"Nothing so respectable!" I says very sharp, yet awful relieved that I had guessed the truth. "No such thing. Bolshevism is Russian for sore-head. Religion my eye! It's about as much a religion as small-pox is!"
Oh! the handicap of having no education! I certainly felt sorry for Ma. But I needn't of because she give me one of them looks of hers which always turns my dress to plaid calico and pulls my hair down my back again.
"Well, daughter, why didn't you say so in the first place?" she says, just as if she'd caught me in a lie. But I let it pass and apologized, I was so glad to find she was a fake. And Ma promised to leave them low circus people alone for a spell and come back to the White Kittens again. I then announced I was going out and fire Anna. At that a look of terror came over Ma's face, and she restrained me by the sleeve.
"Be careful how you go near that kitchen!" she says warningly.
"For heaven's sakes, Ma!" I says. "What's wronger than usual out there?"
"I dunno, but I think something is!" she says. "I believe it's a bomb!"
"A bomb!" I says. "Whatter you mean?"
"Anna is out to market," says Ma, "and the one with the black beard like poor Kiskoff's brought it. 'For Anna,' says he, and shoved it at me, and snook off down the stairs like a murderer."
"Brought what?" I says.
"The bomb, of course!" says Ma, impatient herself.