Mr. Hartwell made some side remarks to Papa about Mrs. B. and Mrs. M. being Battle-Axes. Soon afterward Marcia asked Mrs. M. what a battle-ax was, and received a sound box on the ears. The girls tried to keep awake till their father got in, but sleep usually overtook them. In the morning he was cross if they waked him, and often he left without a goodbye. “He’s just like a chicken with his head cut off without Daisy,” said Grandma to Mrs. Carmel. “He don’t know what to do with the kids because he’s just a kid himself.”

16

GRANDMA’S FIRST YEAR on Hodge Street was a great success, she often stated, and she could never thank her friend Mrs. Carmel enough for her excellent advice. No one who applied for lodging was ever turned away, though this resulted sometimes in older tenants being forced out of their beds or else to sharing them. Living room and dining room were divided by screens or calico curtains strung across into dormitories for three or four people, and in especially busy times Grandma slept in the dining room in the folding bed with the children, since a private room for them was now out of the question. In spite of the number of lodgers and light housekeepers, there seemed a lot of financial difficulties. Grandma had mixed fears, one that Aunt Lois would come up and see her serious difficulties, and the other that she would not come up and help her out. Aunt Lois came up scolding once a month, forcing Grandma to admit that very few people found it convenient to pay their bills. Aunt Lois said it was an outrage that Harry never paid any board either for himself or the girls, and she would give him a good talking to. Lena and Marcia heard these accusations with gloomy forebodings, not lessened by Aunt Lois buying them underwear and shoes with the remark, “Your father will have to pay me back for these.” Sensing trouble ahead for their father, Marcia insisted they needed nothing; if they did, then Papa would get it at the right time. When their father was told of Aunt Lois’s action, he was angry at the implied criticism.

“Besides, the shoes hurt us,” Marcia willingly declared. “Anyway the underwear isn’t the kind Mama used to get us at the Fair Store.”

Papa at once took them out and bought them new hats and hair ribbons, the kind their mother would have liked, he said. They overheard him having a long talk with Grandma about what was to be done with them, but while the plans seemed exciting they also seemed confused. He was going to take a house in London Junction with a housekeeper, he was going to board them at the London Junction Hotel, he was going to send them to boarding school, he was going to move to California and take them there, also he was going to take an apartment with Ed Hartwell in Lesterville and have Ed’s girl look out for them. These contradictory plans satisfied Grandma, and the five dollars he gave her as token of good will completely won her.