The oldest is but eleven."
Laurella had bought a long chain of red glass beads with a heart-shaped
pendant. This trinket occupied her attention entirely while her daughter
and husband discussed the matter of the children's future.
"Johnnie," she began now, apparently not having heard one word that had
been said, "did you ever in your life see anything so cheap as this here
string of beads for a dime? I vow I could live and die in that
five-and-ten-cent store at Watauga. There was more pretties in it than I
could have looked at in a week. I'm going right back thar Monday and git
me them green garters that the gal showed me. I don't know what I was
thinkin' about to come away without 'em! They was but a nickel."
Pap Himes looked at her, at the beads, and gave the fierce,
inarticulate, ludicrously futile growl of a thwarted, perplexed animal.
"Mother," appealed Johnnie desperately, "do you want the children to go
into the mill?"
"I don't know but they might as well--for a spell," said Laurella Himes,
vainly endeavouring to look grown-up, and to pretend that she was really
the head of the family. "They want to go, and you've done mighty well in
the mill. If it wasn't for my health, I reckon I might go in and try to
learn to weave, myself. But there--I came a-past with Mandy t'other
evenin' when she was out, and the noise of that there factory is enough
for me from the outside--I never could stand to be in it.
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