"'Cause I ain't," said Nance, knowing the futility of argument.
Mrs. Snawdor lifted her hand to strike, but changed her mind. She was
beginning to have a certain puzzled respect for her stepdaughter's
decision of character.
After the children had been put to bed and Nance had cried over the
smallest nightgown, no longer needed, she slipped down to the second
floor and, pausing before the door behind which the sewing-machines were
always whirring, gave a peculiar whistle. It was a whistle possible only
to a person who boasted the absence of a front tooth, and it brought Ike
Lavinski promptly to the door.
Ikey was a friend whom she regarded with mingled contempt and
admiration--contempt because he was weak and undersized, admiration
because he was the only person of her acquaintance who had ever had his
name in the newspaper. On two occasions he had been among the honor
students at the high school, and his family and neighbors regarded him as
an intellectual prodigy.
"Say, Ikey," said Nance, "if you was me, an' had to make some money, an'
didn't want to chuck school, what would you do?"
Ikey considered the matter. Money and education were the most important
things in the world to him, and were not to be discussed lightly.
"If you were bigger," he said, sweeping her with a critical eye, "you
might try sewing pants."
"Could I do it at night? How much would it pay me? Would yer pa take me
on?" Nance demanded all in a breath.
"He would if he thought they wouldn't get on to it.
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