Mrs. Carmel carried grudges among her other impedimenta. She was in a constant state of war with the landlord of her tiny place, and he was forever doing something that “made her hot French blood boil,” for she was French by marriage and proud of it. When the children came to live with Grandma they stood in a row, jaws agape, staring at Mrs. Carmel, watching her chin waggling in perpetual croaks and sibilants, half anesthetized by the camphorous lavender sachet exuding from her drapes; finally Mrs. Carmel would tweak their cheeks with bony claws and cluck, “I always get on with little folks. No, sir, I never have any trouble with children, never, not an iota.”

A gumdrop apiece, flavored faintly with mothballs, and then off she zoomed into the night. They would press noses to the front window, watching her nebulous black wings fluttering under the street lamp, then plunging suddenly homeward into darkness. No one else was ever able to bring such glamor to Grandma’s busy life or to leave such a gratifying afterglow intrigue, subrosa, entre-nous-innuendo.

It was a pity Mrs. Carmel finally sided with Aunt Lois in saying the children were too big a handful for Grandma. There was a noisy conference one weekend with everybody crying about poor Daisy, Aunt Lois sternly accusing, Grandma vacillating, Mrs. Carmel stating that Grandma could put a little shop in the space occupied by the children and make a mint of money. The word “imposition” occurred several times.

That very night Papa, red-eyed and desperate, packed them up and took them to the station. It was a shock to find nobody at Grandma’s was desolate at their sudden departure.

“Run along with your dad,” said Uncle Wally. “Maybe there’ll be some peace around the place now. Keep your noses clean.”

Mrs. M. and Mrs. B. were equally stoical about their loss.

“I hope somebody teaches them some manners,” said Mrs. M. “The younger one is as impudent as they come. Battle-Ax!”

“Will we see Florrie?” Marcia begged to know as their father hurried them through the Union Depot. “Are we going to London Junction?”

Papa didn’t get their tickets at once but stood chewing a cigar thoughtfully for several minutes. They didn’t know where they were going till they got on the train, but they were glad to be with Papa again.

17

WHEN I SET OUT TO DO a thing, I do it,” stated Papa several times and with increasing complacency. No one, least of all his three doting daughters, could deny this. There they were, almost by magic, so swiftly had Papa acted, back in the London Junction Hotel for the season, under the eye of the manager’s wife, Mrs. Purdy. They had been escorted by Papa to the school superintendent’s office and examined for their proper places in school, Florrie admitted to the kindergarten. They had been regally outfitted on credit at the Fair Store; they had been assigned a small, unpainted table in the hotel kitchen for their private use; and Papa and Mr. Purdy had sat up late, vowing friendship over a bottle of whiskey. Friendship was what men had as protection from the cruelties of women and fate. Mr. Purdy declared that in all his twenty years of hotel business he had never come across as decent a fellow as Harry Willard, and he didn’t care who heard him say it. He said it was a rotten shame that life had treated him so badly, leaving him helpless with his family, but then life was, as that piece said, like a game of cards. The figure was so apt that he and Papa soon vanished into a distant chamber with a pair of Chicago shoe salesmen to check on the simile. The girls, still dazzled by their swift reestablishment, didn’t see Papa again for a week; but the Purdys, in fact the whole hotel, took good care of them.