“But, mother, dear, the work isn’t done—yet. There’s the steps to be scrubbed and that other pile of hank’chiefs, and—”
“Well, I reckon we’ll live just as long if our steps ain’t done for one day in the year. Besides, I might let one the younger ones do them and see. They’re always teasing to, you know. Strange, how human nature loves to mess in a pail of soap and water.”
“Who’ll mind the baby, if I go?”
“I will, Mary Jane Bump! Seem to think the precious youngster ain’t hardly safe in his own mother’s hands, do you? Run along, run along, girlie, and fix yourself fine.”
Away up the narrow stair swung happy Mary Jane; and in a very few moments down she swung again. She had exchanged her blue gingham for her pink print, had dusted off the shoes which, alas! were so useless that they rarely wore out! and had brushed her dark wavy hair till it floated about her sweet face, as fine and fleece-like as it was possible for hair to be. In her hands she carried two hats; her own little plain “sailor,” and the gift of Bonny-Gay.
“Oh! I wouldn’t wear—” began Mrs. Bump, answering the question in Mary Jane’s eyes; then seeing the disappointment which crept into them, hastily altered her original judgment to fit the case. “I wouldn’t wear that old ‘sailor’ if I was a little girl that owned feathers like those. Indeedy, that I wouldn’t.”
Mary Jane’s face rippled with smiles and for almost the first time in her life she did a coquettish thing. Standing upon her crutches before the tiny looking-glass, hung at an angle above the mantel, she adjusted and readjusted the pretty leghorn, until she had placed it as nearly in the position it had occupied on Bonny-Gay’s yellow curls as she could. Then she wheeled about and asked:
“Does it look right, mother? Just as right as she would like to have it, when she sees me?”
“Perfect, honey! And though I maybe oughtn’t to say it before you, you’re the very sweetest little girl in Baltimore city!”
“Ah! but, mother Bump, you haven’t seen all the others!” laughed the child.