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peeked in to see an old black man with tight-curled, snow-white hair hunched over the squeeze-box, an unvarying smile carved into his face, his eyes focused on the floor. Sometimes he closed his eyes as his fingers flew over the buttons and keys.
    Mother walked me around to the rear, on the Kentucky side, where the posters hung. Without hesitation she grasped the edge of the paper bearing one of the sketches and ripped it from the cork. The tacks burst out. She dropped the page over the side into the river. My heart leapt, for in small print on each sign was the instruction: Do not remove.
    I grasped the one from Sweet Clover Farm and mailed it over the side and into the water. I ripped off the poster concerning the Mother and Daughter and would have cast it into the wheel to be churned into bits, but Mother stayed my hand.
    â€œOver the side! It might be bad luck to grind them in the mill.”
    So I cast the heinous advertisement over the side. It curled and rode the water a bit. I was glad when it swamped and sank, its message never again to be read.
    â€œWould I had the nerve to do it,” my mother said, “by light of day.”
    We were both agitated and walked to the prow of the boat so that the breeze might cool our faces. We liked having our backs turned to that infamy. I fancied the boat moved more swiftly against the current as though unburdened not of ounces but of tons and weighty years of guilt. My mother spoke through her teeth: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . In my feet, I felt the vibrations of the heavy, turning wheel, propelling us forward.

CHAPTER 7 : The Paddlewheel
    W HEN MORNING CAME , I felt it still, the rhythmic, powerful turning of the wheel, and I decided to spend part of the day with it.
    Painted a glossy, bright red, the wheel made me think at once of my own heart that beat my blood so that I might have life and movement. The wheel’s red paint was so thick as to look like enamel; the sturdy lathes were slick-armored against the ravages of water-wear. The wheel’s method was to gain purchase against the surface and to push itself forward as it encountered the resistance of the submerging water, but also it lifted the water in the rear and seemed to purify it. Cascades of bubbles, made all the whiter for pouring over the red paddles, sang of rushing glory. More powerful than any Kentucky stream splashing and dashing over smooth rocks, this turbulence shouted Red and White, White and Air, Splash and Foam till I was dizzy with it.
    For an hour I watched the powerful, mechanical lifting of water and its immediate rush and fall back to the river, white foam yielding to the dun flow. Our wake was white-churned for only a short distance and then the seam we constantly opened was sealed over as though we had not passed. To myself as a young girl our passage seemed significant and momentous, as though it told me important things.
    When we reached Cincinnati, the wheel turned more slowly and more slowly with less and less foam and splash till it stopped. My feet tingled after the vibration of the pistons ceased. In quietness we drifted a few feet till we were close enough to the shore for lines to be thrown and secured on the pilings. The gangplank was lowered, and Mother and I took a brief walk on the shore. I looked back at the giant paddle-wheel, wet and dripping, reared up, immobile as a statue. A gray engraving of a rose in a book came to mind, but enormous now and bloodred. It made me catch my breath—the paddlewheel—a gigantic rose, brilliant, red, perfect, still as eternity.

CHAPTER 8 : The Island
    M Y MOTHER , who had been to the Island once before, first pointed out the Lighthouse to me from the ferry. The Lighthouse seemed only a line. A short vertical line, with one end in the sea and one