"There! There! Bob, don't spoil the evening with anything unkind,"
warned the mother. "Yes, Lizzie, I got you a position. It just happened
I had the chance, and I took it, though I don't really b'lieve that
anythin' in this world just happens, of course. But it did seem
providential. Mrs. Hathaway wanted somebody to look after her little
girl. She's only three years old and she is possessed to run away every
chance she gets. Course I s'pose she's spoiled. Most rich children are.
Now, my children wouldn't have run away. They always thought too much
of what I said to make me trouble. But that's neither here nor there.
She does it, and besides her Ma is an invalid. She had an operation, so
she has to lie still a good bit, and can't be bothered. She wants
somebody just to take the little girl out walking and keep her happy in
the house, an' all."
"How lovely!" exclaimed Betty. "I shall enjoy it, I know."
"She's awful pretty!" declared Emily eagerly. "Got gold curls and blue
eyes just like you, and she has ever an' ever so many little dresses,
and wears pink shoes and blue shoes, an' rides a tricycle."
"How interesting!" said Betty.
"You'll get good wages," said the mother. "She said she'd give you six
dollars a week, an' mebbe more, an' you'd get some of your meals."
"Then I can pay my board to you," cried Betty.
"Don't worry about that, child. We'll fix that up somehow. We're awful
glad to have you come, and I guess we shall like each other real well.
Now, children, it's awful late. Get to bed. Scat! Lizzie can have her
bath an' get to bed, too. Come, mornin's half way here already!"
The children said good night and Betty was introduced to the tin bath
tub and improvised bathroom--a neat little addition to the kitchen
evidently intended originally for a laundry. She wanted to laugh when
she saw the primitive makeshifts, but instead the tears came into her
eyes to think how many luxuries she had taken all her life as a matter
of course and never realized how hard it was for people who had none. In
fact it had never really entered her head before that there were people
who had no bathrooms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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