had been a setting all the time without a waist and
didn't know it, and he was awful nice, never showed by the bat of an eye
that I wasn't dressed in a mackintosh. Then when I had powdered my eyes,
we went over to the station. He wasn't on duty, but he had heard the men
talking about Jim being at my place, and he come along with them to see
that nothing happened to me.
I am going to stay here a week. I can't work and Tom went and saw the
manager and Fred Keeney, my dancing partner, and got me off for a week.
Mabel Sullivan is going to take my place. She dances a good deal better
than I have the last month since I have been so worried, so it'll be all
right. Billy is looking fine. He calls the old lady "granny" and talks
as Irish as she does. She is crazy about him, and says she will never
let me take him away.
Now, don't feel too broke up, Kate. I am afraid I haven't told you very
well about it, but I had rather have you hear it from me, so you will
get it straight. There is no use a telling you I am sorry, cause I
ain't. I always hated Jim's eyes, yet I wouldn't have peached on him,
nor done nothing to hurt him.
Yours,
_Nan_.
XXXIV
_Dear Kate_:
I am having a dandy time! This is an awful pretty place. It is kinda in
the country, yet it is right in the city. Captain Thomas Cassidy must
have been a very saving man, or else he didn't let many things get by
him, to be able to buy a nice little home like this. Yet, perhaps, he
bought it when this was real country, and cheap. The house has got a
parlor and a dining room and another room and a kitchen and a laundry
down stairs, and up stairs there are five bed rooms and a bath, and a
great big attic where Billy can play when it rains. There is a big yard,
both front and back. The front yard has flowers and belongs to Mrs.
Cassidy, and the back yard has a vegetable garden, and belongs to Jack
and Tom, half and half. You would laugh to see them two great big
babies quarreling over their vegetables. Tom comes home and takes off
his uniform and his collar and fusses around his garden every night. He
weeds and sweats and swears, and his garden ain't nothing like Jack's.
All Jack has to do is to look at a cabbage and it grows, and their poor
mother has an awful time keeping peace in the family. If they have
lettuce from Jack's garden, Jack says to her, "Mother, ain't that the
finest lettuce you ever et?" And Tom drops his knife and looks up sudden
at her,
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