Chapters 7 through 11 Summary

In Chapter 7, Papa returns home; Mama is merely civil to him for weeks. As Mama searches the classified ads for a job of her own, Lark wonders how she will ever find one. After all, since the hobos look every day for work and cannot find any, how could her Mama find anything?

Lark and Mama play a game called "Lady Caller," where Lark pretends to be Mrs. Brown visiting Mrs. Erhardt. After dinner, Lark's Papa takes her out to get ice cream and a dime's worth of gumdrops, which is almost unheard of. Papa tells Lark to keep the gumdrops from her mother, which Lark feels is a breach of the Fourth Commandment to "Honor thy Father and thy Mother." Lark also thinks that her mother's soul may turn as black as coal for disobeying her father when he does...