For once I
said my say to Pap, and made him take money out of the bank to do it.
He's got some in thar for to bury all of us--he says--but he never
wanted to use any of it for Lou."
Johnnie came in and sat down on the bed beside her hostess. She laid a
loving hand over Mavity's that held the slippers.
"What pretty little feet she must have had," she said softly.
"Didn't she?" echoed the mother, with a tremulous half-smile. "I
couldn't more'n get these here on my hand, but they was a loose fit for
her. They're as good as new. Johnnie, ef you ever get a invite to a
dance I'll lend 'em to you. Hit'd pleasure me to think some gal's feet
was dancin' in them thar slippers. Lou, she never learned to
dance--looked like she could never find time." Louvania, be it
remembered had found time in which to die.
So Johnnie thanked poor Mavity, and hurried away, because the warning
whistle was blowing.
The very next Wednesday Miss Sessions gave a dance to the members of her
Uplift Club. These gaieties were rather singular and ingenious affairs,
sterilized dances, Mrs. Hexter irreverently dubbed them. Miss Lydia did
not invite the young men employed about the mill, not having as yet
undertaken their uplifting; and feeling quite inadequate to cope with
the relations between them and the mill girls, which would be something
vital and genuine, and as such, quite foreign--if not inimical--to her
enterprise.
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