Jane, The Middle Moffat Quotes

“Sylvie was the oldest Moffat. When Mama introduced Sylvie to the ladies who came to try one, she always said, ‘this is Sylvie, my oldest child.’ Sylvie was sweet sixteen. On her last birthday her aunt had sent her sixteen lumps of sugar tied with pink ribbon all in a cluster.”

“Well, though Jane, if she doesn’t ask me, I’ll have to ask her.′ ‘What’s your name?’ she said. ‘Clara Pringle. This is my brother. Brud, we call him.’ ‘Oh...’ said Jane. Now you ask me, she thought. And after watching Jane for a while in silence, Clara did ask her.”

“I’m Jane, the mysterious middle Moffat,′ she tried. No. What was there mysterious about her? Nothing. She certainly didn’t wear a musk or o around on tiptoe saying She-sh-sh! like Hawkshaw, the detective. Everybody knew who she was or could very easily find out.”

“So Jane went on. ‘Middle Moffat, that’s me, is not mysterious. The middle of the night is.’ ‘The mysterious middle Moffat is not mysterious,’ said the oldest inhabitant thoughtfully. ‘No,’ agreed Jane, laughing politely. Mr. Buckle put his finger on the side of his nose the way Hawkshaw, the detective, did in the pictures, and he beamed down at her.”

“Jane wound a strip of bright red cloth around her crochet hook. The middle of other things was good, too, she thought. The middle of a sandwich and the middle of a pie. The middle of the night, when exciting things happened in books.”

“Where were all the other neighbors? My, this was a quiet street. It was a little short street, and it didn’t have any other children on it at all. Just the Moffats. Some children might move into the big house which had just been built next door.”

“Jane thumbed through the little black notebook where Mama kept the measurements of all the ladies she sewed for. At the beginning of the book were the ladies she had sewn for in New York, before she came to live in Cranbury.”

“The Moffats had not been living on this street very long, and everybody didn’t know them yet. Very likely there were lots of people who would like to know who this girl was, sitting under this tree, how old she was, and what room she was in the school.”

“But now, here came another person. Jane recognized him. It was Mr. Buckle, the oldest inhabitant. He was ninety-nine years old and soon he would be one hundred. A century! Jane was ten. He was almost ten times ten. Phew! He was a veteran of the Civil War.”

“This is Jane, the middle Moffat,′ said Jane, trying to act as though she were Mama, introducing her one of the ladies she showed for. That is not the way Mama actually introduced her to these ladies.”