waited every evening to walk down the six flights of
stairs with me, and three blocks until our ways parted. Each time I
patted her on the back when we started off and chortled: "Hey, Lucia,
da big-a, da fat-a!" Lucia would giggle again, and that is all we
would have to say. Except one night Lucia pointed to the moon and
said, "Luna." So I make the most of knowing that much Italian.

Oh yes, Lucia and I had one other thing in common. One day at the
laundry I found myself humming a Neapolitan love song, from a victrola
record we have. Lucia's face brightened. The rest of the afternoon I
hummed the tune and Lucia sang the words of that song, much to Mrs.
Reilly's delight, who informed the floor that now, for sure, Lucia was
in love again.

There was much singing on our floor. Irma used often to croon negro
religious songs, the kind parlor entertainers imitate. I loved to
listen to her. It was not my clothes she was ironing. Hattie, down the
line, mostly dwelt on "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam." Hattie had
straight, short hair that stood out all over her head, and a face like
a negro kewpie. She was up to mischief seven hours of the nine, nor
could Miss Cross often subdue her. Hattie had been on our floor four
years. One lively day Irma was singing with gusto "Abide With Me." For
some reason I had broken into the rather unfactory-like ballad of
"Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms," and Lucia was
caroling some Italian song lustily--all of us at one and the same
time. Finally Miss Cross called over, "For land's sakes, two of you
girls stop singing!" Since Irma and I were the only two of the three
to understand her, we made Christian martyrs of ourselves and let
Lucia have the floor.

Miss Cross was concerned once as to how I happened to know so many
hymns. Green earrings do not look particularly hymny. The fact was, I
had not thought of most of the hymns our sixth floor sang since I was
knee high. In those long ago days a religious grandmother took me once
to a Methodist summer camp meeting, at which time I resolved before my
Maker to join the Salvation Army and beat a tambourine. So when Miss
Cross asked me how I knew so many hymns, and the negro-revivalist
variety, I answered that I once near joined the Salvation Army. "You
don't say!" said the amazed Miss Cross.

One day Miss Cross and Jacobs, a Jew who bossed some department which
brought him often to our floor, to see, for instance, should they wash
mor