for a clue to their methods

These changes from ubiquity to invisibility would have seemed toSusy, a few months earlier, one of the most maddening of manycharacteristics not calculated to promote repose. But now shefelt differently. She had grown interested in her charges, andthe search for a clue to their methods, whether tribal orindividual, was as exciting to her as the development of adetective story. 　　What interested her most in the whole stirring business was thediscovery that they had a method. These little creatures,pitched upward into experience on the tossing waves of theirparents' agitated lives, had managed to establish a rough-and-ready system of self-government. Junie, the eldest (the one whoalready chose her mother's hats, and tried to put order in herwardrobe) was the recognized head of the state. At twelve sheknew lots of things which her mother had never thoroughlylearned, and Susy, her temporary mother, had never even guessedat: she spoke with authority on all vital subjects, fromcastor-oil to flannel under-clothes, from the fair sharing ofstamps or marbles to the number of helpings of rice-pudding orjam which each child was entitled to. 　　There was hardly any appeal from her verdict; yet each of hersubjects revolved in his or her own orbit of independence,according to laws which Junie acknowledged and respected; andthe interpreting of this mysterious charter of rights andprivileges had not been without difficulty for Susy. 　　Besides this, there were material difficulties to deal with. 　　The six of them, and the breathless bonne who cooked and slavedfor them all, had but a slim budget to live on; and, as Junieremarked, you'd have thought the boys ate their shoes, the waythey vanished. They ate, certainly, a great deal else, andmostly of a nourishing and expensive kind. They had definiteviews about the amount and quality of their food, and werecapable of concerted rebellion when Susy's catering fell beneaththeir standard. All this made her life a hurried and harassingbusiness, but never-- what she had most feared it would be adull or depressing one.