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Really, Nan, I think it's the most extraordinary thing I ever encountered the way these children's parents are shoeing them for commencement! Mark my words, before the exercises are half over we'll be hearing shoes drop all over the room. They simply won't keep them on! It'll be awful." She was about to say more, when Mrs. Owsley appeared in the door. Mrs.
He sez he did hev a sight of hit onct, but so many of the wimmin folks come in ter buy hit, 'n' hit war sech a sight of trubble gittin' up 'n' settin' down agin, cuttin' off pieces 'n' waitin' on 'em, that he jest th'owed out what he had left 'n' allowed he wouldn't buy no moh." This was all very serious to Mrs. Owsley and Jane replied in the same vein: "Then a blue polka dot.
"We won't work any more today," Jane said and, after a pause, asked: "Did you hear what Mrs. Owsley and I were talking about?" "I was tryin' to," Nancy laughed. "But this last old thing wouldn't come out even so I had to bring down two moh noughts, an' that sort of mixed me up! Is her husband out of the pen?" "Mercy! I didn't know he was there!"
I know he has that, and maybe I can help you make it up." "Thank-ee," she turned to go back, "but I reckon Mother Owsley's Cyantha kin help some." She stood a moment, hesitating, then faced around, asking: "Ye hain't got a primer, or sumthin', I kin take ter Mother Owsley, hev ye?
His good old face betokened no surprise, but it shone with a great joy. "I am never surprised at the Lord's mercies," he said, reverently. Then, with a step to which vigor had suddenly returned, he sought out Elnathan Owsley, aged twelve. "Elnathan," he said, "I guess I am the oldest man in the poorhouse, but I feel just about your age. Suppose you and I get out of here." The boy smiled.
"I thought it was another child coming to tell me about shoes!" "Did you ever see how Mrs. Owsley does with her shoes?" Nancy asked, being careful not to smile while the impassive woman's eyes were turned in her direction. "You mean across her shoulder?" Nancy nodded, giggling a little. "The poor, poverty stricken dears, all of them," Jane tenderly exclaimed.
Owsley was the thirty-five-year-old scholar; and the only one, until Dale came, who might strictly have been termed of the mountains. She was, moreover, the mother of nine smaller Owsleys the smallest of whom she brought each day and laid in a box prepared for the purpose near the teacher's desk.
"The trustee," she answered, "what sees as how we-uns goin' ter school gits shoes outen the school fund, I reckon 'twuz he said, or sumthin' that a-way. He's a-stayin' down thar by the Cunnel's, some-un says, so mebbe ye knows 'im. Not as I allow ter be beholden ter no one: but commencement's commencement!" "Why, Mrs. Owsley!" an accusing voice cried from the window.
There was a pucker of mystification between her eyes as she looked up at Mrs. Owsley. But that countenance did not change. It never changed. The same yellowish face, rather long and horse-like, beneath the same hair plainly brushed back, looked at Jane now as it had looked at the world's multitude of privations and pittance of joys, this last score of years.
"Red, with white dots on hit, sez I ter Mother Owsley, is jest the nicest thing! 'N' I sez ter Mister Bowser as how I hankered fer a dress like that; but he sez he done quit keepin' hit no moh.
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