A few days later, I was helping G-pa with some repair work in the barn. It was awkward for me to use a hammer with my bandaged left hand (I'm left handed) and banged my right thumb a good one with the hammer. In spite of my determination not to cry, the tears came. I didn't go near G-ma for help, though, until I was able to stop crying. The next day, I bumped my thumb going out the door and screamed at the sudden flash of pain. My scream startled G-ma so badly she dropped a bowlful of potatoes she was carrying. She glared at me and then did something that shocked me terribly. She grabbed my sore thumb and squeezed it until I cried. Upstairs we went. Again the agony and humiliation of dressing in girl's clothes. I stayed in my room the rest of the day, read- ing and just looking out the window. Occasionally, I would look down at the dress I had on and blink away tears of mortification. Towards evening, I changed clothes, did my chores and went to supper. All dur- ing the meal, G-ma kept calling me a sissy, a girl-boy, a nothing—once in awhile she even called me ‘Betsy'—a name I've hated to this day. I was dreadfully embarrassed, but a ten year old with two sore hands couldn't put up much of a fight, so I took her abuse silently, and with renewed determination that crying was, after all, for girls and not for me.

My hands healed and for a few weeks everything went smoothly with G-ma and me. G-pa had made me a slingshot and I was becoming pretty darned good with it. I would shoot at anything in sight—and when the cats saw me coming, they scurried for cover. One day as I was crossing the barnyard one of G-ma's chickens wandered into the yard. I shot- and hit-it, neatly severing one of it's legs. I quickly killed it and ran behind the barn to bury it. G-ma, though, had heard the squawking and found me in the act of burying it. She flew into a rage, slapped me a couple of times and when I started crying (more from hurting the chicken than from the slap), she marched me off to the bedroom again. This time, though, she just said "You know what to do", and went to clean the chicken so she could fry it for supper. I didn't eat any of it.

I knew what I had to do, so I picked out the first panties and slip I found in the dresser drawer. When I opened the closet door and saw all those dresses hanging there, a feeling I couldn't describe but will never forget came over me. Suddenly, I didn't hate them anymore. I guess, actually, this was the moment when I really became a TV. I could hardly breathe and yet I was shivering with excitement as I took off my own clothes and hurriedly put on the panties and slip. The feel of them next to my skin made me blush, but not from embarrassment this time. I slipped the dress over my head and buttoned it up. I looked at the shoes lined up in Sis's closet and wondered if they would fit me. I tried one on

5