O79, THE LAND OF PLUCK

shirts so hard upon the washboard that she did not hear
all that Laviny said. She saw the child’s movement toward
the door, however, and checked her with an impatient “No ;
stay where you be.”

For a while after that, the only sounds in the cheerless
room were the soft skish, s-k-ish of the starch under La-
viny’s thin little palms and her aunt’s heavy rub, rub, rub
upon the washboard.

Did the aunt hate little Laviny ? Not she. Eliza Green
was only rough, quick-tempered, and tired. If she thought
about her conduct at all, she thought only that she was
doing her duty in not letting the child “gad about out-
doors” and in “ puttin’ a stop to the lazy ways she was a-
getting into.” Laviny, or Lavinia, was the orphan child of
this washerwoman’s sister, and it evidently was a settled
matter somewhere far in the depths of the poor woman’s
dull, neglected heart that “so long as there was a day’s
washing to be found, or a crust or a smitch left, the poor
little creetur should n’t want for food and shelter; no, nor
for careful trainin’.” Presently, Laviny, squeezing a collar
very hard and letting the starch ooze slowly through her
fingers, looked wistfully toward the open doorway. Some
white clouds were floating by in the distance.

“What ’s got into yer, Lerviny ? I'll give yer somethin’
to stare at if you don’t take your eyes off that there sky.”

(Only the day before, Eliza Green had told her friend
Mrs. Delany, who lived in the shanty beyond, that that
queer look of Laviny’s always gave her “a crawl — like
as if she was goin’ to be took away from me, you know.”
But she did not say this to Laviny.)