"Yes, an' they're allus about rich people," chimed in Lizzie May. "I did used to love to read them books an' fancy I lived like that. I guess rich husbands is dif'rent. It must be awful nice to be rich."
She sighed and her blue eyes looked wistfully out of the window, where white clouds could be seen chased by the March wind across a bright blue sky.
The shriek of a whistle pierced the air, and a train half a mile away roared along the track on its way to Lexington. Through the little window the smoke from the engine could be seen in a white, moving column.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we was all rich an' ridin' away through the country on that big train!" she sighed. "When you're poor an' stuck allus in the same place, life gits to seem so dull."
In Lizzie May's imagination only the rich and happy rode on trains. She figured riding in a train as a sumptuous and palatial progress toward some idyllic pleasure goal. The reality of smoke, cinders, stale air, germ-infested plush, and filthy floor, tired women and dirty children, staid spinsters, and sleek commercial travelers with fat necks, dingy people hastening anxiously to deathbeds or drearily to new jobs: all this was happily unknown to her. Her eyes followed the white moving column of smoke hungrily, wistfully.
"Yes, it must be awful nice to be rich," she sighed again, as the column of smoke disappeared.
"Yes, I s'pose it is nice to be rich," rejoined Judith, with just a momentary far-away look in her eyes. "But somehow it don't bother me much that I hain't rich. I have lots o' fun a-doin' and a-makin' things. All this mornin' I built chicken coops. I got six dandies. No rat'll git my chicks this spring. An' I'm a-goin' to buy three settin's o' turkey eggs from Aunt Maggie Slatten an' set 'em under hens. If they're raised by a old hen they don't wander off so far when they're growed an' git ketched an' stole. An' nex' winter when I have to set in the house an' the evenin's is long, I'm a-goin' to sew me rags fer a carpet too. I've begun savin' 'em. Them's awful nice rags you got there. Haow did you manage to git 'em all sech nice colors?"
Lizzie May's face brightened and the wistful look disappeared.
"Yes, if I do say it, I got nice rags. I cut 'em jes as fine an' even as I can; an' then I tie 'em in bunches an' dye 'em the color I want. These yaller ones is dyed with cream o' tarter an' potash, like Aunt Abigail showed me haow to do. An' the blue ones I done with real strong blueing water. For the other colors I bought the dye. You kin dye a whole lot o' pink with one package o' red dye. I'm a-goin' to have Aunt Selina weave the carpet stripèd: yaller, blue, pink, green, an' red; yaller, blue, pink, green, an' red. All along like that. It'll be nice an' bright an' cheerful. I want to try to have my front room real nice. Dan's Aunt Carrie give me a pair of lovely lace curtains fer the winder; an' I got three cushion covers patched. One of 'em is all silk, with flowers embroidered on nearly every piece. Lemme show it to you."
She ran into the other room, brought forth the "crazy" monstrosity and spread it with pride before Judith's admiring eyes. The joy of achievement, the rich glow of the creator gloating over his creation, filled her with warm radiance.