own, facing the court-house square. The
Kronborgs lived half a mile south of the church, on the long street that
stretched out like an arm to the depot settlement. This was the first
street west of Main, and was built up only on one side. The preacher's
house faced the backs of the brick and frame store buildings and a draw
full of sunflowers and scraps of old iron. The sidewalk which ran in
front of the Kronborgs' house was the one continuous sidewalk to the
depot, and all the train men and roundhouse employees passed the front
gate every time they came uptown. Thea and Mrs. Kronborg had many
friends among the railroad men, who often paused to chat across the
fence, and of one of these we shall have more to say.

In the part of Moonstone that lay east of Main Street, toward the deep
ravine which, farther south, wound by Mexican Town, lived all the
humbler citizens, the people who voted but did not run for office. The
houses were little story-and-a-half cottages, with none of the fussy
architectural efforts that marked those on Sylvester Street. They
nestled modestly behind their cottonwoods and Virginia creeper; their
occupants had no social pretensions to keep up. There were no half-glass
front doors with doorbells, or formidable parlors behind closed
shutters. Here the old women washed in the back yard, and the men sat in
the front doorway and smoked their pipes. The people on Sylvester Street
scarcely knew that this part of the town existed. Thea liked to take
Thor and her express wagon and explore these quiet, shady streets, where
the people never tried to have lawns or to grow elms and pine trees, but
let the native timber have its way and spread in luxuriance. She had
many friends there, old women who gave her a yellow rose or a spray of
trumpet vine and appeased Thor with a cooky or a doughnut. They called
Thea "that preacher's girl," but the demonstrative was misplaced, for
when they spoke of Mr. Kronborg they called him "the Methodist
preacher."

Dr. Archie was very proud of his yard and garden, which he worked
himself. He was the only man in Moonstone who was successful at growing
rambler roses, and his strawberries were famous. One morning when Thea
was downtown on an errand, the doctor stopped her, took her hand and
went over her with a quizzical eye, as he nearly always did when they
met.

"You haven't been up to my place to get any strawberries yet, Thea.
They're at their best just now. Mrs. Archie doe