“But lightning kills people,” Marcia quavered.

“They would die anyway,” said their mother. “If lightning didn’t kill them they’d drop dead of something else. Green apples maybe.”

It was fun having Papa away, a Santa Claus about to pop in with surprises any day. Besides, their mother let them do almost anything they liked. She showed them tricks she’d never showed them before: card tricks, how to twist your legs behind your neck, how to play the mouth organ, and how to dance while she played the talking machine. She let them taste coffee and tea and told them jokes about two Irishmen and two Dutchmen. She didn’t even scold them when a lady down the street reported that the children played train with her bread loaves when they delivered them. They tied a string around the loaf and dragged it very conveniently to the store or home that had ordered it from their mother. She made them a little wagon with a board and thread-spools for wheels so the lady no longer complained.

One disadvantage in Papa’s longer trips was that they missed the Saturday night celebration of paying the grocery bill. Papa had made a custom of taking all three children over to Friend’s Store right after Saturday night supper (always tea and toast and applesauce). The store was crowded with farmers in hip boots, leather jackets, and stocking caps, buying their week’s supplies. Marcia and Lena, with Florrie grasped between them, stood close to Papa so as not to get lost in this great crowd, and also to indicate their preferences in the “treat.” The bill paid, Mr. Friend then took a brown paper bag and tin scoop over to wooden buckets on the floor filled with different candies, hard candy in one, rather grayish chocolates in another, horehound drops in a third. Mr. Friend made a show of letting them choose, but no matter what they said there was always a preponderance of hard candy and never enough chocolates. Marcia saved her chocolates till bedtime, but Lena ate hers at once, shrewdly enough, since later on Marcia would have to divide hers with her or be reproached as selfish by Mama. Now three Saturdays sometimes passed with no treat, and Mr. Friend’s informal generosity at other times did not make up for the loss of this ceremony.

Mama was restless and moody during Papa’s absences. Once Aunt Lois promised to cheer her up by taking her to Lesterville to see a show with a friend of hers. London Junction had an opera house, but it had been condemned by the fire department ever since the last stock company’s visit. The fire hazard had been recognized only after the leading man had run off with the mayor’s niece after the last act of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but after that London Junction drama lovers must travel to Lesterville for their fun. Aunt Lois’s friend was an insurance man named Wilson, a business acquaintance she said, who occasionally took her to supper when she had shopping to do in Lesterville. It would be a pleasure to meet her sister. Mama was excited, and decided to take one of the children.