But there I find two figures in calico wrappers, with bare red arms akimbo, a basket of wet clothes in front of each, and only one empty clothes-line between them.

I do not want to be dragged in as a witness in a case of assault and battery, so I descend to the street again, grateful to note, as I pass, that the third-floor baby is still.
In front of the door I squeeze through a group of children.

They are going to play tag, and are counting to see who should be "it":-- "My-mother-and-your-mother-went-out-to-hang-clothes; My-mother-gave-your-mother-a-punch-in-the-nose." If the children's couplet does not give a vivid picture of the life, manners, and customs of Dover Street, no description of mine can ever do so.
Frieda was married before we came to Dover Street, and went to live in East Boston.

This left me the eldest of the children at home.

Whether on this account, or because I was outgrowing my childish carelessness, or because I began to believe, on the cumulative evidence of the Crescent Beach, Chelsea, and Wheeler Street adventures, that America, after all, was not going to provide for my father's family,--whether for any or all of these reasons, I began at this time to take bread-and-butter matters more to heart, and to ponder ways and means of getting rich.