Buddy, the story's narrator (modeled upon Truman Capote himself, since this is a memoir of his own childhood), describes his cousin vividly and says she is "still a child." His physical descriptions of her combine features of someone who is both very old and very young. Her outfit is mismatched and careless, as a child might wear without an adult guiding their choices: tennis shoes, an old sweater, a "summery calico dress." She is "small...
Buddy, the story's narrator (modeled upon Truman Capote himself, since this is a memoir of his own childhood), describes his cousin vividly and says she is "still a child." His physical descriptions of her combine features of someone who is both very old and very young. Her outfit is mismatched and careless, as a child might wear without an adult guiding their choices: tennis shoes, an old sweater, a "summery calico dress." She is "small and sprightly" and has "white shorn hair" and a "craggy" face "not unlike Lincoln's," but her face also looks "delicate" and "finely boned," and her eyes are "timid."
The two of them share a special bond, like childhood friends. Buddy describes their relationship to the other relatives in the house by making the two of them seem like children who must live reluctantly with adults: "though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best friend."
When the two of them must go and buy ingredients using the Fruitcake Fund, they are excited like small children: "Silently, wallowing in the pleasures of conspiracy, we take the bead purse from its secret place and spill its contents on the scrap quilt."
Throughout the story, the friendship of Buddy and his cousin is described in ways to emphasize his view of her as his best childhood friend, and their closeness was clearly due in part to her own childlike nature.
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