His other grandfather, whom Owen lived with, had also a touch of the dreamer, selling his farm and investing in stocks that became worthless. He was a Pennsylvania German, but of an adaptable strain, speaking English perfectly, reading the afternoon newspaper faithfully, ornamenting his idleness with large thoughts and stately pronouncements. Owen recognized in the old man, with his yellowish mustache and white hair and gracefully gesturing hands, the wistfulness of the partial outsider, who had not quite found his way to the sources of power, the decisive secrets, in the only environment he knew.

“Pop should have been a politician, he has the gift of gab,” his son-in-law would say; but even Owen could see that his grandfather was too fastidious for politics, too passive-minded as he moved through his day, from the back yard, where he hoed and weeded a vegetable garden and could smoke a cigar, to his upstairs bedroom, where he took a nap, to the caneback sofa in the living room, where he sat waiting for Grammy to prepare the evening meal. His house was in Willow but, except for its lone child and Grammy, not quite of it. Grammy was a Yoder, the youngest of ten siblings, a member of a populous clan spread throughout the county. Willow was full of her relatives, cousins and nieces and nephews; sometimes she earned spare money by helping one of them with a big spring housecleaning, or helping prepare and serve a meal for a large gathering. These relatives had money: they owned small businesses or had good positions in the hosiery mills, wore nice clothes, and took vacations in the Poconos or along the Jersey Shore. When Owen heard them speak fondly of “Aunt Annie,” in that slow-spoken sentimental vein that country people once so easily slipped into, he at first had trouble realizing that they meant Grammy. We are different people, he realized, to different people.