Page:The Eleventh Virgin.pdf/20

Rh But she took two towels nevertheless and in some miraculous way with cotton and clothespins and crayons and scraps, made dolls of fascinating character and expression. And for mouths there were button-holed slits, very conveniently opened for “nippy bottles” which you could buy at the store for two cents. “Cathern” had nothing like them.

There were other things that Mother Grace did. When she noticed that “Cathern” and her sister “Gwadys” often had tea-parties in the afternoon (exclusive tea-parties to which no one was invited) she scrubbed the sooty back porch and put out a carpet and table and chairs and there suddenly appeared a surprise party of oatmeal cookies and cocoa molasses candy. And this was an exceptional party, for she invited not only Cathern and Gwadys (with intent to heap coals of fire perhaps) but six others beside.

And when Dave and Dan joined the choir and went away for a week’s vacation in a camp there was an evening treat for the girls every night. Sometimes it was ice-cream and sometimes it was moving pictures and when it was ice-cream, Mother Grace divided the pitcherful (it was ten cents worth) into three equal parts, but somehow she could never finish hers.

“A little goes a long way,” she assured them, and then there was an extra portion to divide.

Mary was one of the porch children and the eldest of nine. She was a Catholic, and she told June of