Mrs. Wladek's voice was as hard as iron. "It has made my son take a job. It has made me want to look for a job. In time, I will not be able to fight the curse, and I will take a job. And then—"
"I don't see anything wrong about that," Father Seador said mildly.
"You see nothing wrong in a poor old woman being forced to work? In a boy forced to grind out his youth among package-wrappers? You see nothing wrong in this?"
"Well, I ... we all have to work."
"Here?" Mrs. Wladek said with astonishment. "Here in America, you believe that? It is not so. My own uncle Bedrich has told me years ago it is not so. Do you dispute the word of my own uncle Bedrich?"
"My good woman," said Father Seador, "look around you ... your friends, your neighbors—"
"Let us say no more about it," Mrs. Wladek interrupted. "There is a curse upon me and I have called on you to remove this curse."
"How do you know this is a curse? Our minds do change, you know, and they do strange things—"
"I have been told," Mrs. Wladek said.
"You've been told? By whom?"