ee Rosie's mother often. To tell the truth, she was a
little afraid of her. She was a tall, handsome, black-browed woman--a
grown-up Rosie--with an appearance of great strength and of even
greater temper. "Ah, that choild's the limb," Granny would say, when
Maida brought her some new tale of Rosie's disobedience. And yet, in
the curious way in which Maida divined things that were not told
her, she knew that, next to Dicky, Rosie was Granny's favorite of
all the children in the neighborhood.

With all these little people to act upon its stage, it is not
surprising that Primrose Court seemed to Maida to be a little
theater of fun--a stage to which her window was the royal box.
Something was going on there from morning to night. Here would be a
little group of little girls playing "house" with numerous families
of dolls. There, it would be boys, gathered in an excited ring,
playing marbles or top. Just before school, games like leap-frog, or
tag or prisoners' base would prevail. But, later, when there was
more time, hoist-the-sail would fill the air with its strange cries,
or hide-and-seek would make the place boil with excitement. Maida
used to watch these games wistfully, for Granny had decided that
they were all too rough for her. She would not even let Maida play
"London-Bridge-is-falling-down" or "drop the handkerchief"--anything,
in fact, in which she would have to run or pull.

But Granny had no objections to the gentler fun of "Miss
Jennie-I-Jones," "ring-a-ring-a-rounder," "water, water wildflower,"
"the farmer in the dell," "go in and out the windows." Maida used to
try to pick out the airs of these games on the spinet--she never could
decide which was the sweetest.

Maida soon learned how to play jackstones and, at the end of the
second week, she was almost as proficient as Rosie with the top. The
thing she most wanted to learn, however, was jump-rope. Every little
girl in Primrose Court could jump-rope--even the twins, who were
especially nimble at "pepper." Maida tried it one night--all alone in
the shop. But suddenly her weak leg gave way under her and she fell
to the floor. Granny, rushing in from the other room, scolded her
violently. She ended by forbidding her to jump again without special
permission. But Maida made up her mind that she was going to learn
sometime, even, as she said with a roguish smile, "if it took a
leg." She talked it over with Rosie.

"You let her jump just one jump every morning