ght on his feet. She didn't like him a bit. She
thought he was just plain fresh, the way he told Frank to go on dancing
with her. What was it to him! But she'd dance with him just the same, if
she got the chance. How she just loved to dance! Something seemed to get
into her, when the music struck up. She hardly knew what she was doing,
felt as though she was floating around on that thick, soft moss you
walked on when you went blue-berrying on the Burning above the Eagle
Rocks . . . all springly. . . . If you could only dance by yourself,
without having to bother with partners, that was what would be nice.

She stepped to the door to listen, and heard 'Gene's mother cackling
away like an old hen. How she would carry on, with anybody that came
along! She hadn't never settled down, not a bit really, for all she had
been married and was a widow and was old. It wa'n't nice to be so lively
as that, at her age. But she _wasn't_ nice, Mother Powers wasn't, for
all she was good to Addie and Ralph and little 'Gene. Nelly liked nice
people, she thought, as she went back to shake the rag rugs out of the
window; refined ladies like Mrs. Bayweather, the minister's wife. That
was the way _she_ wanted to be, and have little Addie grow up. She
lingered at the window a moment looking up at the thick dark branches of
the big pine. How horrid it was to have that great tree so close to the
house! It shaded the bedroom so that there was a musty smell no matter
how much it was aired. And the needles dropped down so messy too, and
spoiled the grass.

Frank's voice came up the stairs, bold, laughing, "Nelly, Nelly, come
down here a minute. I want to ask you something!"

"I can't," she called back. Didn't he have the nerve!

"Why can't you?" the skeptical question came from halfway up the stairs.
"I saw you on the side-porch, just as I came up."

Nelly cast about for an excuse. Of course you had to have some _reason_
for saying you couldn't see a neighbor who came in. She had an
inspiration. "I'm washing my hair," she called back, taking out the
hair-pins hastily, as she spoke. The great coils came tumbling down on
her shoulders. She soused them in the water pitcher, and went to the
door, opening it a crack, tipping her head forward so that the water
streamed on the floor. "Can't you ask Mother Powers for whatever it is?"
she said impatiently. She wished as she spoke that she could ever speak
right out sharp and scratchy the way other people