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about Darleen!’
    ‘Gawd, no!’ Mrs. Feeley cried. ‘But our duty’s plain as the nose on your face: we gotta make her think more of herself! She wouldn’t be bad if she knew she was disappointin’ somebody! Bet she figgers Johnny is doin’ the same way—an’ what the hell! We gotta get her somebody to believe in! People won’t let you down if you expect a lot from ’em!’
    ‘At any rate, hers is not the sin of coldness and indifference,’ Miss Tinkham remarked.
    ‘Hell, no!’ Mrs. Feeley said. ‘Too damn good-hearted for her own good! Can’t say “no”!’
    ‘I’ll say this for her,’ Mrs. Rasmussen put in, ‘she’s clean as a new pin. I took notice o’ them shoulder-straps on her slip an’ they was clean—ironed, too!’ Cleanliness and godliness walked abreast for Mrs. Rasmussen.
    ‘She bought us, anyways, six beers apiece: she ain’t tight!’ Mrs. Feeley reminded.
    Suddenly the silence made itself felt.
    ‘Gawd, we been sittin’ here chattin’ out loud nice as you please, an’ not a peep outa them boogers!’ Mrs. Feeley pointed over her shoulder to the baby-buggy.
    Mrs. Rasmussen got up and cast a professional eye over them.
    ‘We can still have a beer an’ a nap: they’re good for another two hours yet!’
    Mrs. Rasmussen had not misjudged the sleeping powers of the twins. It was exactly two hours and ten minutes before the air was rent with the shrill and jagged squealing of the two hungry infants. The three ladies leaped to their feet as if a time-bomb had gone off under their beds.
    ‘Gawdamighty! Whadda we do now?’ Mrs. Feeley cried.
    ‘Just keep your shirt on an’ light that fire under the pan o’ water on the stove. It’s their ten o’clock bottle they’re yellin’ for!’ Mrs. Rasmussen explained.
    ‘Hell, much more o’ that music an’ I’ll be screamin’ for mine, too! Scare a body outa a year’s growth! Sure bloodcurdlin’!’ Mrs. Feeley muttered.
    ‘Dear Lily has no cause to worry about the condition of her children’s lungs,’ Miss Tinkham said, fingers in her ears.
    Mrs. Rasmussen slipped practiced hand under the rosy rumps and looked up with confirmation of the worst written on her face.
    ‘Hand me that v’lise full o’ diapers, Miss Tinkham, please!’
    Miss Tinkham hurried forward with the suitcase and the canvas bag, and Mrs. Feeley left the stove where she was watching the bottles of formula that were heating in a pan of water.
    Mrs. Rasmussen lifted one of the babies onto the table. He stopped yelling immediately, but his brother continued to make the morning hideous with his yells.
    Mrs. Feeley and Miss Tinkham crowded close around the ministering angel, watching all that went on.
    ‘Lily went an’ forgot their powder!’ Mrs. Rasmussen fumed.
    Miss Tinkham flipped into her room and came back carrying a cylinder full of Ardent Night Talcum. She leaned over Mrs. Rasmussen’s shoulder and began sprinkling the reeking talc carefully into the baby’s pink creases.
    ‘That’s fine, Miss Tinkham,’ Mrs. Feeley said.
    ‘Yeah. But I wouldn’t stand so close if I was you,’ Mrs. Rasmussen warned. ‘If I’m any judge o’ babies, this feller’s liable to let fly any minute!’ Miss Tinkham and Mrs. Feeley stepped back out of the baby’s range until Mrs. Rasmussen had him safely trussed up in a dry diaper.
    ‘Now, the other feller!’ she cried, handing the dry baby to Miss Tinkham to hold. The wet baby stopped yelling as soon as he felt Mrs. Rasmussen’s safe, comforting touch. Miss Tinkham was standing in the middle of the floor holding Franklin or Winston, as the case might be, at arm’s length, straight out in front of her. Gentleman that he was, the baby never made a sound, but regarded her with great violet eyes, intrigued by her bobbing earrings, or perhaps by her face.
    Mrs. Rasmussen turned to see what went on.
    ‘Sit down! Sit down an’ take him on your arm!’ she yelled, laughing. ‘Don’t stand there holdin’ him