"How she did eat. It give me some excuse not to say anything to her till she was through with the first violence. I did try to say grace, but she says: 'Who you speakin' to? Me?' An' I didn't let on. I thought I wouldn't start in on her moral manners. I just set still an' kep' thinkin': You poor thing. Why, you poor thing. You're nothin' but a piece o' God's work that wants doin' over--like a back yard or a poor piece o' road or a rubbish place, or sim'lar. An' this tidyin' up is what we're for, as I see it--only some of us lays a-holt of our own settin' rooms an' butt'ry cupboards an' sullars an' cleans away on _them_ for dear life, over an' over, an' forgets the rest. I ain't objectin' to good housekeepin' at all, but what I say is: Get your dust-rag big enough to wipe up somethin' besides your own dust. The Lord, He's a-housekeepin' too. "So, with that i-dee, I got above the shroud an' I begun on the woman some like she was my kitchen closet in the spring o' the year. "'What's your name?' s'I. "''Leven,' s'she. "'Leaven,' s'I, 'like the Bible?' "'Huh?' s'she. "'Why--oh, _'leven'_,' s'I, 'that ain't a name at all. That's a number.' "'I know it,' s'she, indiffer'nt, 'that was me. I was the 'leventh, an' they'd run out a'ready.' "'For the land,' s'I, simple. "An' that just about summed her up. They seemed to 'a' run out o' everything, time she come. "She hadn't been taught a thing but eat an' drink. Them was her only arts. Excep' for one thing: When I ask' her what she could do, if any, she says like she had on the street corner:-- "'I can't do nothin'. I donno no work.' "'You think it over,' s'I. She had rill capable hands--them odd, undressed-lookin' hands--I donno if you know what I mean? "'Well,' s'she, sort o' sheepish, 'I can comb hair. Ma was allus sick an' me an' Big Lil--she's the same floor--combed her hair for her. But I could do it nicest.' "Wan't that a curious happenin'--an' Jennie Crapwell layin' dead with her hair drawn tight back because none of us could do it up human? "'Could you when dead?' s'I. 'I mean when them that has the hair is?' "An' with that the girl turns pallor white. "'Oh ...' s'she, 'I ain't never touched the dead. But,' s'she, sort o' defiant at somethin', 'I could do it, I guess, if you want I should.' "Kind o' like a handle stickin' out from what would 'a' been her character, if she'd hed one, that was, I thought. An', too, I see what it'd mean to her if she knew she was wearin' a shroud, casual as calico. "But when I told her about Jennie Crapwell, an' how they had a good picture, City-made, of her side head, she took it quite calm. "'I'll try it,' she says, bein' as she'd done her ma's hair layin' down, though livin'. 'Big Lil always helps dress 'Em,' she says, 'an' guess I could do Their hair.'