"
"Aw, you're sissy," Dick grumbled in his new, thick-thin voice.
"If church was so much, why wouldn't it keep folks from being
treated like us? Huh?"
Grandma roused herself from her limp stillness. "Maybe you
didn't take notice," she said sharply, "that usually when folks
was kind, and tried to make those dreadful camps a little
decenter, why, it was Christian folks. There wouldn't hardly
anything else make 'em treat that horrid itch and trachoma and
all the catching diseases--hardly anything but being Christians."
"Aw," Dick jeered. "If the church folks got together and put
their foot down they could clear up the whole business in a
jiffy."
"We always been church folks ourselves," Grandma snapped. "It
isn't so easy to get a hold."
"Hush up, Dick," Grandpa ordered with unusual sharpness. "Can't
you see Gramma's clean done out?"
Grandma looked "done out," but Rose-Ellen, glancing soberly from
one to the other, was sorry for Dick, too-his blue eyes frowned
so unhappily.
Rose-Ellen tried to change the subject. "Apples!" she said. "I
love oranges and ripe figs, and those big persimmons that you
sort of drown in-but apples are homiest. I'd like to get my
teeth into a hard red one and work right around."
That wasn't a good subject, either. "I'm hungry!" Jimmie
bellowed.
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