Cheek on his forearms, Kennet looked up at her, wishing he had another pepparkaka to wish on. “She was a kind lady,” he said.

Kind Lady Lives Here

Sometime in 1933, Kennet began to notice strange, chalked marks on the sidewalks of Clayton, starting with a picture of a cat outside his own house on Hugunin Street. He and Minor and Nalle walked around their town and discovered similar marks at other houses. Like the top hat outside Dr. Tomlinson’s, next to a plus sign with a circle in its upper-right quadrant. A box with an upside-down comb at the Pullmans’ place. A capital T with many crossbars outside Police Chief Crouch’s house.

Armed with paper and pencil, the boys hunted down the marks, carefully noting what symbol lay outside what establishment. Then they went to the one person they were sure would know what the strange signs meant.

“Ah,” Major Fiskare said, regarding his nephews’ detective work with an extremely serious air, which was why his nephews revered him. “These are the marks left by hoboes, as a warning to other vagrants.”

“How do you know?” Minor said.

Major ruffled his namesake’s head. “I asked around.”

“A warning against what?” Kennet said.

Major pointed to the weird, many-times-crossed T at the Crouch home. “This means an officer of the law lives within. Best move on.”

His finger tapped the box with the upside-down comb at the Pullman residence. “This means a vicious dog lives here, and correctly so.”

The three boys nodded in fearful agreement, for they’d always given a wide berth to the Pullmans’ nasty mongrel.

The top hat and the plus sign outside Doc Tomlinson’s house meant a gentleman lived there, and a vagabond wouldn’t be charged for medical care.

“And this?” Nalle asked, pointing to the cat outside their own home.

Major smiled down at his little school of fish. “What do you think?”

“Beware of mice?” Minor ventured.

“Something to do with milk?” Kennet said.

Nalle had no guess.

Major, enjoying the moment, blew a smoke ring. “It means ‘kind lady lives here.’”

Kennet and his brothers walked home in contemplative silence, pausing briefly to inspect each hobo symbol chalked on the sidewalk or carved in a tree. They stopped as one before their home, gazing from the white cat up to the house and back again.

Kind lady lives here.

“Gee whiz,” Minor said softly.

Times were hard. Times were frightening. People were broke and struggling. Strangers came through Clayton. Down and out, hungry, jobless, homeless. Skirting the officers of the law, avoiding the vicious dogs, they came to the Fiskares’, where they were given a bit of charity by the lady of the house. A doughnut. A cup of coffee. A scrap of respect. They thanked her and moved on, but not before chalking a cat on the sidewalk outside her house, as a message to everyone who came after:

Kind lady lives here.