She doesn't like being called after Mother Hubbard, who is an old woman in a baby bonnet, even more than she doesn't like to be called Honoria. "That name practically ruined mah entire childhood," she said once. "Ah wanted to make darn sure Ah gave mah little girl a name nobody in creation could make fun of."

But she hasn't. 'Mary Ann, Mary Ann, washed her face in a frying pan,' they sang at her on the playground at recess. Soon as she grows up she is going to change it to another one, sort of like it, but nicer, more like books: Marian, or Marianne. Or maybe Miranda.