ittle dirt-plot in front of the building had developed surprising
things all over its scrawny branches overnight. But she did see that the
front windows of the flat building across the way were bare of the
Chicago-grey lace curtains that had hung there the day before. House
cleaning! Well, most decidedly spring had come.

Rose was the household's Aurora. Following the donning of her limp and
obscure garments it was Rose's daily duty to tear the silent family from
its slumbers. Ma was always awake, her sick eyes fixed hopefully on the
door. For fourteen years it had been the same.

"Sleeping?"

"Sleeping! I haven't closed an eye all night."

Rose had learned not to dispute that statement.

"It's spring out! I'm going to clean the closets and the bureau drawers
to-day. I'll have your coffee in a jiffy. Do you feel like getting up
and sitting out on the back porch, toward noon, maybe?"

On her way kitchenward she stopped for a sharp tattoo at the door of the
room in which Pa and Al slept. A sleepy grunt of remonstrance rewarded
her. She came to Floss's door, turned the knob softly, peered in. Floss
was sleeping as twenty sleeps, deeply, dreamlessly, one slim bare arm
outflung, the lashes resting ever so lightly on the delicate curve of
cheek. As she lay there asleep in her disordered bedroom, her clothes
strewing chair, dresser, floor, Floss's tastes, mental equipment,
spiritual make-up, innermost thoughts, were as plainly to be read by
the observer as though she had been scientifically charted by a
psycho-analyst, a metaphysician and her dearest girl friend.

"Floss! Floss, honey! Quarter to seven!" Floss stirred, moaned faintly,
dropped into sleep again.

Fifteen minutes later, the table set, the coffee simmering, the morning
paper brought from the back porch to Ma, Rose had heard none of the
sounds that proclaimed the family astir--the banging of drawers, the
rush of running water, the slap of slippered feet. A peep of enquiry
into the depths of the coffee pot, the gas turned to a circle of blue
beads, and she was down the hall to sound the second alarm.

"Floss, you know if Al once gets into the bathroom!" Floss sat up in
bed, her eyes still closed. She made little clucking sounds with her
tongue and lips, as a baby does when it wakes. Drugged with sleep, hair
tousled, muscles sagging, at seven o'clock in the morning, the most
trying hour in the day for a woman, Floss was still triumphantly pretty.
She had on