'Excuse me, Mother, shall I wash up?' she said at once. She always did
wash up. And 'excuse me' usually prefaced her questions.
'Please, Jane Anne,' said Mother. The entire family called her Jane
Anne, although her baptismal names were rather fine. Sometimes she
answered, too, to Jinny, but when it was a question of household
duties it was Jane Anne, or even 'Ria.'
She set about her duties promptly, though not with any special
deftness. And first she stooped and picked up the last match her
father had dropped upon the strip of carpet that covered the linoleum.
'Daddy,' she said reprovingly, 'you do make such a mess.' She brushed
tobacco ashes from his coat. Mother, without looking up, went on
talking to him about the bills-washing, school-books, boots, blouses,
oil, and peat. And as she did so a puzzled expression was visible in
his eyes akin to the expression in Jane Anne's. Both enjoyed a similar
mental confusion sometimes as to words and meanings and the import of
practical life generally.
'We shan't want any more now, thank goodness,' he said vaguely,
referring to the peat, though Mother was already far ahead, wading
among boots and shirts and blouses.
'But if we get a load in now, you see, it's _cheaper_,' she said with
emphasis on every alternate word, slowing up the pace to suit him.
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