“Well as I live! Ain't this fine. I'll bet a purty that if I'd 'a' had
a room and a trough like this to soak in when I was wore to a frazzle, I
wouldn't 'a' got all twisted up with rheumatiz like I am. It jest looks
restful to see. I never washed in a place like this in all my days. Must
feel grand to be wet all over at once! Now everybody ought to have sech
a room and use it at all hours, like David does the lake. Did you ever
see his beat to go swimmin'? He's always in splashin'! Been at it all
his life. I used to be skeered when he was a little tyke. He soaked so
much 'peared like he'd wash all the substance out of him, but it only
made him strong.”
“Has he ever been ill?”
“Not that I know of, and I reckon I'd knowed it if he had. Well what a
clothespress! I never saw so many dresses at once. Ain't they purty? Oh
I wish I was young, and could have one like that yaller. And I'd like to
have one like your lavender right now. My! You are lucky to have so many
nice clothes. It's a good thing most girls haven't got them, or they'd
stand primpin' all day tryin' to decide which one to put on. I don't see
how you tell yourself.”
“I wear the one that best hides how pale I am,” answered the Girl. “I
use the colours now. When I grow plump and rosy, I'll wear the white.”
Granny Moreland dropped on the couch and assured herself that it was
Martha's pink Peter Hartman. Then she examined the sunshine room.
“Well I got to go back to the start,” she said at last. “This beats the
dinin'-room. This is the purtiest thing I ever saw. Oh I do hope they
ain't so run to white in Heaven as some folks seem to think! Used to be
scandalized if a-body took anythin' but a white flower to a funeral. Now
they tell me that when Jedge Stilton's youngest girl come from New York
to her pa's buryin' she fetched about a wash tub of blood-red roses.
Put them all over him, too! Said he loved red roses livin' and so he
was goin' to have them when he passed over. Now if they are lettin' up a
little on white on earth, mebby some of the stylish ones will carry the
fashion over yander. If Heaven is like this, I won't spend none of my
time frettin' about the foundations. I'll jest forget there is any, even
if we do always have to be so perticler to get them solid on earth. Talk
of gold harps! Can't you almost hear them? And listen to the birds and
that water! Say, you won't get lonesome here, will you?”
“Indeed no!” answered the Girl. “Wouldn't you like to lie on my
beautiful couch that the Harvester made with his own hands, and I'll
spread Mother Langston's coverlet over you and let you look at all my
pretty things while I slip away a few minutes to something I'd like to
do?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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