Then young Maudie went wrong and took her sister Alice with her; the two boys emigrated, and young Jim went to India with the army, and Ethel, the youngest, married a good-for-nothing little waiter who died of ulcers the year little Lennie was born.

And now little Lennie--my grandson...
The piles of dirty cups, dirty dishes, were washed and dried.

The ink-black knives were cleaned with a piece of potato and finished off with a piece of cork.

The table was scrubbed, and the dresser and the sink that had sardine tails swimming in it...
He'd never been a strong child--never from the first.

He'd been one of those fair babies that everybody took for a girl.