CHAPTER IV: THE SECOND DAY

It had rained all that night, but the second morning dawned the
twinklingest kind of day. It seemed to Maida that Mother Nature had
washed a million tiny, fleecy, white clouds and hung them out to dry
in the crisp blue air. Everything still dripped but the brilliant
sunshine put a sparkle on the whole world. Slates of old roofs
glistened, brasses of old doors glittered, silver of old name-plates
shone. Curbstones, sidewalks, doorsteps glimmered and gleamed. The
wet, ebony-black trunks of the maples smoked as if they were afire,
their thick-leaved, golden heads flared like burning torches. Maida
stood for a long time at the window listening to a parrot who called
at intervals from somewhere in the neighborhood. "Get up, you
sleepy-heads! Get up! Get up!"

A huge puddle stretched across Primrose Court. When Maida took her
place in the swivel-chair, three children had begun already to float
shingles across its muddy expanse. Two of them were Molly and Tim
Doyle, the third a little girl whom Maida did not know. For a time
she watched them, fascinated. But, presently, the school children
crowding into the shop took all her attention. After the bell rang
and the neighborhood had become quiet again, she resumed her watch
of the mud-puddle fun.

Now they were loading their shingles with leaves, twigs, pebbles,
anything that they could find in the gutters. By lashing the water
into waves, as they trotted in the wake of their frail craft, they
managed to sail them from one end of the puddle to the other. Maida
followed the progress of these merchant vessels as breathlessly as
their owners. Some capsized utterly. Others started to founder and
had to be dragged ashore. A few brought the cruise to a triumphant
finish.

But Tim soon put an end to this fun. Unexpectedly, his foot caught
somewhere and he sprawled headlong in the tide. "Oh, Tim!" Molly
said. But she said it without surprise or anger. And Tim lay flat on
his stomach without moving, as if it were a common occurrence with
him. Molly waded out to him, picked him up and marched him into the
house.

The other little girl had disappeared. Suddenly she came out of one
of the yards, clasping a Teddy-bear and a whole family of dolls in
her fat arms. She sat down at the puddle's edge and began to undress
them. Maida idly watched the busy little fingers--one, two, three,
four, five--now there were six shivering babies