But Primmie did, nevertheless. Galusha in desperation turned toward the door.
“I'm going to call Miss Phipps,” he declared. Primmie, the tears still pouring down her cheeks, seized him by the arm.
“Don't you do it!” she commanded. “Don't you dast to do it! I'll—I'll stop cryin'. I—I'm goin' to if you'll only wait and give me a chance. There! There! See, I'm—I'm stoppin' now.”
And, with one tremendous sniff and a violent rub of her hand across her nose, stop she did. But she was still the complete picture of misery.
“Why, what IS the matter?” demanded Galusha.
Primmie sniffed once more, gulped, and then blurted forth the explanation.
“She—she's canned me,” she said.
Galusha looked at her uncomprehendingly. Primmie's equipment of Cape Cod slang and idiom, rather full and complete of itself, had of late been amplified and complicated by a growing acquaintance with the new driver of the grocery cart, a young man of the world who had spent two hectic years in Brockton, where, for a portion of the time, he worked in a shoe factory. But Galusha Bangs, not being a man of the world, was not up in slang; he did not understand.
“What?” he asked.
“I say she's canned me. Miss Martha has, I mean. Oh, ain't it awful!”