“They know!” Mrs. Jane declared proudly, indicating the intelligent animal. “You’d be surprised how they know!”

Mrs. Jane felt that the Willard children were almost like her own, she said, which meant they had to run errands and help her with the chores. “Get your beds done now, girls! Have you done your baseboards, Marcia? Have you dusted your dressers?”

Marcia hated this use of “your” not wanting any connection with household unpleasantness. “They’re not my baseboards,” she would mutter. “They’re hers!”

After the first genial conference, Papa and Mrs. Jane did not further the intimacy, though Mrs. Jane did her best. She asked questions of the girls. “I guess your father’s got a sweetheart some place,” she said. “Some young girl, I suppose, young enough to be his daughter. Your father’s got a lot of snap to him, the way he steps, the way he wears that hat of his. I guess he shows the girls a good time all right. One of these days I’m going to fix myself up, branch out in a new navy blue suit. I’ll bet he takes notice then, by golly! I still got my figure and I got all my teeth, that’s the mainest thing.”

Mrs. Jane talked of a day to come when she would retire to sunny California and lie around one of those bungalows in a bungalow apron, in a hammock all day. If she found the right man, maybe some widower with a little snap to him, she would hand over her savings and off they’d go. If the widower had any children she’d be a second mother to them. These implications depressed the children and made Papa wary, even though deceptively genial. When Mrs. Jane suggested opening the sliding doors between their suites, he generously declared he wouldn’t permit it because lots of people would get something in their heads. Some people had that kind of mind. Mrs. Jane said she was old enough not to care what people said, especially if she liked a person, but Papa told her she wasn’t fair to herself. He said a person in her position in the community couldn’t be too careful and he intended to help her keep up this respected position.

After that he spent some time pushing the wardrobe against the sliding door to Mrs. Jane’s room, in case the beaverboard strips might not hold against the hurricanes of circumstance.

21

PAPA SAT IN THE CARVED chair, knees crossed, eyes gazing dreamily upward, and plucked at his guitar.

“Picture tonight, the fields are-a snowy-a-white,” he sang tenderly. “Come on, Florrie, sing it after me. The other kids know it.”

Florrie sat on the footstool directly in front of her father, her small hands clasped, and her large earnest blue eyes fixed worshipfully on him.

“Pitcha taneye, a feelsa sowee why,” she dutifully sang.

“After this let’s sing ‘Honest Irish Lad,’ ” urged Marcia, and Lena said, “Then ‘Poor Little Joe.’ ”

“How the old folks would enjoy it,” went on Papa, ignoring them.