“I’m good and mad,” Lena finally said mysteriously.

“So am I,” said Marcia, not knowing what there was to be mad about but anxious to share her sister’s mood, and not to betray such ignorance as to suggest a game of jacks when this was the moment for gloom.

“They all pick on Papa,” said Lena. “What do they mean, he don’t treat us right? He brought us oranges, didn’t he, and candy?”

“My piece had a worm in it,” said Marcia.

“That’s what you get for taking the biggest,” said Lena. “Let’s go to bed without being told, just to spite them.”

They rather hoped their father would come in to their room to see them before they really got to bed. Their dark mood did not prevent their jumping up and down on the bed for the customary interval, followed by the conventional pillow fight. Later they were wakened by thunder and with one accord they rushed to the window to watch the lightning, hugging each other fearfully at each roll of thunder. It was thus their father found them when he came up to say goodnight to them.

“Your mother used always to love lightning and thunder,” he said.

“That’s why we always do, too,” said Lena. “We always watch it ever since.”

He took them on his lap and they sat in the dark, quietly watching the storm the way Mama used to do.

15

THE CHILDREN DIDN’T have to go to school while they stayed with Grandma. Marcia was worried that this meant she wouldn’t “pass” and moreover they had to hide when the school inspector came around. When he saw them, Grandma explained that “my daughter’s children are visiting me for a few days before they go back to their school in London Junction. The poor kids have lost their mother.” Other inspectors called regularly, too. When the gas inspector came the children had to rush through the house warning tenants to detach the rubber hose connecting the pipe with a one-burner gas plate, since this was against fire laws. The police inspector called, too, after a Mr. Barmby had skipped his bill one dark daybreak, leaving a suitcase containing a revolver and several bolts of brocade stolen from a nearby merchant. The police called again to confer with Grandma on the two young ladies with red cheeks in the light housekeeping front bedroom, who were not young matrons as they claimed but fourteen-year-old runaways from Chicago. Things were always happening at Grandma’s, and the old lady was happy as a lark, whispering in the halls with Mrs. B. and Mrs. M., listening at doorways to strange sounds, pattering and puttering about, visiting with her friend, Mrs. Carmel. She lived in fear that Aunt Lois would pop in some day when she was having trouble with a roomer, or explaining some little difficulty to a policeman, or taking off Mr. Hartwell’s or Papa’s shoes when they came in late so exhausted that they fell asleep on the floor or bed with all their clothes on. Aunt Lois might call all the family together to get Grandma back to the propriety of private life in London Junction, a flavorless prospect for a woman now hell-bent on an independent career. If Daisy had only lived, she sometimes sighed, Daisy would have approved of her new life. Daisy never would have nagged her mother; Daisy would have pitched right in and helped out; Daisy would have sung and told stories such as Mrs. B. and Mrs. M. had never heard. Go ahead and tell them, Marcia; tell one of your mother’s ghost stories now to Mrs. B.!