"Don't worry, alannah," her mother said soothingly, as she cut out the other leg of Jimmy's pants. "The Lord made us right I guess, and he won't let anything happen to us."
But Pearl was not yet satisfied. "But, oh ma," she said, as she hastily worked a buttonhole. "You don't know about the diseases that are goin' 'round. Mind ye, there's tuberoses in the cows even, and them that sly about it, and there's diseases in the milk as big as a chew o' gum and us not seein' them. Every drop of it we use should be scalded well, and oh, ma, I wonder anyone of us is alive for we're not half clean! The poison pours out of the skin night and day, carbolic acid she said, and every last wan o' us should have a sponge bath at night—that's just to slop yerself all up and down with a rag, and an oliver in the mornin'. Ma, what's an oliver, d'ye think?"
"Ask Camilla," Mrs. Watson said, somewhat alarmed at these hygienic problems. "Camilla is grand at explaining Mrs. Francis's quare ways."
Pearl's brown eyes were full of worry.
"It's hard to git time to be healthy, ma," she said; "we should keep the kittle bilin' all the time, she says, to keep the humanity in the air—Oh, I wish she hadn't a told me, I never thought atin' hurt anyone, but she says lots of things that taste good is black pison. Isn't it quare, ma, the Lord put such poor works in us and us not there at the time to raise a hand."
They sewed in silence for a few minutes.
Then Pearl said: "Let us go to bed now, ma, me eyes are shuttin'. I'll go back to-morrow and ask Camilla about the 'oliver.'"