Mexican Town, lived all the humbler citizens, the people
who voted but did not run for office. The houses were little
story-and-a-half cottages, with none of the fussy archi-
tectural efforts that marked those on Sylvester Street.
They nestled modestly behind their cottonwoods and Vir-
ginia creeper; their occupants had no social pretensions to
keep up. There were no half-glass front doors with door-
bells, or formidable parlors behind closed shutters. Here
the old women washed in the back yard, and the men sat
in the front doorway and smoked their pipes. The people
on Sylvester Street scarcely knew that this part of the
town existed. Thea liked to take Thor and her express
wagon and explore these quiet, shady streets, where the
people never tried to have lawns or to grow elms and pine
trees, but let the native timber have its way and spread in
luxuriance. She had many friends there, old women who
gave her a yellow rose or a spray of trumpet vine and
appeased Thor with a cooky or a doughnut. They called
Thea "that preacher's girl," but the demonstrative was
misplaced, for when they spoke of Mr. Kronborg they
called him "the Methodist preacher."

Dr. Archie was very proud of his yard and garden, which
he worked himself. He was the only man in Moonstone
who was successful at growing rambler roses, and his
strawberries were famous. One morning when Thea was
downtown on an errand, the doctor stopped her, took her