"Don't! You--you mustn't, you
know."

But Primmie did, nevertheless. Galusha in desperation turned toward the
door.

"I'm going to call Miss Phipps," he declared. Primmie, the tears still
pouring down her cheeks, seized him by the arm.

"Don't you do it!" she commanded. "Don't you dast to do it! I'll--I'll
stop cryin'. I--I'm goin' to if you'll only wait and give me a chance.
There! There! See, I'm--I'm stoppin' now."

And, with one tremendous sniff and a violent rub of her hand across her
nose, stop she did. But she was still the complete picture of misery.

"Why, what IS the matter?" demanded Galusha.

Primmie sniffed once more, gulped, and then blurted forth the
explanation.

"She--she's canned me," she said.

Galusha looked at her uncomprehendingly. Primmie's equipment of Cape Cod
slang and idiom, rather full and complete of itself, had of late been
amplified and complicated by a growing acquaintance with the new driver
of the grocery cart, a young man of the world who had spent two hectic
years in Brockton, where, for a portion of the time, he worked in a shoe
factory. But Galusha Bangs, not being a man of the world, was not up in
slang; he did not understand.

"What?" he asked.

"I say she's canned me. Miss Martha has, I mean. Oh, ain't it awful!"

"Canned you? Really, I--"

"Yes, yes, yes! Canned me, fired me. Oh, DON'T stand there owlin' at
me like that! Can't you see, I--Oh, please, Mr. Bangs, excuse me for
talkin' so. I--I didn't mean to be sassy. I'm just kind of loony, I
guess. Please excuse me, Mr. Bangs."

"Yes, yes, Primmie, of course--of course. Don't cry, that's all.
But what is this? Do I understand you to say that Miss Phipps
has--ah--DISCHARGED you?"

"Um-hm. That's what she's done. I'm canned. And I don't know where to go
and--and I don't want to go anywheres else. I want to stay here along of
her."

She burst into tears again. It was some time before Galusha could calm
her sufficiently to get the story of what had happened. When told,
flavored with the usual amount of Primmieisms, it amounted to this:
Martha had helped her with the supper dishes and then, instead of going
into the sitting room, had asked her to sit down as she had something
particular to say to her. Primmie obediently sat and her mistress did
likewise.

"But she didn't begin to say it right off," said Primmie. "She started
four or five times afore she really got a-goin'. She said that what
she'd got to say wa