“Are there any pictures?” Aunt Martha asked. Charles Dickens had, at last, drawn them away from the dining-room windows—my grandmother included. Nora later said her mom and Aunt Martha were probably imagining that Great Expectations was an illustrated book about penile erections.

“Give the book to me, girls—it’s just a novel,” Nana told them. “Dickens didn’t write pornography.”

“There are underlined passages,” Aunt Abigail said peevishly.

“There’s handwriting in it—the midget fairy has scribbled in it,” Aunt Martha chimed in.

“It’s Mr. Barlow’s book—his teacher’s copy,” I repeated. “I told him you read Moby-Dick aloud to me, Nana. I said I would like to try reading it again—to myself,” I told my grandmother.

She held up Great Expectations almost as reverentially as I’d seen her raise Moby-Dick—in a heavenward direction. “Reading this novel would be easier, Adam,” Nana said. “And there’s a young man finding his way in the story,” she added.

“That’s what Mr. Barlow told me!” I piped up.

“A young man finding his way!” Aunt Abigail cried with alarm.

“What sort of way, I wonder!” Aunt Martha chimed in.

“Girls, girls—just stop,” my grandmother told them. “This is a literary novel.”

“Mr. Barlow is a snowshoer,” I insisted. “Snowshoeing is my answer to skiing. I like to run. On snowshoes, I can run on top of the snow,” I told them. “And Mr. Barlow teaches writing. I’ve decided I want to be a writer,” I said.

“A writer!” Aunt Abigail screamed.

“God have mercy—save us!” Aunt Martha chimed in.

As Nora would one day tell me: “You might as well have said you were going to be a fist-fucker, Adam. Or that you couldn’t wait to get fist-fucked,” she added. (Yes, this was after the day had come—when I had grown up sufficiently for Nora to illuminate fisting for me.)

But, at the time, I was at a loss to understand the consternation Mr. Barlow had caused my aunts. I wished I could talk to my uncles about the snowshoer. I somehow knew they would hold “the runner on top of the snow” (as they called him) in high esteem. Later, when I was able to speak with them, Uncle Martin and Uncle Johan paid Elliot Barlow the utmost collegial respect. The little English teacher was popular with his students. As for those students who hadn’t taken a class with him, and the ones who were inclined to tease him, Mr. Barlow’s good humor would win them over. My laughing uncles were won over by the snowshoer’s good humor, too.