“God ha’ mercy!” Marthy’s usually expressionless face showed a trace of surprise at this outburst. “But I’ve allus said seein’ lots o’ things gits notions inta young ’uns’ heads what ain’t good fer ’em.”
“Ner that ain’t all I seed, neither,” Selina Jo retorted. “They didn’t none o’ them folks—not nary one o’ ’em—ast us home to eat a Sunday dinner with ’em.”
At the conclusion of the church service she had seen invitations to the noonday meal being extended and accepted right and left by the Briggs settlement householders. Since it was the custom to include the veriest stranger in these, the fact that none had been offered her people left room for only one conclusion: the Hudsills were looked upon by their neighbours as being unworthy to receive one. Slowly the impression fastened itself upon her brain that her family was hopelessly low in the social scale—“poison low-down,” she would have phrased it. This conviction gripped her. It stung—and it stayed with her.
Fortunately, something occurred about this time to divert her thoughts temporarily. Three miles from Shug’s home, Pruitt Brothers, turpentine operators, established a woods commissary. Selina Jo’s first visit to the store left her gasping with pleasure. Filled with the usual gaudy assortment carried in stock by the general country store, to the half-starved eyes and soul of the woods-bred girl, the place was a wonderland. Dress goods in loud patterns dazzled her sight; vari-colored ribbons flaunted themselves tantalizingly before her gaze. But the one thing that charmed her, that held her spellbound, was a cheap, ready-made gingham dress. She made frequent unnecessary trips to the store merely to feast her eyes upon it. She would look from it to the faded homespun that she wore and sigh enviously. Once she even mustered the courage to ask the price. It was an insignificant sum, but the thought struck her with sickening force that it might just as well have been a thousand dollars. She had never owned a piece of money.
Slowly, as her yearning for the dress became almost unbearable, a plan formed in her mind. Coming in from her tasks one day, she found Shug, just returned from one of his mysterious periodical trips.
“Paw,” she began timidly, “I—I got a hankerin’.”
“S’pose you have?” Shug’s manner was more surly than usual. “A hankerin’ never hurt nobody, yet.”
“But, but I shore ’nough want sump’m.”
“Wantin’ an’ gitten’ is diffe’ent things. What is it?”
“They’s the purtiest dress over to Pruitt’s store,” Selina Jo began eagerly, “an’ it’s made outen real gingham.”