Visits with Cousin Macon: A Gift for LearningSometime in the winter of 1950, I heard from Aunt Ida that our bachelor cousin Macon Thornton had suffered a curious spell and was in the Roanoke Rapids hospital. I wrote to him at once; and by the time my school was out in June, he was back at home.

What bigger risk can a sane place run Every decade or so, as its heart strokes on, Than to rouse itself, shake its peaceful plumage— Flamboyant hoods and tasseled crests— And choose a new name, a new mind and body, To wing it onward, even upward, Should upward chance to be its course? And since our place, in its several homes, Is old as American places go,