“Oh, say, Emarine!”
“Well?”
“You get an’ bring home a dollar’s worth o’ granylated sugar, will you?”
“Well.”
“An’ a box o’ ball bluin’. Mercy, child! Your dress-skirt sags awful in the back. Why don’t you run a tuck in it?”
Emarine turned her head over her shoulder with a birdlike movement, and bent backward, trying to see the offensive sag.
“Can’t you pin it up, maw?”
“Yes, I guess. Have you got a pin? Why, Emarine Endey! If ever I see in all my born days! What are you a-doin’ with a red ribbon on you—an’ your Uncle Herndon not cold in his grave yet! A fine spectickle you’d make o’ yourself, a-goin’ the length an’ the breadth o’ the town with that thing a-flarin’ on you. You’ll disgrace this whole fambly yet! I have to keep watch o’ you like a two-year-old baby. Now, you get an’ take it right off o’ you; an’ don’t you let me ketch you a-puttin’ it on again till a respectful time after he’s be’n dead. I never hear tell o’ such a thing.”
“I don’t see what a red ribbon’s got to do with Uncle Herndon’s bein’ dead,” said Emarine.
“Oh, you don’t, aigh? Well, I see. You act as if you didn’t have no feelin’.”