Feuds had been started and battles lost by
swinging braids. The idea of washing it was an entirely new one to her;
but the vision of golden locks spurred her on to try the experiment. She
carefully followed directions, but the egg had been borrowed from Mrs.
Smelts who had borrowed it some days before from Mrs. Lavinski, and the
result was not what Mrs. Purdy predicted.
"If ever I ketch you up to sech fool tricks again," scolded Mrs. Snawdor,
who had been called to the rescue, "I'll skin yer hide off! You've no
need to take yer hair down except when I tell you. You kin smooth it up
jus' like you always done."
Having thus failed in her efforts at personal adornment, Nance turned her
attention to beautifying her surroundings. The many new features observed
in the homely, commonplace house in Butternut Lane stirred her ambition.
Her own room, to be sure, possessed architectural defects that would have
discouraged most interior decorators. It was small and dark, with only
one narrow opening into an air-shaft. Where the plaster had fallen off,
bare laths were exposed, and in rainy weather a tin tub occupied the
center of the floor to catch the drippings from a hole in the roof. For
the rest, a slat bed, an iron wash-stand, and a three-legged chair
comprised the furniture.
But Nance was not in the least daunted by the prospect. With
considerable ingenuity she evolved a dresser from a soap box and the
colored supplements of the Sunday papers, which she gathered into a
valance, in imitation of Mrs.
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