We had to keep on taking piano lessons, which I didn't mind be- cause I really liked them, and this time we had a kind of funny little man with an accent who'd stand and rock back and forth while we played. He always bowed when he came and when he left and he had a funny pair of glasses on a string which he'd put on his nose, and close his eyes and listen. I don't think he ever looked through them- just listened. Ellen would always rush through her lessons so she could go back outside, but I always tried to have him stay a little longer. He must have told Grandma something because she was always telling me I had talent and she always wanted me to practice. Sometimes she'd want me to play the piano for some of her friends.

Well, pretty soon summer ended and we had to go to school, only Grandma decided I should go to a special academy; she let Ellen go to the public school though.

A couple of times I asked Ellen whether we shouldn't change back. "Anyway," I told her, "Mother and Dad will be home at Christmas- time and then we'll have to—or we'll really be in for it." But she just wouldn't have any part of it. "Are you kidding? In the first place I don't want to—and don't tell me you aren't enjoying yourself running around to little tea parties with Granny's theater friends. Not to men- tion what she'd think of it!" That, of course, was something else. Nevertheless, I thought it was all over when we had to get our physical examinations for entering school (that was because we were from out of state). I was really scared in the doctor's office and not because I was scared of the doctor.

It was real funny though. Later I could understand why: You see this was Boston and Grandma was one of the Old Citizens and when she took us both into the examination room and sat there—well, the closest the doctor came to the truth was when he put a stethoscope on our chests to listen to our hearts- -on the outside of our clothes.

So Ellen went to school as boy-and I guess she must have had a ball from the way she came home. I never got that dirty—when I was boy.

Grandma sent me to this academy for young ladies. Which is just another name for a private school. We still had lessons and homework, but we had a few other things too. I had several hours a day of piano lessons now and I even started taking ballet lessons. That was an awful lot of fun, but I sure felt clumsy for a long time. Ellen used to make

36