Summary

The story continues to describe the Kelveys, explaining that their mother was "a spry, hardworking little washerwoman, who went about from house to house by the day" (3). Nobody knew where the Kelveys' father was, the narrator explains, though many believed he was in prison. The story goes on to describe the way the Kelveys dressed, commenting that their clothing was often hand-me-down rags from the home Ms. Kelvey cleaned: "Lil, for instance, who was a stout, plain child, with big freckles, came to school in a dress made from a green art-serge table-cloth of the Burnells', with red plush sleeves from the Logans' curtains" (3). The narrator explains that Lil's little sister, "our Else," looked just as bizarre, though "whatever our Else wore she would have looked strange. She was a tiny wishbone of a child, with cropped hair and enormous solemn eyes – a...