“I haven’t got any. If I had I don’t reckon I’d be sellin’ matches.”
“I s’pose you live somewhere, though?”
“Oh, yes, old Mother Hunter lets me stay to her house for fifty cents a week.”
“S’pose you don’t have money enough to pay her?”
“Then I guess she’d make me leave, same as Miss Spear did.”
“Who’s Miss Spear?”
“She’s the woman I went to live with when mother died, and ’twas an awful place. She used to drink terrible, an’ two or three times gave me a downright good whippin’ ’cause I didn’t bring home as much money as she thought I oughter make.”
“What right did she have to whip you? She ain’t any relation, is she?”
“Of course not; but you see I was livin’ with her, an’ had to pay what I promised, though when trade was good she used to want more. So I got a chance to go with Mother Hunter.”
“Do you like this sort of business?”