From the houses near you could catch a faint
smell of supper: very friendly people those were in these houses; she
knew them all well. The children came out with their faces washed, to
play, now the sun was down: the oldest of them generally came to sit
with her and hear a story.
After it grew darker, you would see the girls in their neat blue
calicoes go sauntering down the street with their sweethearts for
a walk. There was old Polston and his son Sam coming home from the
coal-pits, as black as ink, with their little tin lanterns on their
caps. After a while Sam would come out in his suit of Kentucky jean, his
face shining with the soap, and go sheepishly down to Jenny Ball's, and
the old man would bring his pipe and chair out on the pavement, and his
wife would sit on the steps. Most likely they would call Lois down,
or come over themselves, for they were the most sociable, coziest old
couple you ever knew. There was a great stopping at Lois's door, as
the girls walked past, for a bunch of the flowers she brought from the
country, or posies, as they called them, (Sam never would take any to
Jenny but "old man" and pinks,) and she always had them ready in broken
jugs inside. They were good, kind girls, every one of them,--had taken
it in turn to sit up with Lois last winter all the time she had the
rheumatism.
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