BY THE END OF SUMMER the cholera was past and we who were boarding at Mentelle's were allowed to move our things into our rooms. Pa sent Nelson to accompany me with my baggage and Mama's gold and white ladies' desk in the wagon. Nelson was to carry everything upstairs.

The moving took near all day, and when I got home, the first thing I did was go up to the attic to get the clothes from Ma that Pa said I could have.

They would be kept at Grandma Parker's. She had agreed to it.

I went across the attic room to open the blanket. The clothes were not there! They were gone.

I stood stunned for a minute, thinking. Where had they gone? Had Nelson brought them to Grandma Parker's? I held the empty blanket in my hand, wondering.

Had Ann or Frances become interested in them after all?

And then I was struck with fear. Betsy! And I knew where the clothing had disappeared to.

I went downstairs on shaky legs. I heard her in the kitchen, talking to Mammy Sally about supper.

She saw me standing in the doorway. "So, you're home. How did the moving go? Did you get your room in order?"

I had the empty blanket in my hands. She saw it but said nothing.

"Where is my mama's clothing that was in the corner of the attic in this blanket?" I asked.

"Heavens, Mary, you wanted that old stuff?"

"Where is it?"

"Some strolling players came through today. I gave it to them."

"You gave away my mama's blue taffeta dress? Her lace collars? Her black fringed shawl from New Orleans?"

"Well, it was all old and moth-eaten. What could you possibly want with it?"

"That was for me to decide!" I was crying. Tears were coming down my face. "Pa said I could have it. Nobody else wanted it. Grandma Parker was going to keep it for me."

I was full of rage. And her becalmed manner enraged me more. She had done it to spite me, I was sure of it.

"The attic had to be cleaned out." She raised her voice just a bit. "We're moving."

"I know you're moving. To your fancy new house on Main Street. With all the big new rooms and the red damask curtains and the Belgian carpets. It's all you talk about. All you care about."

She turned on me. "Don't you think, Mary Todd, that I deserve a big new house? Don't you ever think how difficult it's been here with all these children in such close quarters? Don't you ever think of anybody but yourself?"

I turned to run and bumped into Pa.

"What's this?" He put his hands on my shoulders to stop me.

"She threw out Ma's clothes. The ones you said I could have. She gave them away!"

"Don't call your stepmother 'she,' Mary. Show some respect."

Respect! I glared up at him. "Don't you care? I wanted to save those clothes. They were all I had left of Ma."

"You have the desk," Betsy put in.

"Yes, and I aim to keep it away from you," I told her.

"Enough, Mary," Pa said.

I ran. As I ran up the stairs to my room I heard Pa asking, "What is wrong with that child?"

"I don't know, Robert, but you'd better rush right out and buy her ten yards of yellow muslin or a new bonnet or some new kid gloves. It's the only way she'll come 'round," Betsy said sarcastically.

THERE IS A HOLE inside me because of the loss of Mama's clothing, a hole I have never been able to fill. I dream, at night, of crossing that attic room and opening the blanket to find nothing. And searching and searching all over the room, with panic inside me, hoping to find it in some deserted corner.

I see her blue taffeta dress, her lace collars, her black shawl, her tea-colored lace blouse. I hold them up in my dreams at night and they disappear in my hands.