so what's the use worryin', as
I say to Henry."

Say, she had Mrs. Wiggs lookin' like a consistent grouch, Ma Grummidge
did. Rowena, too, is more or less of an optimist. She's about 16, built
a good deal on her mother's lines, and big enough to tackle almost any
kind of work, but I take it that thus far she ain't done much except
help around the flat. Horatio, he's more like his father. He's only 15
and ought to be in school, but it seems he spends most of his time
loafin' at home. They're a folksy fam'ly, I judge; the kind that can
sit around and chat about nothing at all for hours at a time. Why, even
the short while I was there, discoverin' how near they was to bein' put
out on the street, they seemed to be havin' a whale of a time. Rowena,
dressed in a saggy skirt and a shirt waist with one sleeve partly split
out, sits in the corner gigglin' at some of her Ma's funny cracks. And
then Ma Gummidge springs that rollin' chuckly laugh of hers when Rowena
adds some humorous details about a stew they tried to make out of a
piece of salt pork and a couple of carrots.

But the report I makes to Mr. Robert is mostly about facts and finances,
so he slips a ten spot or so into an envelope for 'em, and next day he
finds a club friend who owns a row of apartment houses, among them the
Patricia, where there's a janitor needed. And within a week we had the
Gummidges all settled cozy in basement quarters, with enough to live on
and more or less chance to graft off the tenants.

Then Vee has to get interested in the Gummidges, too, from hearin' me
tell of 'em, and the next I knew she'd added 'em to her reg'lar list.
No, I don't mean she pensions Pa Gummidge, or anything like that. She
just keeps track of the fam'ly, remembers all their birthdays, keeps 'em
chirked up in various ways, shows Rowena how to do her hair so it won't
look so sloppy, fits Horatio out so he can go back to school, and
smooths over a row Pa Gummidge has managed to get into with the tenant
on the second floor west. It ain't so much that she likes to boss other
peoples' affairs as it is that she gets to have a real likin' for 'em
and can't help tryin' to give 'em a boost. And she's 'specially strong
for Ma Gummidge.

"Do you know, Torchy," she tells me, "her disposition is really quite
remarkable. She can be cheerful and good natured under the most trying
circumstances."

"Lucky for her she can," says I. "I expect she was born that way."

"But she wasn't