Edith, their daughter, was eleven. She and Maurice had a wonderful time playing tag and pussy-in-a-corner, while Eleanor sat on the porch with the other old folks and had a wonderful time being jealous of Edith.
“Maurice! don’t get overheated, darling! Look out! you’ll tear your panties and mamma will have to spank. Maurice! come sit by mamma and she’ll show you how to play cat’s-cradle. Maurice, dear! You mustn’t play with that rough, rude tom-boy. Come, let mamma tell you Bible stories.”
It worried Maurice. Seeking distraction, he developed an interest in poultry. He shingled the chicken-coop and then crawled in and sat among the chickens debating whether Eleanor was an old hen. After observing them for some time, he found that hens never nagged the cockerels. She was not an old hen!
Apparently slight causes have such momentous effects! He had developed an interest in chickens. He little knew whither it was to lead him.
IV
Maurice got a job in a real-estate office and at once became a real force in the business. He devised a new method of making sales. It consisted in pointing out to prospective purchasers the defects in the houses he was trying to sell.
If a house had a broken-down heater, an antiquated plumbing system and a leaky roof, Maurice would take the client into his confidence and tell him frankly that there was a broken window-pane in the attic, a creaky board in the dining-room floor and several scratches in the paint of the guest-room door. Such frankness was most beguiling. The client was beguiled into examining, under Maurice’s guidance, the attic window and the guest-room door, and forgot to look at the heater and the roof.
Houses which had been the despair of the office were sold, one after another. They gave him three cheers and the nickname of “G. R. Q. Wallingford.”
V
Their attempt at housekeeping failed. Although Eleanor had hired a very deaf old scrubwoman to do the cooking, somehow the food wasn’t properly prepared. After Maurice had broken a tooth on one of her soft-boiled eggs, they gave it up and went to boarding.