Rose was tucked in bed, where she told Aunt Kate she felt
like a long green pickle in a glass jar because she never had slept in
a cellar--a basement--before, and they always had pickles in their
cellar, Aunt Kate explained to her husband about Mrs. Bracken.

"I couldn't say anythin', but, of course, she'd come. Mrs. Bracken had
the nerve to tell me she knew Mary Rose wasn't a child for childern
weren't allowed in the buildin'. What was I to do, Larry Donovan, but
say she'd wash her dirty old dishes? It won't hurt Mary Rose an' I'll
give her a hand if she needs it. Isn't it a pity though that Mary Rose
couldn't have taken more after her mother's fam'ly? Seems if I never
saw such a small eleven-year-old as she is."

CHAPTER V

Enveloped in a blue and white checked gingham apron of her aunt's, Mary
Rose washed Mrs. Bracken's dishes. Mrs. Donovan had brought her up to
the apartment and Mary Rose had looked curiously around the rather bare
and empty halls. There was something in the atmosphere of them that
made her catch Mrs. Donovan by the hand.

"It feels like the Presbyterian Church in the middle of the week," she
whispered. "It doesn't seem as if anyone really lived here, Aunt Kate."

"You'll find folks live here," Mrs. Donovan said grimly as she unlocked
the Bracken door. "We don't ever get a chance to forget 'em."

Mrs. Bracken had gone out with her husband and there was no one in the
apartment that seemed so big and grand to Mary Rose's unsophisticated
eyes. But Aunt Kate sniffed at the untidy kitchen and living-room.

"Seems if it was just about as important for a woman to make a home as
a club," she said under her breath as she picked up papers and
straightened chairs in the living-room. She found the dish pan and
showed Mary Rose what to do.

"I know how to wash dishes, Aunt Kate." Mary Rose was in a fever to
begin. "I washed them for Lena and no one could be more particular
than she was. We got our hot water out of a kettle instead of a pipe."
She watched with interest the water run steaming from the faucet.
"Wouldn't it be grand if Mrs. Bracken had a little girl so we could
wash dishes together? I don't mind doing them all by myself a bit,
Aunt Kate. I'm glad to do it. I know there's nothing so splendid as a
girl being useful. Daddy told me that and Mr. Mann, the minister, and
Gladys Evans' grandmother and all the other grown-uppers. But I think
the grandest part is to earn Georg