y discouraged," he said in a weak muffled voice. "I'm sorry
you caught me at it, Baby."

Eleanor put her face down close to his as he turned it to her.

"Everything will be all right," she promised him, "everything will be
all right. You'll soon get a job--tomorrow maybe."

Then she gathered him close in her angular, tense little arms and held
him there tightly. "Everything will be all right," she repeated
soothingly; "now you just put your head here, and have your cry out."

CHAPTER VIII

THE TEN HUTCHINSONS

"My Aunt Margaret has a great many people living in her family,"
Eleanor wrote to Albertina from her new address on Morningside
Heights. "She has a mother and a father, and two (2) grandparents, one
(1) aunt, one (1) brother, one (1) married lady and the boy of the
lady, I think the married lady is a sister but I do not ask any one,
oh--and another brother, who does not live here only on Saturdays and
Sundays. Aunt Margaret makes ten, and they have a man to wait on the
table. His name is a butler. I guess you have read about them in
stories. I am taken right in to be one of the family, and I have a
good time every day now. Aunt Margaret's father is a college teacher,
and Aunt Margaret's grandfather looks like the father of his country.
You know who I mean George Washington. They have a piano here that
plays itself like a sewing machine. They let me do it. They have
after-dinner coffee and gold spoons to it. I guess you would like to
see a gold spoon. I did. They are about the size of the tin spoons we
had in our playhouse. I have a lot of fun with that boy too. At first
I thought he was very affected, but that is just the way they teach
him to talk. He is nine and plays tricks on other people. He dares me
to do things that I don't do, like go down-stairs and steal sugar. If
Aunt Margaret's mother was my grandma I might steal sugar or plum
cake. I don't know. Remember the time we took your mother's hermits? I
do. I would like to see you. You would think this house was quite a
grand house. It has three (3) flights of stairs and one basement. I
sleep on the top floor in a dressing room out of Aunt Margaret's only
it isn't a dressing room. I dress there but no one else can. Aunt
Margaret is pretty and sings lovely. Uncle David comes here a lot. I
must close. With love and kisses."

* * * * *

In her diary she recorded some of the more intimate facts of her new