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me and sat down on the side of my bed, and the light from her bedside lamp shone across the hall and onto my bed and her face.
    â€œMother, how old is the little girl?” I asked.
    She must have been thinking very hard about something else, because she said, “What little girl?”
    â€œThe one whose father was Uncle Hal’s copilot.”
    â€œTen.”
    A year older than Suzy; two years younger than I am. And she didn’t have a mother or a father. “Mother, I don’t understand life and death.”
    Mother laughed softly, a little sadly, and ran her hand over my forehead. “My darling, if you did you’d know more than anybody in the world. We mustn’t talk any more now. We’ll wake Suzy.”
    And Daddy came and stood in the doorway, saying quietly, “Vicky, John is asleep and you must try to go to sleep, too.”
    He and Mother went into their room and turned off their light, and the soft sound of their voices talking quietly together must have acted like a lullaby on me, because I turned over and went to sleep.
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    Sometime during the night the phone rang again; I woke up just enough to realize it. And it rang again in the morning—the house phone both times, not the office ring; but once I had
finally gone to sleep I was so sleepy that the sound of the phone hardly got through to me, and it was only as I was waking up, with the sun shining full across my bed, and heard the office phone ringing that I remembered the phone had rung during the night.
    We have lots more time on Sundays than we do on schooldays, but there always seems to be more of a rush to get to Sunday school on time than there is to catch the school bus, so we don’t make our beds till we get home from Sunday school and church. As soon as we got home from church Mother told us to get out of our good clothes and into play clothes (I don’t know why we’d never do it if she didn’t tell us, but there’s always so much to do that we just don’t think about it) and then she told me to strip my bed and make it up with clean sheets. “And check the guest room, Vicky,” she said. “Make sure there are clean sheets on the guest-room beds.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked.
    â€œBecause I tell you to,” she said, as though I were Rob, and that was all.
    I was almost through when she came up and said, “Vicky, would you mind sleeping in Rob’s room for a while?”
    â€œMe? Why?” I asked in surprise.
    â€œYou must have realized that Aunt Elena called several times last night. I talked with her again this morning, and Uncle Douglas is driving her up here with Maggy.”
    â€œMaggy?”
    â€œMargaret Hamilton, the little girl whose father was Uncle Hal’s copilot.”

    I hadn’t quite finished making the bed, but I sat down on the edge of it. “When are they coming?”
    â€œThey’re on their way now,” Mother said. “They ought to be here this afternoon. I thought that since Maggy and Suzy are so close in age, I’d put Maggy in your bed.”
    â€œWhat about John?”
    â€œHe’ll sleep in the study tonight while Aunt Elena’s here. When she goes, he can have the guest room. I know you have a lot of homework this year, Vicky, but John has even more, and I think he must be the one to have the room to himself. It won’t be all gravy, you know; he’ll have to move out whenever we have company.”
    I thought this over for a moment. Then I said, “How long is the little girl … Maggy … staying?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Mother said. “We’ll just have to see.”
    â€œAnd Mother … why is she coming to us?”
    â€œIt’s too complicated to go into now,” Mother said briskly. “Come along, Vic, let’s get the beds done.”
    Mother usually gives us nice, full explanations for things, but on the rare occasions when she