"I don't know who they were saying it about," said Florence, "but they
were saying it. I don't mean they were saying it together; I heard one
say it one time and the other say it some other time. I think Kitty
Silver was saying it about some coloured man. She proba'ly wouldn't want
to marry any white man; at least I don't expect she would. She's _been_
married to a couple of coloured men, anyhow; and she was married twice
to one of 'em, and the other one died in between. Anyhow, that's what
she told me. She weighed over two hunderd pounds the first time she was
married, and she weighed over two hunderd-and-seventy the last time she
was married to the first one over again, but she says she don't know
how much she weighed when she was married to the one in between. She
says she never got weighed all the time she was married to that one. Did
Kitty Silver ever tell you that, mamma?"
"Yes, often!" Mrs. Atwater replied. "I don't think it's very
entertaining; and it's not what we were talking about. I was trying to
tell you----"
"I know," Florence interrupted. "You said I'd get my face so's my
underlip wouldn't go back where it ought to, if I didn't quit turning up
my nose at people I think are beneath contemp'. I guess the best thing
would be to just feel that way without letting on by my face, and then
there wouldn't be any danger."
"No," said Mrs. Atwater. "That's not what I meant. You mustn't let your
feelings get _their_ nose turned up, or their underlip out, either,
because feelings can grow warped just as well as----"
But her remarks had already caused her daughter to follow a trail of
thought divergent from the main road along which the mother feebly
struggled to progress. "Mamma," said Florence, "do you b'lieve it's true
if a person swallows an apple-seed or a lemon-seed or a watermelon-seed,
f'r instance, do you think they'd have a tree grow up inside of 'em?
Henry Rooter said it would, yesterday."
Mrs. Atwater looked a little anxious. "Did you swallow some sort of
seed?" she asked.
"It was only some grape-seeds, mamma; and you needn't think I got to
take anything for it, because I've swallowed a million, I guess, in my
time!"
"In your time?" her mother repeated, seemingly mystified.
"Yes, and so have you and papa," Florence went on. "I've seen you when
you ate grapes. Henry said maybe not, about grapes, because I told him
all what I've just been telling you, mamma, how I must have swallowed a
million, in my time, and he said grape-seeds weren't big enough to get a
good holt, but he said if I was to swallow an apple-seed a tree would
start up, and in a year or two, maybe, it would grow up so't I couldn't
get my mouth shut on account the branches."
"Nonsense!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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