"No fair. Nothing begins with 'Z.'"

LILLY: "Does so. Z! Z--zounds--zippy--zingorella--zoe! Zoe!"

By similar strain of alliterative classification, Mrs. Schum's boarding
house might have been indexed as Middle West, middle class, medium
price, and meager of meal.

Poor, callous-footed Mrs. Schum, with her spotted bombazine bosom and
her loosely anchored knob of gray hair! She was the color of cold dish
water at that horrid moment when the grease begins to float, her hands
were corroded with it, and her smile somehow could catch you by the
heartstrings, which smiles have no right to do. How patiently and how
drearily she padded through these early years of Lilly's existence.
There were rubber insets in her shoes which sagged so that her ankles
seemed actually to touch the floor from the climbing upstairs and
downstairs on her missionary treadmill of the cracked slop jar; the fly
in the milk; the too-tepid shaving water; the bathroom monopoly; the
infant cacophony of midnight colic; salt on the sleety sidewalk, the
pasted handkerchief against a front window pane; ice water. Towels.
Towels. Towels.

And how saucily after school would Lilly plant herself down in the
subterranean depths of the kitchen.

"Mrs. Schum, mamma says to give me a piece of bread and butter."

With her worried eyes Mrs. Schum would smile and invariably hand out a
thick slice, thinly buttered.