Maida’s eyes brightened. “And there’s the garret window where the squirrels used to come in,” she exclaimed.
“The same!” Dr. Pierce laughed. “You don’t forget anything, do you? My goodness me! How small the house looks and how narrow the street has grown! Even the trees aren’t as tall as they should be.”
Maida stared. The trees looked very high indeed to her. And she thought the street quite wide enough for anybody, the houses very stately.
“Now show me the school,” she begged.
“Just a block or two, Henri,” Dr. Pierce directed.
The car stopped in front of a low, rambling wooden building with a yard in front.
“That’s where you covered the ceiling with spit-balls,” Maida asked.
“The same!” Dr. Pierce laughed heartily at the remembrance. It seemed to Maida that she had never seen his curls bob quite so furiously before.
“It’s one of the few wooden, primary buildings left in the city,” he explained to the two men. “It can’t last many years now. It’s nothing but a rat-trap but how I shall hate to see it go!”
Opposite the school was a big, wide court. Shaded with beautiful trees—maples beginning to flame, horse-chestnuts a little browned, it was lined with wooden toy houses, set back of fenced-in yards and veiled by climbing vines. Pigeons were flying about, alighting now and then to peck at the ground or to preen their green and purple necks. Boys were spinning tops. Girls were jumping rope. The dust they kicked up had a sweet, earthy smell in Maida’s nostrils. As she stared, charmed with the picture, a little girl in a scarlet cape and a scarlet hat came climbing up over one of the fences. Quick, active as a squirrel, she disappeared into the next yard.