“Is she a tattletale?” Mary Evelyn asked Lena, as if Marcia was a doll and couldn’t talk for herself. Mary Evelyn was tall for her age. She had a velvet dress and a locket with an opal and asafedita in it, a prayer book with a lock, and a nickel for collection. She had very red cheeks just as Lena had, and a fat black braid down her back with the ends tightly curled. She had a pink velvet hat with a big bow under her chin, for her mother bought all her clothes from a catalog. She did not care to walk in public with anybody younger than she was, so Marcia was obliged to keep several steps behind the two older girls. As she kept shouting remarks to them, the conspicuity was almost worse than letting her come along with them. Lena threatened to tell Mama and this stopped Marcia for a minute or two. Still, she would rather be lectured for walking behind them than go all by herself to the First Christian Sunday School. Presently, crushed by criticism and threats, she stood on the corner watching unhappily while Lena Gladys and Mary Evelyn stalked proudly down the street toward the Presbyterian Church. She wanted to get even by going home and tattling, but she didn’t quite dare risk their scorn. Her pride was shattered by being treated like a baby, but more than that she was mystified by the difference between herself and Lena. What made Lena have the courage to step into a strange church, knowing she might get spanked for doing this without permission? What made it more fun for Lena to do things without permission, anyway? Marcia hopscotched by herself on the corner, pretending to have a good time in case they turned around and looked, but they did not seem to care what she did, providing she didn’t bother them. Desolately she saw that they were actually turning in the Presbyterian churchyard and leaving her. She had only to turn up East Maple and go to the Christian Church, but she couldn’t bear to go all alone. Suddenly, with a little gasp at her own daring, she began running in the direction of the other girls, and as the last bell chimed, she fell over the brownstone steps of the Presbyterian Church, tearing a big hole in the knee of her stocking. A strange big man with whiskers lifted her up and carried her into the assembly door just as they began singing, “I washed my hands this morning, so very clean and white—” The big man put Marcia down on a chair where she sat rigidly, her heart pounding almost visibly under her jumper. If it had not been for the encouraging sight of Lena standing smugly in the front row with Mary Evelyn, and the fact that the great door was closed, she would have rushed wildly out again, back to her proper church. She saw that she was in a row with boys, too, some of them giants of eight or nine years old, and this threw her into fresh panic. She kept her eyes fixed on Lena, standing so calmly, her yellow curls prettily ruffling out from under her felt hat; she ached with envy of this marvellous poise. Then she thought of what Lena and Mary Evelyn would do to her when they found she had tagged, and this prospect was worse than fear of her mother’s scolding. She thought, too, of what the stained-glass God of the First Christian Church would do, if He found her in a Presbyterian Church, and it was no comfort thinking He might do the same thing to Lena because clearly Lena did not fear Him. She saw Georgie Hollis from across the street making faces at her and even read his lips, “What are you doing in my Sunday School?”