Do you think she could have meant it, Johnnie?"
The faded eyes, clouded now by tears, stared up into Johnnie's clear
young orbs.
"Of course she couldn't have meant it," Johnnie comforted her. "Why, I'm
sure it's fine to work in the mill. If she didn't feel so, she'd have
told you the thing. She must have been out of her mind. People always
are when they--do that."
"That's what I keep a-thinkin'," the poor mother said, clinging
pathetically to that which gave her consolation and cheer. "I say to
myself that it must have been some brain disease took her all of a
sudden and made her crazy that-a-way; because God knows she had nothing
to fret her nor drive her to such."
By this time the meal was on the table, and the girls trooped in from
the porch. The old man with the bald pate was seating himself at the
head of the board, and Johnnie asked the privilege of helping wait
on table.
"No, you ain't a-goin' to," Mrs. Bence said hospitably, pushing her into
a seat. "If you start in to work in the morning, like I reckon you will,
you ain't got no other time to get acquainted with the gals but right
now. You set down. We don't take much waitin' on. We all pass things,
and reach for what we want."
In the smoky illumination of the two ill-cleaned lamps which stood one
at each end of the table, Johnnie's fair face shone out like a star.
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