"But my wife she dust them off for you, and I wrap them up, though
I ought to charge you a penny for a sheet of paper. But what I care if I
dies in the poorhouse."
"Are you goin' there soon?" asked Flossie. "We've got a poorhouse at
Lakeport, and it's awful nice."
"Oh, well, little one, maybe I don't go there just yet," said the man
who spoke wrong words sometimes. "Here, Mina!" he called, and a woman,
almost as old as he, came from the back room. "Wipe off the dust. I have
sold the old dishes--the valuable old dishes."
"Ah, such a bargain as they got!" murmured the old woman. "Them is
valuable china. Such a bargains!"
"Where did you get them?" asked Nan, as the dishes were being wrapped
and the old man was counting over the nickels, dimes and pennies of the
children's money.
"Where I get them? Of how should I know? Maybe they come in by somebody
what sell them for money. Maybe we buy them in some old house like
Washington's. It is long ago. We have had them in the shop a long time,
but the older they are the better they get. They is all the better for
being old--a better bargain, my dear!" and the old woman smiled, showing
a mouth from which many teeth were missing.
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