ing me that. Larry's tried, I know, and it isn't easy to
please so many people. We don't know who the owner is so we can only
talk to the agents, but a petition signed by everybody ought to prove
to them that Mary Rose isn't a nuisance."

"Anything but a nuisance!" insisted Mrs. Bracken.

CHAPTER XX

Mary Rose had decided to write a letter. The more she thought of what
she had heard her Aunt Kate say to her Uncle Larry that Sunday morning
the less she liked it. She would write to the owner of the Washington,
to the man who made laws so that children and cats and dogs were not
allowed in his house, and tell him just how it was; and then, why, of
course, he would say it was all right, that Uncle Larry could stay and
she could stay, and everything would be as it was except for Jenny
Lind. Her lip quivered as she tried hard to remember that the Lord had
his eye on Jenny Lind.

She had a box of paper of her own with cunning Kewpie figures across
the top of each sheet. Miss Carter had given it to her one day when
Mary Rose told her of a letter she had received from Gladys. The
letter to the owner of the Washington was not as easy to write as the
answer to Gladys' note had been. She screwed her face into a frowning
knot as she tried to think what it was best for her to say.

DEAR MR. OWNER: [That much was easy.]

This letter is from Mary Rose Crocker, who lives in the cellar of your
Washington house. I mean the basement. We call them cellars in
Mifflin where I used to live, but in Waloo they are basements. Uncle
Larry said you have a law that won't let children live in your house.
I don't understand that, for there have always been children. Adam and
Eve had them and most everybody but George Washington. He never did.
Is that why you named your house after him? My mother died when I was
a tweenty baby and my father is in Heaven with her, too, and I had to
leave Solomon, he's my dog, in Mifflin and board out my cat, but he's
self-supporting now and my bird has been stolen, so there isn't anyone
but just me in the cellar. I mean basement. Aunt Kate and Uncle Larry
are my only relatives on earth and if I don't live with them I'll have
to go to an orphan's home, which I shouldn't like at all. But if you
won't let Uncle Larry keep his job and me, too, of course I'll have to
go. I'll try and not make any noise and be quiet and good if you'll
please let me stay and please, please, I'm getting less of a