On rainy days when the garden was out of the question the
children were most likely to be found here.
It was a pleasant place and well suited for any sort of indoor game.
Except for a rug or two the floor was bare, and the furniture
consisted of an old claw-footed sofa on which at least six people
could sit comfortably at one time, a wardrobe, some book-shelves, and
a hammock swung across one corner. There may have been a chair or two,
but the wide window-sills made pleasanter resting-places. Here in the
summer time you looked out into the soft greenness of the maple trees,
getting glimpses of the quiet street, but when the branches were bare
a fine outlook was to be had all over the neighborhood, and you saw
how big houses and little houses stood sociably side by side, while an
old gray church kept guard at one corner. Here Bess and Louise
romanced over an imaginary family known as "The Carletons," or played
dolls with Helen, and here Carl arranged his stamp album and made
signals to Ikey across the street. Sometimes their father and uncle
would drop in and pretend they were boys once more. Then what delight
it was to listen to their stories of boyish pranks!
Aunt Zelie was their most frequent visitor.
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