My father is an avid chess player, so it didn’t surprise me to see him start to teach his grand-daughter the game when she was just a tot. He taught her to recognize the different chess pieces before she was four years old. It wasn’t long before our little Wendy knew that the piece with the horse’s head was called a knight, the one with the crown was the queen and the one with the crown and a cross on top was the king.
Shortly afterward, we were all out for a Sunday walk when we passed an old, crowded cemetery. The scene was new to little Wendy, and she stopped and stared with widened eyes. Rows of tombstones filled the landscape as far as her eyes could see, “Look, Grandpa,” she cried in amazement, “it’s a big chess set with millions of kings!”
This was a favorite story that my mother would tell. I still have that “look at the chess pieces” feeling when I drive past a cemetery.
Lady M.
