"Why don't that big girl keep the others clean? She's old enough, ain't she?"
"She's too lazy. They all are. They fight all day sometimes over whose turn it is to carry the milk or bring in the wood. Mrs. McGee never has trained them to help her a bit, and though Ophelia is past twelve years old, she is as useless as the baby when it comes to doing the housework."
"Ophelia—ain't that a funny name!"
"Ridiculous!" laughed Mrs. Wood. "But so are all the rest. Having no fortune to endow his children with, old Pat McGee gave his offspring as 'high-toned and iligent names as iver belonged to rich folks.' They are Ophelia and Tobias, Antonio and Augustus, Lavinia and Humphrey, and the poor little babe Nadene. Commonly they are known as Feely, Toby, Tony, Gus, Vinie, Humpy and Deanie. Their real names are just for dress-up occasions."
"It takes me back to Parker days," said Gail reminiscently. "Only the McGees are worse off than the Greenfields were, for there are seven of them and all so small. What would happen if the mother should slip away as our mother did?"
"O, the orphan asylum would open its doors, of course. But even at that they might stand a better chance than they do now. They never will amount to anything, growing up as they are, like weeds. She can't give them the attention they ought to have, and she is not teaching them to be independent or helpful in any way. Toby and the twins are almost beyond her control now. Some of us neighbors have tried to get her to send part of the tribe at least to a Children's Home. Such an institution would certainly give them the training that she can't—"
"O, but think of having to eat oatmeal every morning without milk or sugar," interrupted Peace in horrified accents, "and your bread and potatoes without any butter, and never having any pie or cake, and meat only once a week, and hardly any fruit, and—ugh! I'd starve!"
"Peace, oh, Peace," called Allee's voice from outside the window, "come see what I've found." And the crippled sister, hastily adjusting her crutches, went to discover what was wanted.
The next day while she was sitting alone under the great tree in the back yard, she heard a stealthy rustling in the grass beyond the fence, and glancing up from the book she had been trying to interest herself in, she again saw the dirty face of Tobias McGee peering at her through the lattice work. Then Antonio appeared, followed one by one by the rest of the tousled McGees. She surveyed them critically from head to heels and then scathingly remarked, "I sh'd think you would be ashamed to go so dirty."
"We—we ain't none of us got such pretty clo'es as you," stammered Tobias, much confused by this unlooked-for reception, and he thrust both grimy hands behind his back as if that would hide all his filth.