“Vermont” to me was not the state, but the sagging farmhouse the Great Man bought when I was in kindergarten. It didn’t have much paint on it when we first saw it, and it had a privy instead of a bathroom. Mother had running water installed right away, and Joan, our neighbor’s daughter, was so excited by the toilet that she flushed it four or five times whenever she came over. Her privy had there holes, and you washed your hands at the tap in the kitchen.

from Liar from Vermont by Laura C. Stevenson (Voyage/Brigantine Media)