"I used to ask the
grocer for a nickel's worth of dry onions, and I never did guess
how they came to be there.")
The first year was dreary. Maw took the baby (Mary, then) and
laid her on a blanket at the end of the row she was working, with
Tom to watch her. Cissy worked along with the grown folks, or
some days stayed home and did the washing and minded Tom and
Mary.
"I shore didn't know how to wash good as I do now." She patted
her faded dress, pretty clean, though not like the clothes of
Grandma's washing.
There was one thing about it, Cissy said; after a day in onions,
with the sun shining hot on her sunbonnet and not much to eat,
she didn't care if there wasn't any play or fun at night; she was
glad enough to drop down on the floor and go to sleep as soon as
she'd had corn pone and coffee. Sometimes she was sick from the
sun beating down on her head and she had to crawl into the shade
of a crate and lie there.
The second year was different. Next summer, early, when the
cherries had set their green beads and the laylocks had quit
blooming, there came two young ladies. They came of an evening,
and talked to Paw and Maw as they sat on the doorsill with their
shoes kicked off and their bare toes resting themselves.
First Paw and Maw wouldn't talk to them because why would these
pretty young ladies come mixing around with strangers? Paw and
Maw allowed they had something up their sleeves.
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