Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 G E N I T A__C L A N


Author: Brother Genita and Sister Genita
Title: The Waltons--The Family Secret
Universe: Genitaland TV, the world of television's "The Waltons" in
Genitaland, and overlapping with the world of Chaseton, America
Summary: In the early 1930s, 17-year-old John Boy learned some shocking
family secrets involving his parents, his grandparents, and his sister.
Keywords: MF, mf, bg, FF (watching and brief touching), best, fsolo,
inc, mast, f1st, m1st, cons, mast, oral (brief), ped, rom, adult, senior,
teen, child, ws (very mild), zoo
Language: English

   --------------------------------

   WARNING

   This fictional story contains explicit descriptions of sexual activity.
If you are underage for your jurisdiction, or not interested in such
stories, please go read something else.

   --------------------------------

   This story is copyrighted under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.  In short, you can share
and adapt this work, even for commercial purposes, as long as you give
appropriate credit, do no imply our endorsement of you or your work, and do
indicate if changes were made.  If you make changes, you must license the
result under the same or an equivalent license.  Donations to www.asstr.org
would be appreciated.  This is erotic fan fiction, and no threat to The
Waltons copyright is intended.

   --------------------------------

   Main Characters (by age): Grandpa Zeb Walton, Grandma Esther Walton,
Daddy John Walton Sr., Mama Olivia Walton, Marcia Woolery, John "John Boy"
Walton Jr., Mary Ellen Walton

   Time: The main period this story covers is spring in the early 1930s,
but it contains scenes of earlier years.  The central part of the story
occurs at essentially the same period as "The Waltons: The Secret Recipe."
As they happen more-or-less simultaneously, the two stories may be read in
either order.  Each will explain a few small mysteries left unexplained in
the other.

   READ ME: This is the complete story posted as one file by request.  For
those who would prefer reading it in two parts, it can be found as a
Genitaland TV file at /files/Authors/Genita/

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   The Waltons: The Family Secret

   by Brother Genita and Sister Genita

   "There are some secrets that families would have fought to keep hidden
during America's Great Depression of the 1930s that decades later were
talked about openly.  Two teenagers sharing physical intimacy, a premarital
affair that happened decades earlier, even a child born out of wedlock.

   "But there are some family secrets that, still today, are kept hidden
even from other family members.  My family, The Waltons, had such secrets.

   "In the early 1930s, I lived on Walton's Mountain in the state of
Virginia with my father John, my mother Olivia, my paternal grandparents
Zeb and Esther, and my younger brothers and sisters Jason, Mary Ellen,
Erin, Ben, Jim-Bob, and Elizabeth.  One spring when I was 17 years old, I
learned some long-hidden family secrets that changed my life forever."

   --Narrator, John Walton Jr.  in middle age

   * * * *

   John Walton looked at his wife Olivia as they lay together in bed.  The
light of the full moon shown through the thin curtain and lit her long
strawberry blonde hair.  It was a Friday in spring, and their curtained
bedroom window was open to the night air.

   After being married for nearing 20 years, John still found his wife
beautiful.  Her long hair rested on each of her white shoulders as she
looked up at him with shining blue eyes.  Her bosoms, still round and full
with nipples that had nursed a houseful of children, glistened in the
filtered moonlight.  Her belly was rounded from bearing the products of
their love, but her bush below was just as strawberry blonde as it had ever
been.  Her legs were wet where they met, long and white and spread widely
apart, and the toes on the ends of her feet wiggled in anticipation as her
soft hands and arms reached under his arms and around his strong back.  He
knew she was ready.

   John's feet and muscled legs were between hers, and his strong buttocks
and back were supported by his feet and his hands as he was raised over
her. His deep blue eyes looked into hers with a love that had grown over
the years.  Not counting his graying sideburns, the thick brown hair on his
head matched that around his member which was erect and looking for an
opening.  "Liv," he said, "please lie on your tummy this time."

   She smiled and did, turning.  He saw her firm buttocks and beneath them
a glimpse of strawberry blonde.  He moved his manhood closer, and her hand
took it in.  He moved gently, and the head of his moistened penis was led
into the opening of her wet and ready vagina.  He pushed, just a little,
and the head of his male member entered her female opening, then moved in
further.  Olivia's hand left her husband's penis and she put her legs
together, as close and as tight as she could.  She slid her hand underneath
her and down her belly and between her legs.  She felt her own wetness as
she began stroking herself in the tightness between her legs as he thrust
into her from behind, then pulled back and almost out, then thrust in again
deeper and deeper.  His breath because heavy and she began to pant.  "Oh
John," she began to moan, "oh John, oh . . .  Oh John!" she said as her
orgasm washed over her naked perspiring body.

   He was not far behind.  "Oh Liv, Liv I'm going to fire my load inside
you, it's going to happen now . . .  Liv!" he said as his penis buried deep
inside her shot spurt after spurt of his spunk.  After a moment, Olivia
spread her legs and John pulled his member out.  He laid on top of her, his
front to her back.  Even though she was certain she was past the years of
bearing children, she closed her legs tightly together again, holding his
semen deep inside her.  She remembered when sharing their love could mean
bringing a new life into their home.

   They then moved to lie side by side, John's contented loins against
Olivia's firm bottom.  Olivia smiled.  "The Depression may have made us
poor like everyone else, but you treat me like a queen in the bedroom," she
said.  John squeezed her and kissed his wife's neck.

   After several minutes, John and Olivia heard what sounded like a wolf
howling through the house.  "The night of a full moon," John said to
Olivia.

   "Daddy," shouted Ben from the boys' bedroom.  "It's the full moon wolf
again.  Did you hear it?  It sounds really close."

   "I heard it," said Daddy.

   "Ben," said Jason, in the same bedroom as Ben.  "You'll wake up
Jim-Bob."

   "Ben," Erin shouted from the girls' bedroom.  "Daddy told us a million
times the sound echoes through the house but it's really coming from
outside far away."

   From my bedroom I said, "Quiet all of you or you'll wake up everybody.
Go back to sleep." The house settled into quietness once again.

   Olivia turned to face her husband, both of them still lying together
naked.  She was about to clean away what he had ejaculated into her. 
"John," she said, "do you still think about Lunette?"

   * * * *

   My name is John Walton, Jr., but everybody calls me "John Boy." It was
the day after my mother asked my father about Lunette.  On that Saturday
afternoon, my 13-year-old sister Mary Ellen was pestering me.  She was a
virgin, of course, and would continue being one that spring.  Mary Ellen
wanted to know about relationships between boys and girls, men and women.
But really she wanted to know about me and my girlfriend Marcia Woolery. 
Marcia and I were both 17-years-old and both thought we were in love,
although we wouldn't tell each other that.

   "Marcia Woolery said when you kiss her and nobody's looking you use your
tongue," said Mary Ellen, the sunlight highlighting her blondish-brown hair
outside near our home.  She wore her long straight hair down over a long
sleeve shirt with a light blue and white wavy pattern.  Her shirt waved
into her light blue bib overalls that in the past year had grown a
pronounced swell in the chest and a larger wave in the hips.  Even though
she was a tomboy and my sister, I thought she was pretty in her way.  She
had full lips over a strong chin, and her eyes were curious and brown.  "Do
you really put you tongue in her mouth?  That sounds gross."

   "She told you that?  Why are you talking to her about things like that
if you don't like her?" I asked.  I wore a long sleeve light colored shirt
with thin diagonal stripes and blue jeans held up with tan suspenders.  My
short hair parted at the side was light brown but looked almost blonde in
bright sunlight.

   "Oh I like her fine," said Mary Ellen, "I just like teasing you. 
Besides, I don't have an older sister to talk to."

   "And I don't have an older brother," I said.

   "No, but you have Grandpa.  I can't talk to Mama about things like that,
and it would be impossible to talk to Grandma.  But I want to know what
it's like for a boy."

   "What what's like?" I asked.

   "You know, making love."

   "Making love?" I said.  "What that means is changing, Mary Ellen.  Do
you mean kissing and hugging, or something else?  Besides, I don't think I
should be talking to my 13-year-old sister about things like that anyway."

   "Marcia said you put your hand in her brassiere and felt her breast."

   "She told you that too?" I said.  "Is there anything she didn't tell
you?"

   "Well," said Mary Ellen, "she didn't tell me if you put your hand in her
panties like you used to do with me."

   "Oh, Mary Ellen, you remember that?  I thought you were too young to
remember.  I am so sorry."

   "Sorry about what, John Boy?  I always liked it when you did that."

   "You did?"

   "Of course, John Boy.  I liked touching you too.  It was just a little
kid thing."

   * * * *

   I remembered that my desire to touch my sister down there started when I
was 4-years-old and Mary Ellen was 0.  I guess you'd call it zero, for she
was younger than a year old.  I had stepped into the family room right as
Mama was changing my baby sister.

   Mary Ellen's white cloth diaper was undone and partially under her
bottom.  It had a large yellow spot which I knew must be pee.  But what
fascinated me was not the diaper but the part of my sister below her navel.
Instead of having what I then called a pee pee and sacks, she had a mound
with a slit in it.  While most of my younger siblings grew up washing in
the same bathtub, boys and girls together, it had not yet happened for me.
I thought the slit was a cut, and that my mother or the doctor must have
cut away her pee pee and sacks for some reason.  I got very worried mine
might get cut off, so I snuck back out of the room without Mama knowing
what I had seen and thought.

   I was going to ask Daddy about it, but then I thought with our family
sawmill he was the one who did most of the cutting in the family, and maybe
he had cut Mary Ellen's off.  So instead I went outside and asked Grandpa.
Grandpa worked in our sawmill too, of course, but I had seen my father's
hairy pee pee many times, so I figured that Grandpa would not remove mine.

   "Don't tell your Mama and Daddy or Grandma I told you this, John Boy,
but that slit of Mary Ellen's is called a 'trickle,'" said Grandpa.

   "A trickle?" I said.

   "There's other words for it too," he said, "but that will do for now. 
It's one of the most wonderful things in the world."

   "But why did they cut off Mary Ellen's pee pee?" I asked.

   "Oh, nobody cut it off, and nobody will cut yours off either, if that's
what you're thinking.  Girls are born that way.  Boys are born with a pee
pee and sacks, and girls are born with a trickle."

   "But why?" I asked.

   "Oh, you're too young to learn that now," he said.  "When your sacks
start growing hair like your Daddy's and mine, that will be the time to
ask. Hopefully your father will tell you about that, but if not, you can
ask me.  In private, of course.  It will be our secret."

   From then on, whenever I had a question about boys and girls and how
they related to each other, I usually asked Grandpa.

   * * * *

   "Do I still think about Lunette?" my father John said rhetorically to my
mother Olivia after she asked him that question.  It was Friday, the day
before my 13-year-old sister Mary Ellen pestered me about Marcia Woolery,
and a brief moment after Mama and Daddy had made love in the modern sense.
"You know I do," said John.

   "Every time I see a girl I don't know who's about 19, I wonder; is it
her?" said Olivia.

   "They said she got a good, loving home," said John.

   "I know," said Olivia.  "But I wish it could have been ours."

   "What kind of home would it have been?  You know what she would have
been called?  A 'bastard.'"

   "John Walton!  Don't use that kind of talk."

   "Well, that's the word for it."

   "If only they hadn't made us wait to get married until I was 16," said
Olivia.  "Or if only I . . .  why didn't I wait to do . . .  that?"

   "It wasn't your fault, Liv.  We were young, me 19 and you barely 15, we
were in love, and it was your mother stopped us getting married shortly
after that happened, not you.  Otherwise we would have been married months
before Lunette was born.  I missed you so much those months you were away
at your Aunt Kate Grover Daly's.  And it was my fault.  There's just
something about the full moon.  It puts a, I don't know, a drive of some
kind in me."

   "I know that, John Walton, I feel it too.  I felt it tonight.  I guess
that's why they call it 'lunacy.'"

   * * * *

   By the time I was 8-years-old, when I was alone outside or in bed, I
spent a lot of time touching myself, my genitals, what I called my pee pee
and my sacks.  I don't remember how I discovered how good it could feel,
but I did.  I liked rubbing my little pink hairless penis and was amazed
when it started sticking out.  I never experienced orgasm or ejaculation at
that age, but it still felt good.

   I became increasingly curious what a girl's trickle felt like, but
hadn't had both the opportunity and enough initiative to find out.

   But one day, then 4-year-old Mary Ellen found me when I was alone in the
woods.  I had been skinny dipping in a stream, and when drying myself off
focused mostly on drying my little boy pee pee.  It was sticking out pretty
good.

   "What you doing, John Boy?" asked Mary Ellen.

   I jumped.  I had thought I was completely alone.  "Mary Ellen," I said,
my hands hiding my tiny erection, "what are you doing here?"

   "Looking for Reckless," my sister said.  "She's lost.  Where's your
clothes?"

   "I was swimming.  Our dog never gets lost.  Go back home," I said.

   "I go swimming too," she said, and sat down on a log.  She pulled up her
white with blue spotted dress that Mama had made for her from one of
Daddy's old shirts.  She looked at her brown leather shoes, and with her
legs spread wide I could clearly see her short-legged white cotton panties.
Panties had short legs in those days.  I thought about telling her to go
away, but didn't.  I was too interested in watching her undress.  Having
removed her shoes, she stood up.  My little sister pulled her dress over
her head and tossed it down.  I could barely see the top of her navel
sticking out the top of her white cotton panties.  I could clearly see her
two little pink nipples.  Then she sat back down on the log and reached for
the top of her underwear, and pulled them down, lifting one leg at a time.
There was that trickle.  It seemed a little different than it had when she
was a baby, and fascinated me.

   She didn't seem to notice me staring, and she jumped into and splashed
in the stream.  She looked at me.  "What you hiding, John Boy?" she asked,
seeing my hands were still over my crotch.

   "Nothing," I said.  My 8-year-old pee pee was sticking out even farther
than it was, but I didn't know why.

   "You have to pee?" she asked.

   "No," I said.

   "You can pee on the ground," said my 4-year-old sister.  "I show you,"
she said.

   "No, don't do that," I said.  "I know how to pee on the ground."

   But she ignored me.  "This how Reckless does it," she said.  Over the
years we had a series of dogs we called Reckless, but this one was a girl.

   Mary Ellen got out of the water and on her hands and knees facing me. 
Then my naked 4-year-old sister moved her bottom down a little closer to
the ground.  I watched, fascinated.  Then I heard something that sounded
like it did when I peed outdoors.  But I couldn't see it, so I quickly ran
around so I could see from behind.  There was her little pink bottom with
its two fleshy spheres, and under that her little slit.  And there was the
yellow stream of little girl pee flowing down and splashing and wetting the
dirt and the grass.  The stream stopped, then started again, just like it
did when I peed but yet different.  Then it was over.  "That's what
Reckless does," she said.

   My 4-year-old sister stood up and looked at me like she was waiting for
something.  "Aren't you going to wipe me?" she asked.

   "Wipe you?" I said.

   "Wipe my trickle," she said as if it should have been obvious.

   "I guess so," I said.  I had long been curious about touching her
between her legs, but not after she had just peed.  I didn't want my hand
touching that.  So I looked for something to wipe her with.

   I saw her white cotton panties, and picked them up.  I walked toward
her. She put her hands over her crotch.  "Don't use my panties," she said,
"you'll make them dirty."

   "Well what can I wipe you with?" I asked.  I didn't want to get my
underwear dirty either.

   Then I thought of my white cotton handkerchief.  I got it out of a
pocket of my brown overalls, and walked towards her with it, looking and
thinking about touching her trickle for the first time.

   "Why your finger sticking out?" she asked.  At first I didn't know what
she was talking about.  But she was pointing at my 8-year-old pee pee which
had grown partially erect again.  I covered it quickly with my
handkerchief.

   "It's not," I said.

   "Yes it is.  Jason has boy finger too," she said, "with two pink prunes.
Ben too.  Why boys have a finger there, John Boy?"

   "It's not a finger, Mary Ellen.  It's called a 'pee pee.'" I took my
hand away.  She had already seen everything, so I figured there was no
point trying to hide it.  "And those aren't pink prunes, they're my sacks,"
I said.  In my embarrassment, my penis had gone back to hanging down limp,
but as I walked closer to her it started to move up a little again.

   "It's moving," she said, giggling.  "Why is your pee pee moving, John
Boy?" she asked.

   "I don't know," I said.  I moved the handkerchief to her 4-year-old
trickle, and started wiping off the tiny bit of moist yellow pee that
remained.  I wiped for a while, longer than I needed to.

   She started at my lap.  "Can I touch it?" she asked.

   "No," I said.

   "But you're touching my trickle," said my sister.

   She was right.  I didn't think she'd notice, but after I had wiped all
the pee away with my white handkerchief, I kept wiping as if I needed to. I
was letting my finger touch her as well.  She felt very soft and nice.  "No
I'm not," I lied.

   "Yes you are," she said.  Without asking again, she reached out her
little 4-year-old hand and grabbed my 8-year-old penis.  I didn't know what
to do.  I didn't remember anybody but me touching it before.  Her hand was
soft and it felt good where she touched it.  She touched my penis gently,
and I liked it.  Then she started squeezing it a little, and I liked that
too.  "Yours is bigger than Jason's," she said.

   She touched my sack which was fine, but then started squeezing it, which
wasn't.  "Don't squeeze that!" I said.  "That hurts!"

   "Sorry, John Boy," she said, going back to playing with my penis.  It
was sticking out further than I'd ever seen it do.

   I started touching her trickle in earnest.  It was so smooth and soft,
and felt like two tiny, really ripe peaches pushed together only without
the fuzz.

   After that we would go out to that spot in the woods.  After I made her
promise not to tell Mama and Daddy, or Grandma and Grandpa, that is.  We
didn't always swim.  Something I would simply slide my hand into the front
of her panties and feel her between her legs, and she would slide her
little hand inside the front of my underwear and feel me.

   But I stopped doing it by the time I was 10 and she was 6.  I knew by
then that I could get in real trouble, and that a boy shouldn't be doing
things like that with his sister.

   * * * *

   Then on that Saturday seven years later my 13-year-old sister was
telling me she had liked me touching her.  And had liked touching me.

   "So why did you stop?" Mary Ellen asked as we casually walked outside
our home.  The question burned in my 17-year-old ears.  I would do nothing
more intimate with her that spring than talk, but the talking alone seemed
more than I could handle.

   "Mary Ellen," I said, "I shouldn't have to explain that to you.  A boy
should not be touching his sister that way."

   "Why not?" she asked.

   "Because," I said, "because . . .  Mary Ellen, do you know where babies
come from?"

   "Of course, John Boy," she said.  "From inside their mother's tummy."

   "Well, it's not exactly their tummy . . .  "

   "I know, it's their womb," she said.  "Mary carried Jesus in her womb."

   "But do you know how babies get there?"

   "Not exactly," she said.

   "Well, I'm not going to tell you that," I said.  Then, sarcastically,
"You'll have to ask Marcia Woolery.  She tells you everything else." I
started walking away.  I wasn't feeling as upset with my sister as I was
with my girlfriend.  Marcia had no business telling my little sister what
she and I did in private.

   "John Boy Walton," said my sister.  "Don't get me started then just walk
away.  John Boy!" I kept going.

   * * * *

   At the same time I was walking away from Mary Ellen, Grandma and Mama
were peeling potatoes with knives in the kitchen.  They were both wearing
house dresses and aprons, my mother standing tall with her strawberry blond
hair in a bun and my grandmother much shorter with her short gray hair
hanging down on both side of her glasses.  It was a quiet moment where the
two of them were alone.

   "Ouch!" Grandma said.

   "Are you all right, Grandma?" asked Olivia.

   "I'm fine," said my grandmother Esther.  "Just a tiny nick.  I pulled
away in time.  My hand's not even bleeding."

   "You seem distracted lately," said my mother.

   "Oh, Olivia, I am.  I wasn't going to talk about this, but, well, we're
alone so I will.  I found a book, Olivia, a book Zeb has.  He had it
hidden."

   "Hidden?  Why would he hide a . . .  oh.  You don't mean something by
Chaucer or Rabelais?"

   "No, Olivia," said my Grandma Esther.  "Even worse.  A writer named D.
H. Lawrence."

   "Never heard of him," said my mother.

   "I wish I hadn't.  It's a book, oh Olivia, it's so filthy I . . .  it
has explicit descriptions, and I mean explicit, of a man and woman, you
know, knowing each other."

   "Oh my," said my mother.

   "And the words, God forgive me if I ever even think about those words."

   "That book is in this house?" said my mother.

   "No," said Grandma.  "He keeps it hidden in the shed.  I know it's Zeb's
because, well, one night a couple of days ago I heard him whisper "Lady
Chatterley" in his sleep.  She's a character in the book.  I wasn't looking
for it, but . . .  Olivia, what am I going to do?"

   * * * *

   After a while, I figured Mary Ellen had finally given up trying to
follow me.

   Without looking for him, I caught a glimpse of Grandpa between some tall
green oak and evergreen trees in a dip in Walton's Mountain.  He was
sitting on a log with his head with its white-yellow hair over his ears
slightly bent as if he were looking at something on his lap.  He wore a
pale yellow buttoned shirt under blue suspenders holding up his blue pants.
I didn't want to disturb him suddenly, so I approached my grandfather
quietly.  I was glad I had found him, because I wanted to talk to him
about, well, I didn't know what exactly.  I just wanted to talk.  About my
girlfriend Marcia Woolery telling our secrets to my sister, I suppose.

   I then saw Grandpa had a book in his left hand, and figured he was
reading.  But as I got closer, I was utterly astonished to see what he was
doing with his right hand.  He had it in his lap, his blue pants undone,
and he was stroking his male member!  "Grandpa does that?" I said to
myself. I was torn between confronting him and turning away, but before I
could choose a course of action, he saw me.  He quickly returned his member
to his pants and closed and hid the book.

   "Hi John Boy," he said.  "What are you doing here?"

   "I was about to ask you the same thing," I said, walking up to him.

   "Oh, just sitting and thinking," he said, rubbing his gray mustache. 
"It's such a lovely view here on Walton's Mountain in spring."

   "What's that book you're reading?"

   "Book?" he said.  "Oh, that book.  Nothing important."

   "Well it seemed to be something you were quite interested in," I said.

   He scowled at me.  "What did you see, John Boy?" he said.

   "Enough," "I said.  "Grandpa, you're a married man.  Do you really need
to do . . .  that?"

   "That's none of your business," said Grandpa.  "Don't tell me you don't
do it."

   "Well, I . . .  Grandpa, I'm not married.  I don't really believe it's a
sin, but . . ."

   "How old are you, John Boy?"

   "I'm 17."

   "Seventeen," he said.  "Has your father taught you about men and women?"

   "I know where babies come from, Grandpa."

   "I don't mean that," he said.  "John Boy, I'm going to tell you
something that maybe will explain.  Sit down, John Boy, here on the log
beside me," which I did, sitting on his right.

   Grandpa continued.  "It's none of your business, but I'll tell you
anyway.  I love your grandmother very dearly.  Esther is the best thing
that ever happened to me.  But her head is so full of church sometimes she
doesn't know how to live outside it."

   "I don't understand," I said.

   "Then let me put it to you plainly," he said.  "When I was not much
older than you are now, Esther and I were close, knew each other in the
Biblical sense, once a week.  After we both bathed, separately, we joined
once a week on Saturday at 9 p.m.  in our bedroom in our bed with her lying
on her back and me facing her from above."

   "Grandpa," I said, embarrassed, "you don't need to tell me this."

   "Exactly the same every time," said Grandpa.  "It became a ritual, and
like all rituals it became routine and left the mind to wandering.  The
only exception was on the night of the full moon, provided it wasn't on a
Sunday.  There was no joining on a Sunday.  There's a reason your parents
had eight children together and we only had two."

   "There's seven of us," I said, "not eight."

   "Oh yes.  Well, when you get to be my age it's hard to remember."

   "John Boy," he continued, "do you believe in werewolves?"

   "Of course not," I said.

   "Well, I don't either.  But there's something, something in the Walton
blood, that stirs at the full moon.  Not in the very young, but when the
beginning signs of maturity come.  Do you know what I mean?"

   I was very surprised, because I did know what he meant.  "Yes, I feel
something then too.  It is like a stirring, a feeling that gets stronger
and stronger until it feels like my blood's about to boil.  And then . . .
"

   "And then you feel very strong urges for the opposite sex.  Very
strong."

   "How did you know?" I asked.

   "Because I'm a Walton," said Grandpa.  "Esther doesn't feel it because
she's a Walton by marriage not by blood.  She humors me because . . . 
well, that's the only time now, John Boy.  Those 9 p.m.  Saturday
dalliances are no more, unless the moon happens to be full.  Now it's once
a full moon.  That's why, in between, I sit out here alone on Saturday
afternoons and abuse myself."

   "'Masturbation,'" I said.  "It's from Latin . . .  "

   * * * *

   By now Grandma was in the bedroom she shared with Grandpa, and was
sharing a long hidden secret with my mother.

   "About 17 years ago, around the time you gave birth to John Boy, I made
this," said Grandma.  She held up a dress that was black with short puffy
sleeves and a slightly V-shaped neck.  It was cinched at the waist by a
white apron with lace on the bottom, and the skirt of the dress was short,
much shorter than anything Grandma would wear, also with white lace at the
bottom.

   "A French maid's costume?" said Olivia.

   "It's horrible, I know."

   "It's beautiful.  You shouldn't be ashamed of it.  He is your husband.
The Bible says the marital bed is undefiled."

   "I've thought so many times about wearing it for Zeb.  But I could never
bring myself to do it."

   "Why not now?"

   "What?  I'm an old woman and he's an old man."

   "But you still have your figure; I bet it still fits."

   "Oh, I haven't tried it on in 10 years.  It probably smells of
mothballs."

   "That's easy to take care of.  And you're not too old to make him howl
during the full moon."

   "What?  You know about that?"

   "Oh yes.  John figured it out years ago.  He just said he believed the
wolf howl was an echo from far away outside so it wouldn't scare the
children."

   "My son knows too?  I have to sit down."

   * * * *

   What's that book you're reading?" I asked Grandpa.

   "Oh John Boy, this is a book that will stir your loins like a pretty
swaying French chorus girl wearing black silk stockings and peacock
feathers and little else.  Are you familiar with D.  H.  Lawrence?"

   "Yes, he's the author who died a few years ago.  I just read an article
about him, although the reviewer was highly critical of his work.  He wrote
"Sons and Lovers," "The Virgin and the Gypsy," "The Escaped Cock," and a
book I forget the name of that had to be heavily censored . . .  "

   "'Lady Chatterley's Lover,'" said Grandpa.  "I have the uncensored
version."

   "You do?" I said.

   "Join me, John Boy.  Why don't you read out loud.  Then we can both
alleviate our urges."

   "You mean read it . . .  while we both . . .  "

   "Yes."

   "Grandpa!" I said.  I felt shocked at first, but then wondered why. 
"I'm curious enough to read it, but I don't know about the rest." After
reading the first couple of pages with our members still in our pants, I
got to this.

   "'Both Hilda and Constance had had their tentative love-affairs by the
time they were eighteen.  The young men with whom they talked so
passionately and sang so lustily and camped under the trees in such freedom
wanted, of course, the love connexion."

   'The love connexion;'" I said.  "Does that mean what I think it means?"

   "What do you think it means, John Boy?"

   "Joining?"

   "Use a stronger word," said Grandpa.

   "Mating" I said.

   "Stronger."

   "Se--sexual intercourse!"

   "Yes, John Boy, yes!  Keep reading."

   "The girls were doubtful," I read, "but then the thing was so much
talked about . . ."

   "That sounds like Marcia Woolery," I said.

   "Marcia Woolery, eh?"

   "Yes," I said.  "She was talking to . . .  somebody about it." I wasn't
quite ready to tell Grandpa she'd been talking about our shared intimacy to
my younger sister Mary Ellen.

   "So what have you done with Marcia, John Boy?"

   "Well, I kissed her.  With my tongue."

   "Good.  What else."

   "What else?" I said.

   "What else?  What kind of a Walton man are you?" said Grandpa.  "At 17.
When I was 15, I was worried that I'd gotten my 14-year-old neighbor Emma
with child."

   "Grandpa!"

   * * * *

   "One time, Olivia," said my Grandma Esther in her bedroom, "many years
ago when Ben, my son Ben, not yours, and John were still young boys, at . .
.  the moment when Zeb and I were together and he was the most excited, if
you know what I mean . . .  "

   "I do," said Olivia.  "I had eight children."

   "Seven, Olivia," said my grandmother.

   "Of course seven," said my mother.  "When you've had as many as I've
had, sometimes you lose track.  What did Zeb say?"

   "When we were . . .  joined, and he was most excited, with his eyes
closed, he cried out 'Fifi.'"

   "Fifi," said my mother Olivia.  "Who's Fifi?"

   "I don't know," said Esther.  "Some French girl he met during the
Spanish-American War, I think.  I . . .  withheld from him for a long time,
Olivia.  I knew it was my wifely duty, but what he did was a sin,
committing adultery in his heart.  The Bible says so.  I didn't want to
encourage him."

   "Then years later you wanted to be Fifi?"

   "I know it sounds silly, but then, then it would be me he was thinking
about.  Only I could never be 'Fifi.'"

   "Why not?" said my mother.  "It's a month til the next full moon.  Why
not dress up as a pretty French maid, and then . . .  "

   "Oh, no, I couldn't, Olivia.  Because of his heart.  That's why I keep
our, intimacy, to once a month on the night of the full moon, and keep it
always the same so it doesn't excite him too much.  I do it then only
because he can't resist his .  . .  urges."

   "The doctor told John it's good for a man's heart.  It's exercise."

   "It is?  No, it can't be," said my grandmother.

   "He said it's not as much of a strain as hauling wood, and Grandpa does
that all the time."

   "Oh my, I didn't know that," said my grandmother.  "I mean about it not
being as much of a strain.  And I've deprived him all these years so that
now he's reduced to reading filthy books.  I've failed him, Olivia."

   "Oh, I don't think so," said my mother.  "And you still have your French
maid costume waiting to be worn."

   "All this time I could have . . .  Olivia.  I'll do it.  The next full
moon, I'll be Fifi."

   * * * *

   "All right, Grandpa," I said.  "I didn't just kiss Marcia, I also felt
her right breast."

   "That's better," said Grandpa, absentmindedly stroking his white-yellow
mustache.  "You've got at least half a beginning.  Was it firm?"

   "Grandpa!"

   "Well, was it?  Was it firm and full like a ripe tomato?"

   "Well, Ok, yes it was," I said.

   "Good," said Grandpa.  "Keep reading."

   ". . .  it was supposed to be so important," I read.  "And the men were
so humble and craving.  Why couldn't a girl be queenly, and give the gift
of herself?  So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth
with whom she had the most subtle and intimate arguments."

   "This is very erotic, Grandpa.  And that's sounds like Marcia and me
too," I said.  "'Subtle and intimate arguments.' But she hasn't given me
the gift of herself.  Not yet."

   "Not yet?" said Grandpa.

   "It might be soon, though."

   "That's my boy," said Grandpa.

   "But only if we plan to get married," I said.

   The book got more and more heated as I read.  And I couldn't believe the
words.  It had words I could hardly bring myself to read out loud. 
Unprintable words like "cunt" and "fuck!"

   But Grandpa said, "the last thing in the world a writer should be afraid
of, John Boy, is words."

   When Grandpa undid his blue pants and pulled out his male member, I
looked.  It was about 6 inches long, a little shorter than mine, and the
curly hair was a mix of dark and gray.  I saw no sign of the slight blond
color that still remained in the white hair on his head.  His sack--his
balls--were a little darker than mine.

   So I pulled out mine.  I was seven inches, and my member--my penis,
which was the word the book used--was already erect in its nest of brown
curly hair.  My sack--my balls--were pulled in tight like they did when I
was seriously kissing Marcia.  My tan suspenders over my long sleeve shirt
with thin diagonal stripes were still holding up my undone blue jeans.  "I
can't do this and keep reading," I said.  "I'm afraid I'll miss my aim and
ruin the book."

   "Then think," said Grandpa.  His right hand from his long sleeve pale
yellow buttoned shirt with blue suspenders over was feeling his male
member. "Think of Lady Chatterley, or of a girl you know, even a cousin, or
anyone, really."

   "I should think of Marcia," I said.

   "It doesn't work thinking of the woman you're actually with," said
Grandpa.  "No, you haven't actually done it with her, so it might.  Think
about whoever or whatever makes it happen for you, John Boy."

   "Grandpa," I said.  "I'm afraid of something else.  Sometimes, when it
happens, I get a little loud."

   "Oh, don't worry about that, John Boy.  We're in a dip in Walton's
Mountain.  The higher areas around us and the oak and evergreen trees block
the sound from the ground.  Any noise you make goes up into the trees and
the sky.  I tested it many years ago.  Even if you're screaming and hootin'
and hollerin' to beat the band, someone on the ground even a couple hundred
yards away can't hear a thing."

   * * * *

   I didn't know it then, but Mary Ellen had not stopped following me.  She
had seen me meet Grandpa, but couldn't see much else through the trees.

   So Mary Ellen had climbed an oak tree to get a better look.  She got it.
"Oh my goodness" she said to herself.

   My 13-year-old sister saw Grandpa and me, John Boy, with our blue pants
undone.  She saw our hands were in our laps, and saw that we were stroking
our male members.  "They're touching their pee pees!" she said to herself.
"No, that's a little girl word.  Penises," said Mary Ellen to herself. 
"They're called 'penises.' Grandpa and John Boy are touching their penises.
While I watch them do it.  Oh my goodness!"

   There was one advantage to wearing overalls, and that was that it gave a
girl easy access to her hidden parts.  While sitting on a thick branch and
holding onto another with one hand, Mary Ellen thrust her other hand under
the light blue bib of her overalls and felt the front of her wavy-patterned
light blue and white long-sleeved shirt.  Girls of her age and poverty
didn't wear brassieres, and she had already removed her sleeveless
emancipation bodice which no one could tell because of her covering
overalls and long, straight, blondish-brown.  Her breasts were small and
pert, and she could feel her own nipples through the soft natural fabric.

   She unbuttoned her shirt, giving her hand free access to her 13-year-old
breasts.  "I wish I had a white brassiere like Marcia Woolery," she said to
herself.  She thought of how it must have felt to the girl to have John Boy
sliding his hand into her supportive undergarment and feeling her breast.
Mary Ellen felt her own breast, and noticed her nipple was as erect as if
it were a cold winter morning instead of a warm spring afternoon.

   She wished she could see John Boy and her Grandfather's penises from
closer up, but she knew she had already seen more than Marcia Woolery had.
She remembered touching her brother's pee pee--penis--when he was 10 and
she was 6, and wondered what it felt like now, much larger and with hair
growing all around.

   Then she slid her hand out from the top and down into the side deep into
her overalls, down inside her white cotton panties and to where her own
light patch of brown hair had started growing.  She remembered Grandma
telling her when she was six years old not to touch herself there unless
she was wiping or washing, so she had started wiping her trickle a lot. 
But there was no one to tell her no now.

   She felt down, and her finger started moving deeper into her lightly
furred flesh until she found the deep spot of dampness.  My sister rubbed
her finger there while Grandpa and I, John Boy, stroked our male members,
our penises sticking straight up in the spring air.  She rubbed her slit
and said quietly to herself, "It's not a trickle; that's a little girl word
for a little girl part."

   Mary Ellen remembered sneaking a peek at a book at the Baldwin Sister's
home that Grandma and Mama would have forbidden her even to touch.  The
partially-remembered words were very enticing.  "It's my lady parts, it's
my vulva, it folds around my vagina like a fleshy curtain hiding my damp
cave of flesh that's made for a man's penis to enter and explore.  A man I
love and want to marry and make babies with." When she had told me, her
older brother, she didn't know exactly how babies grew, she meant not
exactly.  But she knew how it started.  Mary Ellen would remain a virgin
that spring, but she had learned more about mating than anyone but Marcia
Woolery thought.

   She pretended her finger was her lover's penis, and slid it right into
her increasing wet hole.  Her juice was already starting to drip down her
strong limbs.  A tomboy, her hymen had long ago been opened by running or
riding horses or tumbling or climbing trees.  Her insides were wet and
slithery and felt wonderful.

   Then she heard sounds from Grandpa whose strong right hand was thrusting
his member faster and faster.  She was too far away to pick out the words,
but of course I could.  "John Boy, it's about to happen for me."

   "Me too, Grandpa," I said while doing the same to mine.

   "Oh, it feels so . . .  so . . .  " said Grandpa.  Then, "Oh, here it
comes, here it comes.  Fifi!" exhaled Grandpa as his white spunk spurted
out of his penis.  He wasn't too loud, but I heard the name.  I would have
asked right then who 'Fifi' was, but I had someone else on my mind.

   I was trying to imagine Marcia Woolery's body, a body I hadn't actually
seen.  I knew every rounding and dip of her pretty face.  I had touched her
pink cheeks and looked deep into her pretty brown eyes and played with her
long light brown hair with a widow's peak.  I had kissed her and moved my
tongue inside her mouth, even felt her tongue move a little.  And I had
slid my hand inside her white brassiere and felt her right breast, even her
hard nipple.

   But I had never actually seen her body, not even her breasts, or any
woman completely naked.  I'd seen pictures of breasts and bottoms, with
black and white photos of Paulette Goddard and Olive Borden and I think
Jean Harlow.  And I had briefly seen the bosoms of Clara Bow in a black and
white silent film made before the Hays Code changed all that.

   But the closet I'd come to seeing the place on a woman's lower abdomen
where the hair grew was when Mary Ellen was 12 and I saw her skinny dipping
from a distance.  At the top of my sister's young thighs was just the
slightest hint of a wisp of dark hair.

   So I tried imaging Paulette Goddard's breasts and Mary Ellen's lady
parts only with a little more hair on a body with Marcia Woolery's face. 
But as I came close to a climax, my thoughts increasing focused on the
furry slit.

   "Me too, oh . . .  " And then I shouted the name of the girl whose
crotch was on my mind at my moment of climax.  I didn't mean to, but I did.
"Mary Ellen!" I cried loudly as my penis shot thick gobs of white high into
the air and on my hand and the ground.

   The sound carried up to the trees as Grandpa had said it would.  "Mary
Ellen?" said Mary Ellen to herself.  "Oh good grief, John Boy's seen me!"
Of course I hadn't.  But she quickly slid her hand up and out of her
crotch, and got down the tree very quickly to run away.

   "Mary Ellen?" said Grandpa to me.  "Is that who you were thinking of?"

   "What's that?" I said, hearing something moving in the woods.  But
before I could get my penis back in my pants and look to see what it had
been, Mary Ellen was gone.  It wasn't until much later I learned it had
been my sister watching me masturbate to her name.

   "Who's 'Fifi?'" I said to Grandpa after I stopped looking, trying to
cover my embarrassing exclamation of my sister's name.

   "That's exactly what Esther, your grandmother, asked me when she heard
me say that name many years ago during a moment of passion.  Just like you
cried 'Mary Ellen.'"

   "Oh, Grandpa, I . . .  "

   "It's perfectly natural," said Grandpa.  "Don't worry about it."

   "But who is she?"

   "Oh, I knew a French chorus girl I met in Cuba when we were both very
young.  That was about a year or two before I rode up San Juan Hill with
Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders.  But that girl was really a rough
rider.  And she danced wearing black silk stockings and peacock feathers
and little else.  At the climax of her dance, nothing else.  You could see
it all, John Boy.  Her back, her pert breasts with nice erect nipples, legs
up to her round buttocks in back and a dark patch of hair in front.  But
there was more.  She had a part dog part wolf she used in a private show
that . . .  well, ask me about that after you've been married for 20
years."

   "So while in the American army you met a French girl in Cuba?"

   "People moved around a lot back then," he said, "back before the
Depression."

   "So then Esther," Grandpa continued, "your grandmother, decided I was
still lusting after Fifi and thus committing adultery in my heart.  So it
stopped."

   "What stopped?" I asked.

   "Saturday night at 9 p.m.  was now sleeping time.  This was after your
Uncle Ben and Daddy were born.  I could almost stand it, with a little
self-abuse.  For a week or two at least.  But at the full moon, I headed to
Charlottesville.  I went to a bar, the Torch Song Bar; what an appropriate
name.  I saw a woman I knew from before I married Esther, pretty eyes, long
hair tied back, rounded bosom . . .  "

   "Grandpa!"

   "Well, she did.  She had a similar problem to mine, only the opposite.
Her husband was gone a lot on business and she was very lonely.  Having
affairs is what he was doing.  We drank together, got drunk together, then
slipped into the backseat of my car . . .  then I went home in the
morning."

   "Grandpa, you mean you did it with her?  When you were married to
Grandma?"

   "Nine months later, she . . .  "

   "Oh no, Grandpa, this is too much.  She had a baby?  Your baby?  When
you were married to Grandma?"

   "She had a girl, John Boy."

   "This is too much, Grandpa.  I . . .  I have to think about this."

   * * * *

   Mary Ellen didn't tell me that spring that she'd seen Grandpa and I
abusing ourselves, or that she thought I'd seen her watching us from a
tree. And I of course didn't tell Mary Ellen or any of my brothers and
sisters what I had learned from Grandpa, that somewhere out there we
apparently had an aunt none of us knew about.  I wondered if Daddy knew he
had a half-sister.

   But I put Mary Ellen and Grandpa and my unknown aunt out of my head to
think about Marcia.  I did not want to continue thinking about the bodies
of Paulette Goddard and Olive Borden when I was taking care of myself, and
certainly not of Mary Ellen.  I wanted to picture Marcia in my mind, and to
do that I had to see her nude.

   And because I was a Walton, I planned to do it on a full moon.

   * * * *

   Two weeks and two days after my talk with Grandpa, I was talking to
Marcia Woolery after school.  I'd been building up to it during that time.
A warm breeze blew over us as we stood facing each other holding hands on
that Monday afternoon.  We were standing among the trees, a dozen or so
yards away from the dirt road that led from our school house.

   "Do you really think we might get married someday, John Boy?" asked
Marcia.

   "After I finish college and can support you," I said.  "I think it's
very likely."

   "And all you want to do is look," she said.

   "Look at what?" I heard a young girl say.

   "Elizabeth!" I said to my youngest sister, "what are you doing here?"

   "We were just walking in the woods," said my youngest brother Jim-Bob
who I saw was with her.  "We weren't doing nothing."

   "Well go do nothing somewhere else," I said.

   "Are you going to kiss her, John Boy?" asked Elizabeth.

   "Elizabeth and Jim-Bob, go home, now!" I ordered.  "Brothers and
sisters," I said to no one in particular.

   "I wish I had a brother or sister," said Marcia.

   "You can have some of mine," I said.  "Apparently you talk quite a bit
to my sister Mary Ellen."

   "Sometimes," she said.  "She doesn't have an older sister, and she wants
to learn from someone with more experience."

   I had planned to chastise her for telling Mary Ellen about us, but now
that it had been a couple of days and I was actually with Marcia, it didn't
seem to bother me so much.  I waited until I was certain my siblings were
gone to go back to what I wanted.  "Now where were we," I said.

   "You said you wanted to look at me.  Without my clothes on.  Is that
all?"

   "Marcia, I want to do a whole lot more than look.  But I won't do
anything you don't want to do."

   "But why on a full moon?" she asked.

   " I can't explain that," I said.  "I just do."

   "Do you love me, John Boy?"

   "I wouldn't be talking about getting married if I didn't."

   "Well, in that case . . .  Ok.  But I can't promise more than a look."

   "That's all I'm asking for, Marcia."

   * * * *

   During the month I had been planning to see Marcia Woolery in the
altogether, Mama and Grandma had been secretly planning what my grandmother
would do with Grandpa.

   First Mama got Grandma to model for her privately while wearing the
black and white French maid costume.  Grandma practiced saying "oui
monsieur," and "non monsieur," and "oui oui monsieur." All of their
practices were when the two of them were alone in Grandma and Grandpa's
bedroom and Grandpa was told very strictly to stay out because his wife was
working on a surprise for him.  e It was harder a few days later to get
Grandma to sit naked on the bed with my Mama Olivia, and to look at and
name her "vulva" and "vagina," which my mother assured her were not dirty
words but medical terms, while using a silver-colored hand mirror.  It was
a little easier a few days after that to get Grandma to touch her own naked
body--but only above her waist and below her hips.  But even when my mother
was touching her own lady parts, getting Grandma to touch herself between
her legs was another story.

   "Oh, I can't, Olivia," said Grandma Esther.  "I only touch myself there
with a rag when I wash or with water closet paper after I relieve myself."

   "Haven't you ever touched yourself--your vulva--otherwise?"

   "Well, maybe a couple of times.  And once a month when I have to .  . .
lubricate myself for Zeb.  But I don't think it's right.  A woman's body is
made for her husband, not for herself.  I even told Mary Ellen and Erin not
to touch their lady parts unless it was a necessity.  I told Mary Ellen
several times."

   "Oh, Grandma," my Mama said to her mother-in-law.  "I wish you hadn't
told them that.  Knowing Mary Ellen, she probably found a way around it,
but I don't know about Erin.  I'll have to have a talk with those girls."

   "Grandma," my mother continued, but then said "Esther.  A wife
pleasuring herself is a pleasure to her husband.  I'm touching my vulva,
and it's a pleasure to me."

   Finally, Grandma hesitantly, tentatively, touched herself between her
legs.  After having washed her hands three times.  "Oh," she said, "that
does feel nice, touching my lady parts."

   "Touching what?" said Olivia.

   "My, my vulva, the lips of, of my . . .  vagina."

   "That's better," said my mother.

   "Now rub it more.  Think of things very pleasant and romantic and
exciting.  A walk with Zeb through the trees, or alone on a picnic, or
eating a candlelit supper, or riding in a small boat on a river.  The two
of you alone together."

   "I'm thinking, Olivia," said Grandma.

   After a while, Grandma suddenly stopped.

   "What did you stop for?" asked my mother who continued caressing her own
nether lips.

   "I'm, I'm getting, well, moist down there," said Grandma.  "I should
stop."

   "Don't stop.  You're lubricating," said my mother.

   "Oh, I've never done that without Zeb.  When we're, together, sometimes
I use a little warm lard . . .  "

   "Lard?" said Olivia.  "Women have been using petroleum jelly for years.
It works wonders.  I'll get you some." Olivia soon returned with a jar she
handed to Grandma who, after some hesitation, began rubbing it on the lips
of her vagina.

   "That's nice," said Grandma.

   "Olivia," said Grandma after a while.  "I heard that sometimes women,
younger women, sometimes when they're joined with their husbands . . .  "

   "Mating," said Olivia.

   "Sometimes they get as . . .  excited as the men until they, well, lose
control of their bodies and have spasms."

   "It's called an 'orgasm,' Esther," said my mother Olivia.

   "That's not good, is it?"

   "Oh, it's wonderful," said Olivia.  "It's the best feeling in the world.
Haven't you ever experienced an orgasm?"

   "No, I don't think so."

   "Well, I'll show you how.  When you're feeling very excited, you can
stick your finger inside your vagina."

   "Oh, I could never do that."

   "You let Zeb inside there, don't you?"

   "Only because I have to," said Esther.

   "Well let's try rubbing something even better.  Up at the top of your
vulva there's a little fleshy bump.  You don't want to touch it much when
you start, but after you're feeling exciting, rubbing it can feel
heavenly."

   "A bump?" asked my Grandmother.

   "Feel for it," said my mother.  But after a while, my Grandmother gave
up.  "I don't think I have one, Olivia."

   "Well sure you do," said my mother.  "Want me to help you find it?"

   "Oh no, I could never . . .  "

   "You'd let a nurse or doctor touch you there, wouldn't you?"

   "Only if it was a woman . . .  oh, I see what you mean.  All right,
Olivia, show me."

   My mother didn't have to feel very long until she found it.  "Oh," said
my Grandmother.  "It's too sensitive.  That almost hurts."

   "You aren't stimulated enough, Grandma.  Keep rubbing and thinking.  And
use some more petroleum jelly."

   After a while, my grandmother said, "Oh, Olivia, I touched it and now it
feels very nice.  Oh, Olivia!"

   "Try sticking a finger inside your vagina and rubbing at the same time.
That will give you a feel of what it's like rubbing yourself while Zeb is
inside you."

   "Ok, Olivia.  Oh, this feels very nice. . .  Very nice . . .  Oh,
Olivia. I think I might just have an organism."

   "Orgasm," said my mother.

   "Orgasm.  I might just have one."

   In the next few minutes both Grandma and my mother grew more and more
excited.  Both of them were thinking of their respective husbands, but they
wouldn't admit to each other that seeing another woman pleasuring herself
was also quite stimulating.

   Finally, it happened.  My grandmother Esther had lubricated and rubbed
and fantasized her gray-haired vulva and wet vagina to the ultimate.  "Oh,
Olivia," she said.  "I'm having an orgasm!  Oh, Olivia!"

   "Me too, Grandma; me too!" said my mother.

   After a few moments, my grandmother said, "Oh, thank you, Olivia.  After
all these years.  I would hug you if we weren't both . . .  nude.  Naked.
We're both naked and we both just pleasured ourselves together.  And now I
can do it with Zeb!" But Grandma still washed her hands six times.

   * * * *

   "Do you have any idea what this 'surprise' that your Ma is planning for
me is?" Grandpa asked John my father.  The two of them were alone taking a
work break, sitting in our family sawmill.

   "None, Pa, except I know Olivia is helping her with it."

   "Well, I have some idea," said Grandpa, grinning to the point of almost
cackling.  "I saw Esther, your mother, hiding a black and white French maid
costume."

   "What for?" my father asked.  Then he saw how much his father Zeb was
grinning.  "Oh," he said.  "Pa, I really don't need to know about that. 
What you and Ma do when you're alone together is your own business."

   "Oh, you always were a little prudish for a Walton man," said my
grandfather.  "Speaking of French girls, I should tell you about that
French chorus girl I saw dancing during the Spanish-American War."

   "You've told me about her many times.  Pa . . .  or do you mean about
her private show?  You said I had to wait until I'd been married 20 years
to hear that.  It hasn't been 20 years."

   "Close enough," said Grandpa.  "Considering all that's been happening
lately . . .  The private show was just for a few of us select Army men, a
very few.  The beginning of her show was exactly the same as the public
one. She danced wearing . . .  "

   ". . .  Black silk stockings and peacock feathers and little else," said
my father.  "Then she stripped and those were all she wore."

   "Yes, and she was as beautiful and well made as you could imagine, son,
with pert little breasts with dark pointy nipples, a round little white
belly and a dark brown bush at the top of her creamy white legs.  But then
things got so extreme . . .  This is the part I haven't told you.  She had
a pet that was a wolf, part dog I think, that came out.  Son, you simply
will not believe this.  The creature went straight to her, and right away
starting licking her between her legs!  Licking her furry vulva right there
in front of us!"

   "Oh, Pa, I didn't need to hear that."

   "But the girl liked it very much, very much," said Grandpa, tittering.
"The creature kept licking and licking and she began moaning louder and
louder.  Then she screamed!  She really screamed!  Oh John.  We knew the
greatest show we would ever see was over."

   "Fine.  Now can we go back to . . .  "

   "But it wasn't.  She asked for a volunteer from the audience, the very
small audience, all service men.  I raised my hand, but for some reason she
picked Henry.  I outranked him and was more rugged and muscular than he
was, but she picked him.  She told him to take off all his clothes which he
did.

   "Then she got some maple syrup and poured it into her hand.  She took
her hand and started rubbing it into his male member, his penis, and his
testicles.  His penis was as hard and erect as any you'd ever see."

   "Pa . . .  "

   "Then she called her wolf-dog over, and the creature started licking
him, licking his penis and testicles and licking and licking.  You could
tell Henry was in heaven.  He was practically drooling as he gazed
feverishly at the beautiful French chorus girl standing next to him naked
while being licked to the point of no return.  Then suddenly he cried out,
'Fifi!'" He shot spurts of white cream into the air and on himself and on
the floor and on the girl and even on the wolf.  Then the animal licked
that up to!" said my grandfather, laughing a big belly laugh.

   "Pa, I waited almost 20 years to hear that?  I could have waited another
20.  That's perverted."

   "You know, son, in some parts of Europe and the Far East, wives do that
to their husbands.  Lick their male members, I mean."

   "Not in America, Pa," said my father.

   "No, in America 19-year-old men impregnate unmarried 15-year-old girls."

   "You know I didn't plan it that way, Pa; I planned to marry Olivia long
before Lunette was born.  If her mother hadn't stopped us getting married .
. .  I never did figure out what changed her mind.  Why did she wait until
after Olivia left town to go to her aunt's and gave up Lunette for adoption
and then let us get married?  We'll never know our first child, our oldest
daughter.  It still hurts, Pa."

   "I'm sorry, son, for bringing it up.  Let's talk about something else.
Like your oldest son and what he's about to do with Marcia Woolery."

   "What's that?" asked my father.

   "What you did, with Olivia.  Don't you know?"

   "Oh Pa," said my father John.  "Don't let him do it.  I wish he'd talk
to me about those things, but I always get my tongue tied up."

   "Oh, he'll be protected," my Grandpa Zeb said.  "I'm getting him some
sheep skin prophylactics."

   "And how are you getting those?" my father asked.

   "Oh, I have someone who will give them to me.  He told me, 'Zeb Walton,
if you have a need for them at your age, I'll be happy to give some to you
without charge.'"

   "Well," said my father, "John Boy is 17.  And as long as he's protected
so he doesn't have to go through what I went through . . .  "

   * * * *

   It was perhaps the longest four weeks of my life, but finally, Saturday,
the day of the full moon, came.  Marcia Woolery barely talked to me at
school on Friday the day before.  She had responded with no more than a
slight smile when I said to her, "Tomorrow, 10 p.m., in the barn.  Be
there."

   Grandma and Grandpa had each, separately, been anticipating that night
themselves.  Grandpa had given no hint to his wife that he knew at least
part of her secret.  That night at 9 p.m., he lay in bed with his body in
his light-colored long johns and his eyes closed in anticipation.  He had
bathed, his wife Esther bathing separately, and his blond-white hair on his
head and even the gray hair on his mustache were brushed.  Their small
bedroom was lit by candlelight with a hint through the curtain of the light
of the full moon.  Esther had told him to keep his eyes closed and to not
fall asleep.  But sleep was the furthest thing from his mind.

   Finally his wife Esther said, "I'm ready, monsieur.  You may open your
eyes."

   Grandpa saw his wife lit by candles and moonlight.  She was coming out
of a curtsey in the shortest thing Grandpa had ever seen her wear, her legs
exposed three or four inches above her knees.  Her short black French maid
dress had short sleeves and a skirt with white lace on the bottom and over
it a white lacy apron.  Her face was made up more than he'd seen in decades
and her gray hair was pulled back and almost unseen behind a lacy white
maid's cap.  Her legs were as shapely as they had been 30 years before. 
"Oh, Esther," said Zeb, "you're beautiful."

   "Call me 'Fifi,'" said Esther.

   "Fifi?" said my grandfather, stroking his gray mustache.  "Oh no, you
went to all this trouble for me and are looking so beautiful and desirable.
I want to call you by your name, 'Esther.'"

   "No, Zeb; if you call me Esther I can't do it.  It has to be Fifi,
monsieur" said my grandmother.

   "All right, then, Fifi," said Grandpa, grinning to the point of
chuckling with delight.

   "Now, monsieur," she said.  "While I turn my back, remove all of your
clothes."

   "Oh yes, I'll do it, Fifi," said Grandpa as she turned her back.  He got
out of his long underwear faster than he'd done since the day his cousin
dropped a lit cigar on his lap.  He hadn't even touched his male member,
but it was already halfway erect.  "I'm ready, Fifi," he said.

   She sat on the bed, and Grandpa started to move, expecting her to lie on
her back as always.  But she said, "no, monsieur, stay as you are.  But
close your eyes."

   He did, and she kissed him.  She kissed him in a way she seldom kissed,
hard.  They kissed for a while, his eyes still closed, and soon Grandma was
using her tongue in his mouth almost as vigorously as he was using his in
hers.

   Grandpa's eyes still closed, Grandma removed her panties and used her
fingers to rub some petroleum jelly into her nether regions, surprised to
find her vulva in its nest of gray hair was already moistened.  She wiped
her hand thoroughly with a rag, but did not wash it.  She sat facing away
from Zeb, her buttocks resting on his thighs, his nearly erect penis
touching her bottom.  She took his hands in hers, and put them over her
breasts, still covered by her maid's clothes.  They felt firmer through the
fabric.

   Then Grandma said, "Open your eyes, monsieur."

   "Yes, Fifi," said Grandpa.  "They're open wide."

   "I will stay this way, my back to you, so you can, so you can imagine me
looking however you like."

   Grandpa was astonished to see the back of his wife, the maid, with her
right hand in front obviously rubbing herself between her legs!  He had
never seen her do that.  After watching for a while, he couldn't resist,
and reached his strong right hand around and started rubbing her too.  It
took Grandma by shock and she almost told him to stop.  But she did not,
and found she very much liked her husband's hand touching her--dare she say
it?  "I love the way you touch my, my vulva, monsieur."

   "Oh, Es--Fifi," said Grandpa.  "Me too."

   After a few more moments, Grandma was the readiest she had ever felt. 
"Monsieur, I am ready for you to enter me, please, monsieur, please."

   And Grandpa did.  She sat on him, still facing away, using her hand to
guide his erect penis under her buttocks and into her willing vagina.  It
took a moment, for she had never done it this way before.  But he entered
her finally, and she felt him filling her.  She rubbed herself, and
remembered to stimulate the nub, the bump above her vulva.  She moved up
and down.  As aroused as she was, she began to tire.  But Grandpa grabbed
her waist from both sides, and his strong arms lifted her up, then lowered
her down, then lifted her again.

   The moving up and down and the lubrication and the candles and moonlight
and her waist and her bottom and her wet vagina rubbing over his manhood
and Grandpa felt the surge.  He howled his wolf howl as he shot his spunk
more forcefully than he had in a long time, deep into Grandma's vagina. 
For the first time in years, he had been thinking only of his wife.  After
a moment, he said, "that was wonderful." He thought the most wonderful
night of his wedded life since his honeymoon was over, and had now become a
cherished memory.

   From another room, Ben said, "there's the full moon wolf again."

   But in my grandparents' bedroom, Grandma was still moving up and down on
Grandpa's erect member.  "Help me, monsieur," she said.

   "Help you?" said Grandpa, astonished.  "After I'm finished?  Oh my. 
Yes, certainly." He fully cooperated, using his wood-hauling arms to move
her small body up and down.  Then Grandma did something Grandpa had never
heard.  She cried out, "Zeb, I'm having an orgasm, oh Zeb!"

   The family couldn't understand the words, but the sound carried through
the house.

   "I heard something else," said Erin.  "What was that, John Boy?"

   "John Boy's asleep . . .  probably asleep," said John quickly.  He and
my mother were both wiping themslves off with rags after their joining. 
"All of you go back to sleep." But to his wife he said, "Olivia.  That
wasn't just my Pa this time.  Do you think Ma's all right?"

   "She's fine, John Walton, maybe better than she's ever been," said
Olivia.  "Everything is Ok."

   "I hope John Boy's Ok," said my father to himself.

   "Why wouldn't he be?" asked Olivia.

   "Never mind," said my father.  "Let's just go to sleep."

   * * * *

   I had planned to meet Marcia Woolery in the barn at 10 p.m.  I chose the
late hour first because I knew my family would be asleep and wouldn't miss
me, especially as I had my own bedroom, and second because I didn't want
Marcia coming to our barn to the sound of Grandpa's monthly howl and being
frightened away by 'the full moon wolf.'"

   I felt overdressed for the barn, but not for her.  I wore a long sleeve
white button shirt with small dark gray spots under a beige with black
stripes sweater vest.  The top of my shirt was fastened by a dark brown
bowtie with light oval spots.  My slacks were brown, held by a dark belt,
and my shoes and socks were both brown.

   At 20 minutes after, I began to wonder if she was coming at all.  I had
gotten to the barn early, about 8:30, so I could prepare an area for us.  I
had thoroughly cleaned a corner of the barn floor, and covered it with
fresh hay.  I then unfolded and spread out a freshly washed red and green
blanket and repositioned it over the hay five times.  I had a jar of red
glass holding the Baldwin Sister's recipe mixed with lemonade and extra
sugar.  Everyone knew what they called "the recipe" was moonshine--except
for them.  I hoped Marcia would like it as much as I did, and that it would
help relieve some of our nervousness.  Perhaps things would go further than
my getting a peek at what I imagined to be her wondrous body.  I also had
what Grandpa had given me, a sheep skin prophylactic.  I did not plan to go
that far, but he told me to keep it ready just in case.

   The Baldwin Sisters had given me the red jar of lemony brew for
"culmination of services duly rendered." I figured the phrase had come from
their late father the judge, but I wasn't sure exactly what services it
referred to.  But right then I didn't care.

   While I had prepared the barn, Chance, our family's brown cow, had
largely ignored me.  She even slept through Grandpa's wolf howl; I supposed
she had gotten used to it.  She woke up and mooed a bit as if she were
frightened a little later, but I didn't know by what.  But I wasn't
thinking much about our cow.  I was feeling the Walton full-moon stirring
in my blood, and was fighting letting my hand relieve the building
pressure.

   Finally, a little after 10:30, I heard the gentle tapping on the barn
door that meant the girl I had prepared for was there.  I opened the door,
and there was Marcia Woolery.

   She wasn't wearing an evening dress, I guessed because we weren't
meeting at a dance but in the barn.  She had on a short sleeved white and
blue gingham dress that blossomed at her bosom, then was gathered at her
waist, then softly widened from her waist through her hips.  Her shoes were
dark leather.  "I couldn't wear white shoes out here," she said when she
noticed me looking at her feet.  Her soft light brown hair lit by moonlight
was worn in a bun with a white American dogwood flower, the state flower of
Virginia, in the right side of her hair.

   But what I noticed most was her face which looked ready for a dance. 
She wore lipstick, red and wet, and a little rouge on her cheeks.  Her deep
brown eyes were highlighted somehow when they looked up at me, but most of
the time they were looking down.  I closed the barn door behind us.

   "You're beautiful, Marcia Woolery," I said.  I suddenly felt overdressed
in my brown slacks and leather shoes, light long sleeve shirt fastened with
a brown spotted bowtie with a brown sweater vest over it.

   "I almost didn't come, John Boy," Marcia said.

   "Well, I'm glad you did."

   "John Boy," she said, looking at me with doey eye, "are you sure you
love me?"

   "Yes, I am, Marcia Woolery." I said.  "You are my girl, my queen.  Why
can't a girl be queenly, and give the gift of herself?" I said, slightly
misquoting Lawrence.

   "Your queen?  Oh John Boy, you have such a way with words.  I noticed
something too, with words.  Woolery sounds almost like Walton," she said.

   "Yes it does," I agreed.

   We talked and held hands.  I released her and said "Marcia, I have
something special for tonight.  I've saved it for you." Then I brought out
the jar of the recipe mixed with spicy lemonade I had saved for a special
occasion.  "The Baldwin Sisters make a special type of lemonade."

   "I know, it's delicious," she said.  "Or so I've heard.  It's partly the
recipe, right?"

   We shared the spiced lemonade whiskey, both drinking out of the same
jar. We held and caressed each other's clothed bodies while sitting on the
red and green blanket.  We kissed, our lips wet with our own licking, and
our tongues entered and moved wetly inside each other's mouth.

   She suddenly broke from a kiss and said, breathlessly, "I'm ready, John
Boy.  I'm ready to show myself to you.  Are you ready?"

   "I have been for a month," I said.

   She stood and turned with her back to me.  She undid her light brown
hair, and it fell long and flowing over her back.  The white flower was
still in her hair.  She turned and looked at me over her shoulder, still
keeping her back to me.  "Are you ready, John Boy?" she asked.

   I said "yes."

   Somehow, while I watched her back, she did something, I don't know what.
But suddenly her white and blue checkered dress was sliding down and she
was stepping out of it.  I saw her pink back and waist and full rounded
buttocks over two wonderfully shapely legs.  I had thought I'd see the back
of her panties and brassiere, but she was wearing nothing save her white
flower in her hair and her dark shoes on her feet.  As she kicked off her
shoes, I caught a quick glimpse of something dark brown at the top of her
thighs just below her bottom.  "Oh Marcia," I said.  "You're beautiful. 
You are a queen, my queen."

   Then she turned suddenly to face me.  I saw her pale shoulders, and
there were her small but firm and full breasts, with nipples smaller than
in some of the pictures I'd seen, but larger than mine.  Her breasts were
like, yet not like, those of the women I'd seen nude in black and white
photographs.  They hung higher than Clara Bow's, were rounder than Olive
Borden's, and had two points more prominent than Paulette Goddard's.  They
were like two ripe pink tomatoes with small dark nipples where the leaves
and stems would have been.  I looked beneath her breasts at her belly, a
bit rounder than Jean Harlow's with her inward navel in the center, and
below that saw a garden patch of curled hair, darker and fuller than Mary
Ellen's, that grew above her wonderfully shapely legs and naked feet.  She
was naked, completely, save for the white American dogwood flower in her
hair.

   She stepped toward me, breathing as if she had been running.  She
touched me as I stood, and before I knew it her hands and mine has removed
my long sleeved blue dotted white shirt, my suspenders were gone, my shoes
and socks were off, and my brown pants and white briefs were lying on the
hay.

   She kissed me suddenly, and I kissed back.  My member was actually
touching her lower belly, looking for a way in.  Both of our bodies were
shaking.

   She suddenly pulled away.  "Oh John Boy," she said, "I don't know what's
happening to me.  I don't know.  Look at me." I certainly had been looking,
but then I noticed a bit of liquid flowing slowly like molasses down her
legs from her bush.  I thought at first she was peeing, but then I
remembered what I had read when sneaking a peek at a book at the Baldwin
Sisters'.  She was wet with excitement.  "Oh John Boy," she said.  "I'm,
I'm dripping!"

   I was dripping too.  Liquid was seeping from the small opening at the
head of my penis.  "Marcia," I said, maybe we should stop."

   But she ignored my advice.  Both still standing, she pressed her naked
body again to mine.  Our hands were everywhere, exploring each other's
glistening naked bodies, our backs, our chests, our buttocks, our groins.
Soon my mouth was at her left breast, and her soft hand was firmly stroking
me while I was touching her between her legs in the way Grandpa had told me
a man could do.  I knew, and knew that she knew, that we were not going to
stop.

   "John Boy," she panted as she stroked my engorged member while I stroked
her wet bushy flesh between her perspiring and dripping thighs.  "Before we
do . . .  'it,' there's something I . . .  oh, that is nice . . .  I have
to tell you."

   "Ok, Marcia but make it quick.  I don't think I can hold off much
longer." Her hand around my engorged member was heaven.

   "John Boy, I'm not 17."

   " Marcia, right now I don't care how old you are," I said.

   "But I'm older than you.  You should know that.  I'm really 19.  I
started school late, then . . .  oh John Boy . . .  was held back in school
a year as a young girl before . . .  oh, so nice . . .  before we moved
back here."

   "Marcia, I don't care if you're twenty . . .  or twenty seven," I said,
feeling her wetness all over my fingers and even in my hand.  "You're my
queen."

   "And John Boy," she said, stroking my erection, "please, before we,
before we do it, when we do it . . .  "

   "Yes?"

   "I always . . .  imagined my, my husband, when we were alone, together
like this, would call me, would call me by my middle name, my secret name."

   "I didn't know you, you had a middle name," I said, my blood boiling in
my loins.

   "I never use it, I saved it for him, for you.  John Boy, call me, oh
John Boy . . .  "

   "Call you what?" I said.

   "Call me . . .  Lunette."

   * * * *

   "Lunette?" thought my sister Mary Ellen hiding in the barn loft.  Her
right hand was thrust down the side of her blue bib overalls and into the
area below the hair of her private area.  She was fondling her lady lips
with her index finger moving wetly inside.  She was surprised to feel her
own womanly juices dripping down her legs, feeling much wetter than she had
been so far.  Her left hand was fondling her own breasts which were free
from her light long sleeve unbuttoned shirt.

   Mary Ellen spoke very quietly to herself while she watched us, using the
nastiest words she knew.  "Do it, John Boy, put your erect penis inside
Marcia Woolery's vagina, her wet cave of flesh that's made for a man's
penis to enter and explore and thrust and ejaculate inside.  Do I while I
watch."

   * * * *

   I didn't know Mary Ellen's thoughts, or that she was there at all,
watching us from the loft inside the barn Marcia and I were standing in
naked.  But I knew my own thoughts.  "I have to get something, Marcia," I
said.  I pulled away with difficultly, grabbed my discarded pants and
reached into my right front pocket.  I took out the sheep skin prophylactic
in its small package that Grandpa had given me.  I had already used one to
practice, especially the part where I would hold the base of it before I
pulled out so I wouldn't leave it behind and useless.  "This will keep you
from becoming with child," I said.  I opened its package and slid it on.

   At the same time, Marcia had lain on the blanket on her back, her knees
high and bent and spread wide apart.  She was opened and waiting for me to
slide in.  She was wetter than a ripe slit in a squeezed lemon.

   I mounted her, feeling like a wild dog, a wolf.  I missed her opening
the first time and the second, but entered her on the third.  I could not
believe how it felt.  We moved together, our perspiring bodies slapping
against each other.  I was surprised at the sound but found I liked it.  It
sounded obscene like the words of D.  H.  Lawrence.

   "Oh Marcia," I said.

   "Lunette," she reminded.

   "Lunette, I'm inside you, inside your . . .  your vagina.  My penis is
inside your vagina."

   "Oh John Boy," she said, "keep talking like that."

   "We're joining, mating, Marcia, Lunette, we're . . .  we're fucking!"

   "Oh John Boy!"

   "My erect penis is fucking your cunt!" I said.

   "Yes, John Boy, yes, we're . . .  we're fucking!  We're mating!  Oh John
Boy, oh . . .  John Boy!  Fuck me, John Boy, fuck me!" she screamed.

   I had been close, but as soon as I heard her scream, I was screaming
too. "Lunette!" I spurted gobs of semen, filling the prophylactic inside
her.  As I looked down where we connected, I saw that somehow the white
dogwood flower she had worn in her hair had fallen in her lap.

   While we were screaming together, it seemed as if I heard, "John Boy!"
but it wasn't from Marcia.  It sounded like Mary Ellen, but I was sure it
couldn't have been.  Without knowing it, while I was inside my girlfriend
was I actually thinking of my oldest sister?

   * * * *

   Barely awake, when they heard the screams, John and Olivia each smiled
to themselves, but for different reasons.  John thought, "My son has
finally done it," and Olivia thought, "Esther and Zeb have done it again."
Fortunately, the rest of the family was asleep and heard nothing.

   * * * *

   The thrill I had felt telling Grandpa about Marcia Woolery and I joining
for the first time fell like a fragile flower vase to the concrete,
shattering to pieces.  I started shaking in shock Sunday afternoon outside
when Grandpa told me the secret after I had shared with him, what I had
finally done with Marcia.  He did not know Marcia's background until I told
him her middle name.  Then he told me the story of my father and mother's
secret daughter born before they were married, the story of Lunette.  I had
mated my own sister.

   Grandpa and I were sitting on a log in the dip in Walton's Mountain
where we had been before.  I was so confused and astonished I was shaking
out tears.

   "How could you not have told me, Grandpa?" I cried.

   "I didn't know myself, John Boy, that Marcia was Lunette, not until you
told me her middle name.  It is a secret that must remain secret.  You must
not tell anyone, not your parents, and especially not Marcia.  Not, at
least, until your grandmother and I, and your mother and father, are all
gone.  And I'd never tell her."

   "But Grandpa, how can I even live with myself?  After what I did?  I
wish I was dead."

   "John Boy, it's not your fault.  You didn't know . . .  John Boy, I'm
going to tell you something else.  Something that might help you feel like
you're not alone in this."

   "Oh, Grandpa, not another secret."

   "I never planned to tell anyone this, ever.  You have to swear me a
solemn oath never to tell anyone, not as long your parents and grandparents
are alive.  Right now, I am the only person in the world who knows this."

   "Grandpa . . .  "

   "Swear it, John Boy.  I have to tell you this.  You are so despondent,
the truth of your background just might save your life."

   "I swear," I said.

   "I told you I had an affair when your Uncle Ben and your father, my son
John, were quite young.  And that the woman I had the dalliance with was
married and produced a daughter."

   "Yes, Grandpa."

   "But I did not tell you the woman's name."

   "Was it 'Fifi?" I asked.

   "Fifi?  No," said Grandpa.  "Fifi wasn't the French chorus girl I met;
it was the name of her wolf."

   "Oh," I said.  I hadn't yet heard the story of what the wolf had done to
the French woman or the army man Henry, so had no idea how to interpret
that.  Nor, right then, did I care.

   Grandpa continued.  "Forget the girl and her wolf.  John Boy, the last
name of the woman I had the affair with, the one I produced a daughter
with, was Daly."

   "Daly?  You mean she was someone in Grandma's family, my other grandma?"

   "Yes," said Grandpa.

   "Oh, Grandpa, you don't mean, you don't mean you did it with both my
grandmothers?"

   "Yes, John Boy, I did."

   "But that means . . .  Aunt Frances is your daughter?  You're the father
of my mother's sister?"

   "No, John Boy, not your Aunt Frances."

   "But who else could it be?  It couldn't be . . .  no, no, no, I won't
believe it."

   "It's true, John Boy.  My daughter, born out of wedlock, is . . . 
Olivia, your mother.  But don't you ever, ever tell anybody, as long as we
live.  You made a solemn oath."

   "But, but Daddy's your son.  Mama and Daddy are brother and sister?"

   "Half brother and sister," said Grandpa.  "When I had that affair with
your other grandmother, she wasn't your grandmother, of course, just
another woman.  I had no idea that years later my daughter by her would
fall in love with my son by Esther.  That's why your late maternal
grandmother forbid her daughter Olivia marrying my son John, because she
believed they were half brother and sister, which was the truth.

   "But then I told your mama's mother that, when we were together years
before, I had been completely sterile as verified by a doctor.  Olivia
could not be my child, but was the legitimate offspring of her now late
husband, your other grandfather.  It was a lie, of course.  Olivia was
mine.

   "She, like me, you, your father, your brother Jason, your sister
Lunette, and by now probably your sister Mary Ellen, are all Waltons who
feel the stirring of the moon.  Why do you think Marcia--Lunette--opened up
to you so quickly?  It wasn't just the recipe with lemonade.  It was the
full moon.  I would be very careful, John Boy, to not be alone with Mary
Ellen during the night of a full moon.  Your other brothers and sisters
will feel it someday, when they're mature; Erin might be close.  It's in
the Walton blood, and has been since your great-great grandfather first
claimed Walton's Mountain and christened it by being joined with his wife
under the light of a full moon.

   "But oh, I should have told your maternal grandmother that lie long
before, long before your mother gave birth to Lunette.  It's my fault she
had to leave her home for months and hide at the home of her aunt in
Alberene.  May God forgive me that I waited so long to let my son and
daughter, your mother and father, be married.  But I had been very worried
about incest too, until I learned how prominent it was in the Bible.

   "But finally I told the lie, and your late maternal grandmother believed
that her daughter, Olivia, was produced by her husband, your late maternal
grandfather.  Then she let the marriage of your future mother and father,
Olivia Daly and John Walton, happen."

   "But Grandpa!  Why didn't you stop it?  Why didn't you stop me?"

   "I told you, John Boy, I didn't know Marcia was your sister Lunette
until you told me that was her name.  I didn't even know she was adopted,
and she might not know, so I wouldn't tell her that either.

   "But as to your parents, who am I to stop love?  Eve was made of Adam's
flesh, closer than brother and sister, and their offspring had to produce
offspring with either their parents or siblings.  God made it that way. 
And Abraham was blessed by God in his union with his half sister Sarah. 
And Noah and his sons and their wives, they had to have interbred.  God
made it that way too.  So many in the Bible, John Boy, were produced by
incest.  Your mother and father, my daughter and son, produced seven
healthy--eight healthy--children.  Let it go, John Boy, let it go."

   * * * *

   "Eventually I did let it go, and never revealed any of it until after
Grandma and Grandpa, and Mama and Daddy, were long gone.  My mother and
father never learned the true nature of their relationship.

   "Marcia and I never married, of course.  She eventually learned she had
been adopted, but I never told her that she was my sister, a secret only
Grandpa and I knew.  She married and was later killed in a car accident
while much too young, and I dearly miss her.

   "After a while, when I was 17, the Walton household returned to
normalcy, or as normal as it could be considering the family secret."

   --Narrator, John Walton Jr.  in middle age

   * * * *

   On a Saturday night, a little while after 9 p.m., and two weeks after
Grandma first wore her French maid costume for Grandpa, we heard what
sounded like the howling of a wolf.

   "Daddy," shouted Erin from the girls' bedroom.  "Is that the full-moon
wolf?"

   "Erin," said Mary Ellen, "Quiet or you'll wake up Elizabeth."

   "But it's not the full moon," said Erin.

   "It is now," said Daddy, smiling at the thought of what had apparently
just happened in his Ma and Pa's bedroom.  "It is now.  Go back to sleep."


   END