"Sure it is—only it ain't so good one way, and it ain't so bad another. This new-fangled girl ushin' gets my goat, anyways. It ain't doin' her any good."
"Oh, Gawd, Jimmie, don't I know it? I hated to see her take it—her so little and cute and pretty and all! Night-work ain't nothin' for our Essie."
"Sure it ain't!"
"But what could we do, Jimmie? After I gave out, her six a week in the notions wasn't a drop in the bucket. What else could we do, Jimmie?"
"Just you wait, ma! This time next year life'll be one long ice-cream soda for you and her. Wait till my dynamo gets to charging like I want her to—I'll be runnin' this whole shebang with a bang!"
"You're a good boy, Jimmie; but a kid of seventeen ain't expected to have shoulders for three."
"Just the samey, I showed a draft of my dynamo to the head operator, ma, and he's comin' up Sunday to have a look. Leave it here on the table just like it is, ma. You'll be ridin' in your Birdsong self-charging electric automobile yet!"
She let her fingers wander up and down his cheek and across his shoulders and into his uneven nappy hair.
"Poor Jimmie! If only you had the trainin'! Miss Maisie was up from the store to-day in her noon-hour and seen it standing here next to my bed; and she thought it was such a pretty-lookin' dynamo, with its copper wires and all."
"You didn't let her—"