“Where is your Mama, Baby?” the gentlemen would ask, and Florrie would point heavenward. This always resulted in someone pressing a coin upon her, and a display of handkerchiefs with several sentimental bachelors blowing their noses ostentatiously. As Mr. Sweeney, who was frequently present, said, “There are times when a man isn’t ashamed to shed an honest tear.”

Bonnie Purdy was a trim, complacent little figure, very stylish, since she had a pass on all the railroads and could make trips all over the country on the spur of the moment to see shows, buy hats, or go to parties. She was considered full of life, admired for her jauntily swaying hips and high-stepping when she was fixed up, and the intimations of plumply curved legs revealed by her skirts. She was no chippy, the men respectfully declared, but a fine little girl, high school and business college graduate, a little lady even if she did work around men. She was up on all the latest songs and taught them to Marcia and Lena, accompanying them on the dining room piano. She even took them with her to Eastern Star Entertainments, where she had them sing. She was an earnest performer herself, specializing in musical recitations. For these she looked particularly fine, wearing a white Greek-style wool dress with a red collar that set off her smooth black hair, parted in the middle and drawn smoothly back like pictures of the Madonna. Her cheeks were full, her eyes large and expressive, her mouth childishly pretty but solemn. She sat on the platform in a large armchair, and recited “Sandolphin, the Angel of Mercy, Sandolphin, the Angel of Prayer,” while a lodge sister played the Flower Song on the piano. It was considered a very refined performance. She always came up to say good night to the children, bringing them glasses of milk, and anxiously assuring them there was nothing to be afraid of. But no one could be afraid with the genial trains romping in and out of the room all night—or so it seemed—and the friendly male voices in the halls or outside on the train platform.

Florrie still sobbed in the night for her mother. Marcia, too, had one recurrent dream of her mother. She saw her crossing a street, in her dream, bent over with a bushel bag of potatoes on her back, and her face so tired it did not even smile. Another time she saw her mother carrying her bed on her back, again all bent over like an old woman. In her dreams her mother never smiled, but was always bent with a heavy burden, so Marcia dreaded these dreams and was glad if Florrie woke her up with her crying. Then she would manage to keep her quiet by telling her stories, never-ending stories, in the course of which they both fell asleep. The stories were about a boy named Niky who was a million years old and lived in a tree, with a Whistle Fairy who could transform him anywhere in any shape when Niky whistled. If Florrie was fretful, Marcia made extravagant promises of producing Niky in person, though at the crucial moment she announced he had been disguised as the tangerine Florrie had just eaten. As Lena considered this sort of thing childish, Marcia tried to save it for the nights Lena spent at her friend Mary Evelyn’s.