“Well, them red-complected kind is liable to freckle,” said Mrs. Atwell, judicially.
After rather a long pause for both of them, Clementina asked, “Do you think it would be nice for me to ask Mr. Gregory about things, when I wasn't suttain?”
“Like what?”
“Oh-wo'ds, and pronunciation; and books to read.”
“Why, I presume he'd love to have you. He's always correctin' the guls; I see him take up a book one day, that one of 'em was readin', and when she as't him about it, he said it was rubbage. I guess you couldn't have a betta guide.”
“Well, that was what I was thinking. I guess I sha'n't do it, though. I sh'd neva have the courage.” Clementina laughed and then fell rather seriously silent again.
VII.
One day the shoeman stopped his wagon at the door of the helps' house, and called up at its windows, “Well, guls, any of you want to git a numba foua foot into a numba two shoe, to-day? Now's youa chance, but you got to be quick abort it. The'e ha'r't but just so many numba two shoes made, and the wohld's full o' numba foua feet.”
The windows filled with laughing faces at the first sound of the shoeman's ironical voice; and at sight of his neat wagon, with its drawers at the rear and sides, and its buggy-hood over the seat where the shoeman lounged lazily holding the reins, the girls flocked down the stairs, and out upon the piazza where the shoe man had handily ranged his vehicle.