“Louie still runs after a pretty girl,” said Grandma. “He still sneaks off to town to see that little milliner, but then Louie’s got a heart as big as all outdoors. I think he just wants to help her.”

“That Almedy is going to be a handful from what the neighbors say,” said Aunt Lois.

“What’s Almedy got to do with this conversation?” indignantly inquired their father. “She’s not even in the family.”

Marcia and Lena lay in bed, puzzling over these remarks, torn between loyalty to their parents and love for Aunt Betts and Uncle Louie.

“It spoils everything,” Marcia complained resentfully.

People didn’t like to see other people happy, that was all. If children were happy, especially away from home, their parents insisted it was bad for them. Fathers wanted you to be disobedient so they could correct you. Mothers wanted you to be sick or sad so they could console or protect you. Marcia longed to grow up fast so she could defy them all. She would have a dress with a train, a watch with a fleur-de-lis pin, unlimited licorice beans, and she would eat with her knife faster than anybody.

11

THE FIRST THING Marcia got from school was measles, which she passed on to Florrie. In return for this Lena acquired chicken pox and got the whole family quarantined, a condition that lasted a long time, as one would get it just as another was getting well. Mr. Friend put their groceries outside the kitchen door every day with pots of soup and stew made by his wife. Mama had not caught the germ and was determined to keep up with her baking, in spite of the doctor’s orders. She baked a dozen loaves of bread in the middle of the night to escape his attention, then left them in the hallway for Mrs. Friend to deliver to her customers. When Mrs. Friend, speaking through the closed door, cautiously suggested that the bread might spread chicken pox, Mama indignantly replied that good fresh bread never hurt anybody. If the doctor heard about it and objected, she would simply tell him she had to keep her bread customers in order to pay his bill, and that ought to settle his hash. Mrs. Friend reluctantly took on the secret duty of delivering what she insisted was tainted goods. She was not amused by Mama teasing her later about her qualms.

“Any spots on old Mr. Krug today?” Mama giggled through the door. “I’ll bet that bald head of his looks funny with chicken pox.”

It was Mrs. Friend’s turn to triumph when their father was forced by the health officer to stay at the London Junction Hotel when he came home from a trip. He visited the house every morning and evening, talking to them through the kitchen window, making fun of their spots and assuring them that feathers would sprout out next. This separation made their mother almost sicker than chicken pox itself could have done. Papa’s hearty efforts to cheer her up did no good. In his new winter coat with the velvet collar, his red silk muffler, derby hat and kid gloves, his nose red with cold, he sat on the overturned washboiler outside the kitchen window, while Mama sat in the little sewing chair inside, wrapped in a blue wool robe. The children had been moved, beds and all, to the dining room to make the work easier for their mother, and to keep them warmer.