"Nonie—let's you and I play lots together. I can give you books, too. We'll read them together. You can come to Happy House often in the daytime."
Nonie shook her head doubtfully.
"Liz won't let me. She says there ain't—there isn't—no use my going off and leaving my work. She says school's bad enough!"
"Does Liz—punish—you much?"
"She chases Davy and me with the broom sometimes. And she scolds, too, but we don't mind, 'cause she's scolding all the time. I wish she would whip us—or lock us up—or—or send us to bed! It'd be like other kids, then."
The strangeness of a child longing for punishments that would make her life seem like other childrens' shocked Nancy! She looked at the thin body—was poverty starving the physical being while neglect starved the spirit?
"I'll talk to Liz myself. We'll see what I can coax her to do," Nancy declared resolutely. "We'll be chums, Nonie."
"Oh, then I won't have to play 'bout Rosemary! So, you are as nice as Miss Denny. You don't know her, do you? But she'll come back in the fall and sometime, I guess, she'll be Mr. Peter's dearest."
"What do you mean, Nonie," demanded Nancy.
"Well, Mr. Peter's the nicest man I know 'cause he's awful—nice to Davy and me, and Miss Denny's the nicest lady and so she'll be his dearest! He don't—he doesn't—know her yet but he will in the fall and so will you."