Virginia. He was first cousin to Augustine Warner. Margaret Smith was related to Augustine Warner's family. Margaret Smith married the 13^th Earl of Strathhaven in Scotland. The family name was Bowes-Lyon and that is Queen Elizabeth's family.

"Augustine Warner was the great grandfather of George Washington. Margaret Smith was the daughter of John Smith of Purton in Gloucester County, which first became a county in 1650. It is north of the York River in Virginia. This river was named after the Duke of York. It was known earlier as the Charles River, after King Charles II. The county was then called Charles River County. Gloucester County was the first county established north of the York River in Virginia. The colony was settled by the English.

"Mildred Warner, the daughter of Augustine Warner, was the great-grandmother of George Washington. Queen Elizabeth is also as closely related to Robert E. Lee as any person who was not directly descended from him. She is as closely related to George Washington as any living relative other than those descended from his brother's children.

"George Washington didn't leave any direct heirs. Robert E. Lee left direct descendents. Lee was the husband of George Washington's step-granddaughter.

"The estates of Warner and of Robins are taken care of by the Society for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

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