“Don’t look like nobody to me but this Mabel Whatsername here, what the hell,” was his comment, but Papa looked again at the picture, holding it up to the light with a stern, searching expression as if he was commanding it to be Daisy herself. Then he put it carefully back in his pocket.

“Why didn’t you leave the kids with their aunt back in London Junction?” asked Mr. Taylor. “None of my business, but this is no place to raise kids, what the hell.”

“Their grandmother got in some trouble in Cleveland and Lois had to stay up there for a while,” said Papa, but the children knew there had been another quarrel between Aunt Lois and Papa, mutual accusations resulting in Papa’s hotly packing them off to Lesterville.

“Roomer at their grandmother’s left a cigar burning and burned down half the street—fourteen houses,” said Papa, referring to the catastrophe which had ended Grandma’s Hodge Street adventure. “Law got after the old lady, besides her losing all of her furniture, and most of the roomers beat their bill in the middle of the excitement. I guess Lois has her hands full, but the old lady’s bound to start in again. Going in the millinery business now with a friend of hers.”

“We’ll get free hats,” prophesied Lena.

Mr. Taylor shrugged impatiently at these family details.

“Let’s go over to the hotel and get Hartwell,” said Mr. Taylor. “Cook up a game there. Let the kids go play, what the hell, no good their sticking in here all the time. They’re big enough to amuse themselves, ain’t they?”

Marcia and Lena again looked resentfully at him and Marcia made bold to pull her nose in angry mockery, so Florrie had a fit of giggles, very irritating to Mr. Taylor, suspicious of its cause.

The truth was that they didn’t know how to go about playing in Lesterville. In Cleveland the Hodge Street district had been a little village in itself, but Lesterville, in bursting from village into busy, industrial town, was too big for one center and too small for several centers. At the big West Park Street School everybody belonged to “the bunch” except the foreigners, who kept to themselves. There was no welcome in either group for strangers. Lena and Marcia dreaded recess, when their isolation was most conspicuous. Fifth graders didn’t mix with fourth graders, so Lena would not dream of easing her own misery by sharing Marcia’s. In Marcia’s class a big, athletic girl named Burnadetta dictated the games, the fashions, the catchwords (“Oh, that’ll be peachy!” “Oh, you kiddo!” “If you don’t like it, lump it!”). The stone-paved schoolyard rang with the cries of her devoted followers: “Come here, Burnadetta! Look at me, Burnadetta! Where’s Burnadetta? Oh, Burnadetta, Burnadetta, Burnadetta!” A name like Burnadetta is as good as a pony or a big play yard for prestige, or even a roguish nickname like Jerry, that of the tomboy leader of Lena’s class. Whatever qualities besides appealing names these girls had for leadership the outsiders could not guess; they could only be fascinated audience to the inner circle’s fun, tagging behind while the eager slaves jostled each other for the privilege of walking next to the idol. “I’ll carry your books, Burnadetta! … I’ll draw your map for you, Jerry! … You can copy my composition, Burnadetta! … Oh, you kiddo! Oh, oh, what’ll we play next, Burnadetta, Jerry!”