I WAS NEARLY thirteen years old and my desire for a hoopskirt hadn't dimmed. Every time I went with Mammy Sally to Cheapside, the marketplace that served Fayette County, and saw the ladies in their hoopskirts, I felt a stab of envy.

To wear a hoopskirt meant you were grown, and I wanted—more than to eat—to be grown like my sisters Elizabeth and Frances.

I didn't envy their lives. They'd had no more than five years of education each. I didn't want to stop learning after only five years. I wanted to go on with my education.

They did nothing but sew and make calls and ride in the barouche with Nelson driving them. And attend lectures, shop, and go to the university to listen to their dance partners' orations. If not that, it was cotillions and latenight suppers where they dined on Maryland oysters, Spanish pickles, and imported herring.

I did envy their slim waists, their bosoms, the way their hoopskirts swung when they walked.

By now Elizabeth was being courted by Ninian Edwards. He was first in his class at Transylvania Law School. His father was governor of Illinois. I considered him a snob, but I had to be nice to him because Elizabeth had told me that after she wed him they would move to Springfield, Illinois, and she would have first Frances come and live with them, and then me. After I had been introduced to Lexington society and taken my place in the social world, of course.

I didn't want to enter the social world just yet, though Elizabeth often reminded me how much my dancing lessons would help, as well as the way I carried myself. And how, being the younger sister of Elizabeth Todd mattered. "I am at the center of the social whirl," she reminded me. "To be a Todd and my younger sister is to carry a full dance card into that whirl when your time comes."

It would soon be necessary to move out of the house as far as I could see. Betsy Todd had had three children in four years and the house on Short Street was getting crowded. The first, Robert, died as a baby.

But before I moved out I wanted that hoopskirt.

FORTUNATELY LIZ HUMPHREYS wanted one as badly as I did. So one day we decided just to make our own hoopskirts, without the help of anyone. I didn't want to drag Grandma into it, because no doubt it would bring trouble down on our heads when Betsy found out, and things weren't so good between her and Grandma Parker as they should have been in the first place.

"First, what will we make them from?" Liz asked. "We don't have any whalebone, and I don't see any whales available around Lexington anyway."

"Willow reeds," I said. "I've been thinking of it a long time. And I know just where to get them."

If, I told myself, Grandmother Jane could make a wedding dress out of weeds and wild flax, why couldn't I make a hoop out of willow reeds? I'd show Betsy Todd what it took to be a true lady. She wouldn't bad-mouth the Todd name when I got through.

Liz and I spent an afternoon at a nearby stream picking the willow reeds. Then we laid them out in the sun to dry. The whole business took time because we were still in school and were pretty much watched when at home, except for an hour or two before dinner when we had free playtime.

I prided myself on always being interested in dressmaking anyway. And so, with Liz watching, I carefully constructed a wide and billowing hoop over which to stretch my good Sunday muslin dresses. Then Liz and I made hers, and we smuggled them up into the house and into the cellar. Betsy never went into the cellar. She was afraid of it. And anyway, she was in a "delicate" condition again, expecting another baby, and so avoided stairs.

On Sunday morning we both put on our good muslin dresses and went down to breakfast. I could scarce eat for excitement, and I saw Liz picking at her food, too. Under the table she kicked me and giggled.

"What's wrong with you two?" Betsy asked. "Behave. It's the Lord's day."

"Behave, Mary," my pa repeated.

Over Pa's head, Mammy Sally looked at me knowingly and shook her head, then continued to pour seconds of coffee around the table.

Finally the meal was finished and we were dismissed to get ready for church. We went to McChord's Presbyterian Church, where most of Lexington's elite went.

Liz and I left the dining room and repaired directly to the cellar, where we struggled into our hoopskirts, then swayed and giggled as we made our way up the stairs and sought out Betsy in the front parlor where she was adjusting Ann's bonnet. She herself would not go to church. She was too near her "time."

The look on her face was worth a thousand words. It was priceless. "What?" she demanded.

"We made our own hoopskirts," I said. "Aren't you proud of us?"

She wasn't.

"What frights you are," she said. "Get those awful things off, dress yourselves properly, and go to church. I'll not have you disgracing the Todd name or your dear father."

Tears choked my throat. I held them back. Liz didn't. She cried openly and loudly.

"This instant," Betsy demanded. "Before I tell your father. Honestly, Mary, I had no idea you would go to such lengths to disgrace and upset me. Go, I said. Before your father sees you."

But it was too late. Pa appeared in the doorway. "What's all the commotion?" He didn't express surprise at the way we looked. He seemed to take it for granted.

I did a little curtsy. "Look at my new hoopskirt, Pa."

Well, he couldn't see the hoop, of course. All he could see was the muslin dress all puffed out. "You look nice, both of you," he said. "Now what's going on? Mary, are you upsetting Betsy again?"

"She isn't supposed to be wearing a hoopskirt," Betsy told him firmly. "She is too young and she knows it. I didn't buy it for her. She made it. And Liz's."

"Made it?" He seemed surprised.

"Yes, Pa. Like Grandmother Jane made her wedding dress. Grandma told me all about that."

He lowered his gaze. Was he smiling? Was he proud of me? Dare he tell Betsy?

"If your mother told you you can't have one, then you disobeyed her," he said. "And so you'll have to stay away from Grandma Parker for the next month."

"Pa!" I wailed.

Now he scowled. "No mouth," he ordered. "Now go take it off."

We went. Betsy personally destroyed our hoopskirts and burned the willow reeds. But I know that I could be like Grandmother Jane if I had to be. And I know Pa was proud of me.