“Yes. You know. When there's anything bad to announce to the hands the Atwater Company uses yellow posters, like a small-pox, or typhoid warning. The horrid thing! The mills shut down in two weeks, Momsey, and no knowing when they will open again.”
“Oh, my dear!” was the little woman's involuntary tribute to the seriousness of the announcement.
In a moment she was again her usual bright self. She drew Nan closer to her and her own brown eyes, the full counterpart of her daughter's, winkled merrily.
“I tell you what let's do, Nan,” she said.
“What shall we do, Momsey?” repeated the girl, rather lugubriously.
“Why, let's not let Papa Sherwood know about it, it will make him feel so bad.”
Nan began to giggle at that. She knew what her mother meant. Of course, Mr. Sherwood, being at the head of one of the mill departments, would know all about the announcement of the shut-down; but they would keep up the fiction that they did not know it by being particularly cheerful when he came home from work.
So Nan giggled and swallowed back her sobs. Surely, if Momsey could present a cheerful face to this family calamity, she could!
The girl ran her slim fingers into the thick mane of her mother's coiled hair, glossy brown hair through which only a few threads of white were speckled.
“Your head feels hot, Momsey,” she said anxiously. “Does it ache?”