Judith Lynn

"But you must begin right at the beginning, with me--at the time when my little daughter was a year old, when the time came for her to learn to walk. That is where my story begins."

"And mine ends. Go on."

"Well, you can see how I must have watched and waited and planned."

"Oh, yes, and planned--I planned."

"You poor dear!" Another tiny silence-space, while hand crept to hand again, Judith was sure. Then the story went on.

"You say I ought to have known. Everybody says I ought to have. They knew, they say, and I was the baby's mother. The baby's mother ought to have known. But that was just why. I was her mother--I wouldn't know. I kept putting it off. 'Wait,' I kept saying to myself. 'She isn't old enough to walk yet; when she is old enough, she will walk. Can't you wait?' And I waited. When they did not any of them know, I kept trying to stand her on her poor little legs--I wouldn't stop trying. When she was fifteen months--sixt