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Page 46
"It's just fierce out, ma!" she exclaimed. "Grandma, ain't supper ready
yet? I never was so hungry in all my life. I could eat a house afire."
She stopped short at sight of Elizabeth. She had been chewing gum--Lizzie
was always chewing gum--but her jaws ceased action in sheer astonishment.
"This is your cousin Bessie, come all the way from Montana on horseback,
Lizzie. She's your aunt Bessie's child. Her folks is dead now, and she's
come to live with us. You must see ef you can't get her a place in the
ten-cent store 'long with you," said the grandmother.
Lizzie came airily forward, and grasped her cousin's hand in mid-air,
giving it a lateral shake that bewildered Elizabeth.
"Pleased to meet you," she chattered glibly, and set her jaws to work
again. One could not embarrass Lizzie long. But she kept her eyes on the
stranger, and let them wander disapprovingly over her apparel in a pointed
way as she took out the long hat-pins from the cumbersome hat she wore and
adjusted her ponderous pompadour.
"Lizzie'll have to help fix you up," said the aunt noting Lizzie's glance.
"You're all out of style. I suppose they get behind times out in Montana.
Lizzie, can't you show her how to fix her hair pompadour?"
Lizzie brightened. If there was a prospect of changing things, she was not
averse to a cousin of her own age; but she never could take such a
dowdy-looking girl into society, not the society of the ten-cent store.
"O, cert!" answered Lizzie affably. "I'll fix you fine. Don't you worry.
How'd you get so awful tanned? I s'pose riding. You look like you'd been
to the seashore, and lay out on the beach in the sun. But 'tain't the
right time o' year quite. It must be great to ride horseback!"
"I'll teach you how if you want to learn," said Elizabeth, endeavoring to
show a return of the kindly offer.
"Me? What would I ride? Have to ride a counter, I guess. I guess you won't
find much to ride here in the city, 'cept trolley-cars."
"Bessie's got a horse. He's out in the yard now," said the grandmother
with pride.
"A horse! All your own? Gee whiz! Won't the girls stare when I tell them?
Say, we can borrow a rig at the livery some night, and take a ride. Dan'll
go with us, and get the rig for us. Won't that be great?"
Elizabeth smiled. She felt the glow of at last contributing something to
the family pleasure. She did not wish her coming to be so entirely a wet
blanket as it had seemed at first; for, to tell the truth, she had seen
blank dismay on the face of each separate relative as her identity had
been made known. Her heart was lonely, and she hungered for some one who
"belonged" and loved her.
Supper was put on the table, and the two girls began to get a little
acquainted, chattering over clothes and the arrangement of hair.
"Do you know whether there is anything in Philadelphia called 'Christian
Endeavor'?" asked Elizabeth after the supper-table was cleared off.
"O, Chrishun'deavor! Yes, I used t' b'long," answered Lizzie. She had
removed the gum from her mouth while she ate her supper, but now it was
busy again between sentences. "Yes, we have one down to our church. It was
real interesting, too; but I got mad at one of the members, and quit. She
was a stuck-up old maid, anyway. She was always turning round and scowling
at us girls if we just whispered the least little bit, or smiled; and one
night she was leading the meeting, and Jim Forbes got in a corner behind a
post, and made mouths at her behind his book. He looked awful funny. It
was something fierce the way she always screwed her face up when she sang,
and he looked just like her. We girls, Hetty and Em'line and I, got to
laughing, and we just couldn't stop; and didn't that old thing stop the
singing after one verse, and look right at us, and say she thought
Christian Endeavor members should remember whose house they were in, and
that the owner was there, and all that rot. I nearly died, I was so mad.
Everybody looked around, and we girls choked, and got up and went out. I
haven't been down since. The lookout committee came to see us 'bout it;
but I said I wouldn't go back where I'd been insulted, and I've never been
inside the doors since. But she's moved away now. I wouldn't mind going
back if you want to go."
"Whose house did she mean it was? Was it her house?"
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