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Legislature.
    Shortly after he left the service, my dad was offered the job in Quitman as a county agriculture agent with the Texas A&M Extension Service, advising farmers on the best crops to plant and how to eradicate weeds and pests. Quitman was so far north in Texas that Mother’s family teased her about living way up in “Yankeeland.” Our family was a long way from the Mexican border, but every year at Christmas, we would join the whole Spilman family at my grandparents’ home in Mission.
    Papa and Big Mama still lived in the rambling old wood frame bungalow where Mother was born. It had been added to piecemeal over the years. When they first moved there, the roads were still dirt. But by the time I arrived on the scene, there were sidewalks and fat palm trees lining the paved street. During our weeklong visits, the whole family slept in a guest room at the front of the house. In the morning we’d wait until we saw the light under the kitchen door that meant Big Mama was already up cooking breakfast. Then we’d creep through the sleeping house, across the breezeway, and into the kitchen.
    “Would you all like some orange juice?” she would ask.
    We’d all three nod our heads in unison.
    “Well then, climb on up in the tree and pick some.”
    “Okay, Big Mama,” we’d say, and we’d tear out of the kitchen as fast as we could go.
    There were huge orange and grapefruit trees in the yard right by the kitchen door. The best orange tree had low branches that you could climb up like a monkey. We’d each bring back an armful of fruit and watch Big Mama squeeze it right in front of us. Sometimes she’d slice up some grapefruit that we’d scoop out with the silver spoons she kept in a special glass in the middle of the table. Now I have that glass of spoons in my kitchen in Virginia. It was the thing I wanted most to remind me of Big Mama.
    The kitchen table was enormous—to us kids it seemed as long as an aircraft carrier. All the family could fit around it, and we’d gather there for every meal.
    I loved my aunt Arlette dearly—and still do—but there was a time when we locked horns over a tray of Christmas cookies. Every year Big Mama slaved in the kitchen making her Southern delicacies for the family to enjoy—biscuits, fried chicken, roasts, and pies. Every afternoon after the family dinner Big Mama set out trays of homemade sweets. As Arlette tells the story, I would come by, pick up a cookie or piece of cake, take one bite, and put it back. One day, after I had ruined four or five cookies and was coming back for more, Arlette decided to put a stop to it.
    “Sissy,” she said, “Big Mama has worked her fingers to the bone to make those for us. Eat as many as you want, but if you taste one, you have to finish it.”
    I looked at her sideways, then picked up a piece of fruitcake.
    “I’m telling you, if you bite that, we’re gonna sit here until you’re done eating it.”
    We were eye to eye. I nibbled a small piece, then put it down, never taking my eyes off of her.
    “Okay, Sissy. You and I are going to sit here until that’s eaten.”
    I sat down. The rest of the family cleared out, but Arlette and I sat there, the piece of fruitcake between us. It was like the Old West and we were gunslingers. An hour went by. Finally Arlette gave up in defeat. Little did she know that if it had been a sugar cookie, she would have worn me down in seconds. But I hate fruitcake and always have.
    Big Mama loved all children and drew them to her like a magnet. She saved us bowls of trinkets that she’d collect from cereal boxes and would have them waiting for us by the front door as soon as we walked in. My brothers and I would fight for position next to her when she read us stories from Boys’ Life magazine. I was so little, I used to just lay on top of her while we all snuggled on the couch.
    Papa was fifteen years older than Big Mama, and was going blind from glaucoma toward the end of his life. What I