I think of this every birthday.
I guess a habit of mind has grown up which I shall never break off; the moment I begin sowing turnips I think of my mother bringing forth her only child in the heat of dog-days, and of the sweat of suffering on her forehead as she listened to my first cry.

She is more familiar to me, and really dearer in this imaginary scene than in almost any real memory I have of her.
I do not remember Ulster County at all.

My first memory of my mother is of a time when we lived in a little town the name and location of which I forget; but it was by a great river which must have been the Hudson I guess.

She had made me a little cap with a visor and I was very proud of it and of myself.

I picked up a lump of earth in the road and threw it over a stone fence, covered with vines that were red with autumn leaves--woodbine or poison-ivy I suppose.