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Rachel, also puzzled.
    â€œNo, no, no.” Miss Tilly flapped her hand. “It was the hundredth anniversary of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse and the restoration of the Union.”
    â€œThe end of the Civil War,” said Lucy, wondering why the citizens of Tinker’s Cove had felt it was something worthy of celebration one hundred years after the fact. Nobody was then alive who had fought in the war; by then it had become little more than a chapter in a history book.
    â€œThe town went all out,” said Miss Tilley, smiling at the memory. “We had a big parade and a pageant on the Village Green. Sherman wrote the pageant, you know. He included the part about my grandfather, the hero of Portland, and he insisted that I play Barbara Frietchie.”
    â€œBarbara Frietchie?” asked Rachel.
    â€œYou know,” prompted Lucy, who had majored in American lit. “In the poem. By Whittier.”
    â€œâ€˜Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare my country’s flag, she said,’ ” quoted Miss Tilley, repeating her line. The twinkling shoes rather spoiled the effect. “I was gray, then, of course, and the part just came naturally to me. If Stonewall Jackson had marched into Tinker’s Cove and told me to lower Old Glory from the pole in front of Broadbrooks Free Library, well, I would have done just as Barbara Frietchie did!”
    â€œI don’t doubt it,” said Lucy, scribbling it all down in her notebook. This was great stuff for the profile she was going to write for The Pennysaver. Maybe they could even use it for the Norah! show. “What else do you remember?” inquired Lucy, posing one of the questions on the fax. “What’s your earliest memory?”
    â€œMy earliest memory,” mused Miss Tilley. “I guess my sister, Harriet. With a big white bow on her head, pulling me along in a little wagon.” Her eyes had a faraway look; then she frowned. “She wouldn’t go fast enough. She said I’d fall out, because I was just a baby.”
    â€œI didn’t know you had a sister,” exclaimed Rachel. “Was she much older than you?”
    â€œTen years.” A shadow fell across Miss Tilley’s face. “She died.”
    â€œHow sad,” murmured Lucy, wondering if Harriet had died from some dreadful childhood scourge, diptheria or rubella, now hardly remembered except as the name of a vaccine. It occurred to her that in her ninety years of life Miss Tilley had witnessed most of the major advances that had taken place during the twentieth century. “Life has certainly changed since you were a little girl, hasn’t it? I mean, was there electric light when you were a girl? Indoor plumbing? Cars?”
    â€œWe had indoor plumbing—there was a pump in the kitchen. Electricity and the telephone came around the same time. We had one of the first telephones. And dear Papa had the first motorcar in Tinker’s Cove. A Ford.”
    â€œThat must have created a sensation,” guessed Lucy.
    â€œOh, it did.” Miss Tilley chuckled at the memory. “Used to scare the horses something awful.”
    â€œIt must have been rather uncommon for women to go to college back then,” began Lucy, posing another question from the fax. “How did that come about?”
    Miss Tilley sighed. “Well, Papa didn’t want his daughters to have to depend on a man for their supper.” Her head drooped momentarily, but she raised it to continue. The words came out slowly, with effort. “That’s exactly how he put it.”
    Rachel caught Lucy’s eye, signaling that it was time to wrap up the interview.
    Lucy held out her arm, checking her watch. “Oh, dear, I hadn’t realized it was so late. I’d better be going.”
    Miss Tilley snapped out of her doze and shifted in her chair. The shoes twinkled furiously. “That’s right. I mustn’t keep