My slaves

(1990 February 8)

Kathy [my school girl] has gone to Madison again to confer with her brother Robert. I don't know just how the conversation started, but I was telling her how I used to have slaves, and one would come in the morning to run up the shades while the other drew my bath. She believed every word. When she looked skeptical, I said, "Certainly it's true. Just think of when Lincoln freed the slaves," and then she believed it.