And while I rolled the dough, I always chewed bubble gum. When I wasn't chewing bubble gum, I was chewing on a balloon that I blew up every once in a while. I loved balloons and chewing gum. I liked Dentyne, and I also liked using pretty toothpicks to play with.

One day I was outside. I saw Mommy standing at the door, laughing and laughing. I was skipping and while I skipped, my hat was falling back on my head and a balloon was hanging from my mouth. She thought it was funny. She was always watching me and I liked for her to. Every once in a while I blew up the balloon and plucked on it with my fingers.

Ford and I had a pretty good balloon collection but none of them lasted long. When Ford and I got older, we added to our collections. We had stones and rocks and rubber bands and paper clips. Ford had lots of fishing poles. We played with all kinds of objects in our sand piles. Ford always talked about Christopher Robin who was his friend.

I played in my sand-pile in the driveway on the front lawn where it was first. I loved it so much that one day Mommy came home, and I didn't even see her. She stood there watching me a long time, she said. I was wearing a dress she made for me out of a tan and green polka dot dress she sore before I was born. She made me a hat to match that tied under my chin.

I had a gray coat Mommy made out of a grey tweed shirt she had before I was born, and it was trimmed with blue velvet from her wedding dress.

My Grandmommy and Granddaddy sent me clothes and so did my aunts, but Mommy liked the clothes she made for me. They reminded her of when she didn't have me, and then she could think how happy she was to have me. That's what she said.

Mommy and I took walks every day and we talked about God. When I was two years old, my Daddy went in the Navy to be on a ship as an officer in 1944.

We made cookies for him every week, and we sent them to the ship. We were in our little green kitchen so many times, and one day I told Mommy all about God.

I knew all about God because He is my Father, and He always took care of me and of Mommy, too. But I wanted her to know how God really lived far away and knew more than anybody here will ever know. He is the only one who really knows everything. Nobody else can know as much as God. He knows the end of everything in the very beginning. He made the world.

I pointed up to the sky. I told Mommy how great, how wonderful God is. I told her how much we have to love Him because He gives us everything.

I was glad I could talk in long sentences because Mommy understood me. She sat down on the kitchen chair at the curved green corner table, and she was very quiet.

When I went out to play, she was still sitting there. When I came back she was still there. She looked very serious. She looked at me with a strange look. Then she picked me up and loved me and kissed me and hugged me. She couldn't tell me right away. Then she said, "God sent you to me, my baby, and He is letting you teach me."

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