r the--"

"Never!" he shouted. "Never! You expect me to walk through the public
streets with that awful-lookin' old nigger--"

"Genesis isn't old," she managed to interpolate. "He--"

But her frantic son disregarded her. "Second-hand wash-tubs!" he
vociferated. "And tin clothes-boilers! THAT'S what you want your SON to
carry through the public streets in broad daylight! Ye gods!"

"Well, there isn't anybody else," she said. "Please don't rave so,
Willie, and say 'Ye gods' so much; it really isn't nice. I'm sure nobody
'll notice you--"

"'Nobody'!" His voice cracked in anguish. "Oh no! Nobody except the
whole town! WHY, when there's anything disgusting has to be done
in this family--why do _I_ always have to be the one? Why can't Genesis
bring the second-hand wash-tubs without ME? Why can't the second-hand
store deliver 'em? Why can't--"

"That's what I want to tell you," she interposed, hurriedly, and as the
youth lifted his arms on high in a gesture of ultimate despair, and
then threw himself miserably into a chair, she obtained the floor. "The
second-hand store doesn't deliver things," she said. "I bought them at
an auction, and it's going out of business, and they have to be taken
away before half past four this afternoon. Genesis can't bring them in
the wheelbarrow, because, he says, the wheel is broken, and he says he
can't possibly carry two tubs and a wash-boiler himself; and he can't
make two trips because it's a mile and a half, and I don't like to ask
him, anyway; and it would take too long, because he has to get back and
finish cutting the grass before your papa gets home this evening. Papa
said he HAD to! Now, I don't like to ask you, but it really isn't much.
You and Genesis can just slip up there and--"

"Slip!" moaned William. "'Just SLIP up there'! Ye gods!"

"Genesis is waiting on the back porch," she said. "Really it isn't worth
your making all this fuss about."

"Oh no!" he returned, with plaintive satire. "It's nothing! Nothing at
all!"

"Why, _I_ shouldn't mind it," she said; briskly, "if I had the time. In
fact, I'll have to, if you won't."

"Ye gods!" He clasped his head in his hands, crushed, for he knew that
the curse was upon him and he must go. "Ye gods!"

And then, as he stamped to the door, his tragic eye fell upon Jane, and
he emitted a final cry of pain:

"Can't you EVER wash your face?" he shouted.

IV

GENESIS AND CLEMATIS

Genesis and his dog were waiting jus