3

2

in praising them, but they seemed too shy to speak a word. Then in
came Lily from the adjoining room with a babe in her arms and another
tugging at her skirts. She smiled as she extended a limp hand in
greeting. As there were no chairs in the room she indicated that I
was to he seated upon one of the beds while she sat upon the other with
the two babies. Jason took the place of the pigs upon the step, and
the older children ranged themselves upright and rigid against the wall.

The floor was greasy and grimed with dirt. There were two rickety,
lop-sided beds with dirty covers. Three girls sleep crosswise on one
bed, Willy sleeps on a pallet on the floor, and Jason, Lily, and the two
youngest children sleep in the other bed. At the window openings were
starched white curtains made of bleached sacking. A broken washstand
held an assortment of patent medicines and odds and ends. A rough shelf
leaning against the rear of the house supported a tin pan and rusty bucket.
There was no toilet of any kind.

Jason was wearing patched, faded, and dirty blue denim overalls,
and a faded and soiled blue shirt. Like Lily and all the children, he
was barefoot. Lily's loose dress of feed-sacking, from which most of
the lettering had been bleached, was soiled too. Her hair was disordered
and a dirty rag closely bound her head. Thin streams of snuff ran from
the corners of her mouth. She had a cold and frequently wiped her nose
with a rag or the back of her hand. The baby began to cry and she gave
it her breast.

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