like it says.
I'm ready for sure, my darlin's."

"Oh, Gawd, ma--ready for what? Look at us, ma dearie--all three of us
standing here--ready for what, dearie?"

"You tell 'em, Joe; you--you're big and strong."

"I--I don't know, ma. I don't think I--I know for sure, dearie."

"Ready for what, ma? Tell us, darlin'."

She turned her face toward them, a smile printed on her lips.

"Just ready, children."

THE PARADISE TRAIL

At five o'clock the Broadway store braced itself for the last lap of a
nine-hour day. Girls with soul-and-body weariness writ across their
faces in the sure chirography of hair-line wrinkles stood
pelican-fashion, first on one leg and then on the other, to alternate
the strain.

Floor-walkers directed shoppers with less of the well-oiled suavity of
the morning; a black-and-white-haired woman behind the corset-counter
whitened, sickened, and was revived in the emergency-room; the jewelry
department covered its trays with a tan canvas sheeting; the stream of
shoppers thinned to a trickle.

Across from the notions and buttons the umbrella department suddenly
bloomed forth with a sale of near-silk, wooden-handled umbrellas;
farther down, a special table of three-ninety-eight rubberette
mackintoshes was pushed out into mid-aisle.

Miss Tillie Prokes glanced up at the patch of daylight over the
silk-counters--a light rain was driving against the window.

"Honest, now, Mame, wouldn't that take the curl out of your hair?"

"What's hurtin' you?"

"Rainin' like a needle shower, and I got to wear my new tan coat
to-night, 'cause I told him in the letter I'd wear a tannish-lookin'
jacket with a red bow on the left lapel, so he'd know me when I come in
the drug store."

Mame placed the backs of her hands on her hips, breathed inward like a
soprano testing her diaphragm, and leaned against a wooden spool-case.

"It _is_ rainin' like sixty, ain't it? Say, can you beat it? Watch the
old man put Myrtle out in the aisle at the mackintosh-table--there!
Didn't I tell you! Gee! I bet she could chew a diamond, she's so mad."

"She ain't as mad as me; but I'm going to wear my tan if it gets
soaked."

Tillie sold a packet of needles and regarded the patch of window with a
worried pucker on her small, wren-like face.

"Honest, ain't it a joke, Til?--you havin' the nerve to answer that ad
and all! You better be pretty white to me, or I'll snitch! I'll tell
Angie you're writin' pink notes to Box 2