Rosie stood it as long as she could, then her heart overflowed in indignant speech: "Of course she's crying in this horrible hot kitchen! Why wouldn't she? And they's flies in her mosquito-netting, too!"
Mrs. O'Brien paused in her ironing to shake her head in mournful reproach. "Why, Rosie, how you talk! Where else can I put the poor child but right here? Upstairs in Ellen's room and in my room it's just like an oven. Jarge's room, downstairs here, is cool enough, but I can't use that, for Jarge pays good money for it and besides lets Terry sleep with him. No, no, Rosie, I can't impose on Jarge."
Rosie's blue eyes snapped. "Well, why can't you put her in the front room? That's cool."
"Why, Rosie! You know very well why I can't. Ellen won't let me. When a girl's a young lady like Ellen, she's got to have a place for gintlemin callers, and how would she feel, she says, if her gintlemin friends was to smell Geraldine!"
"Smell Geraldine! Maggie O'Brien, I'd think you'd be ashamed o' yourself! Geraldine'd be all right if you changed her and washed her often enough! You can bet nobody ever smelled Jackie! It's just your own fault about Geraldine, and you know it is!"
"Rosie dear, why do you be so hard on your poor ma? I'm sure I wash her whenever I get the chance. I'm always washin' and ironin' somethin'!"
"Yes. You're always washing and ironing Ellen's things!"
"Why, Rosie, how you do be talkin'! When a girl's a young lady she's got to have a good supply of fresh skirts and clean shirt-waists. Men like to see their stenogs dressed clean and pretty."
"Aw, what do I care how men like their stenogs? All I want to say is this: If you got a baby, you ought to wash it!"
"Yes, Rosie dear, but what'd you do if you'd been like your poor ma and had had eight babies? Ah, you don't know how wearyin' it is, Rosie!"