Snawdor vindictively, "I ain't goin' to
spell her with a capital; she ain't worth it."
Nance would undoubtedly have put up a more spirited fight for her rights,
had she not been anxious to preserve peace until the afternoon. It was
the day appointed by the court for her and Dan Lewis to make their first
report to Mrs. Purdy, whose name and address had been given them on a
card. She had washed her one gingham apron for the occasion, and had
sewed up the biggest rent in her stockings. The going forth alone with
Dan on an errand of any nature was an occasion of importance. It somehow
justified those coupled initials, enclosed in a gigantic heart, that she
had surreptitiously drawn on the fence.
After her first disappointment in being kept at home, she set about her
task of cleaning the Snawdor flat with the ardor of a young Hercules
attacking the Augean stables. First she established the twins in the hall
with a string and a bent pin and the beguiling belief that if they fished
long enough over the banister they would catch something. Next she
anchored the screaming baby to a bedpost and reduced him to subjection by
dipping his fingers in sorghum, then giving him a feather. The absorbing
occupation of plucking the feather from one sticky hand to the other
rendered him passive for an hour.
These preliminaries being arranged, Nance turned her attention to the
work in hand. Her method consisted in starting at the kitchen, which was
in front, and driving the debris back, through the dark, little, middle
room, until she landed it all in a formidable mass in Mrs.
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