“Hey. Whatta ya got your thumb in your mouth for?” Jake asked as he burst into the room. Mary took her thumb out of her mouth. She had just run a steaming hot sheet through the mangle and was taking a moment to catch her breath before tackling the under-sheet of the pair. With Mary, resting usually entailed sucking her thumb. It would never have occurred to her that it was an infantile practice or that it was unattractive. “You’re the new laundry maid, huh? Gawd, it’s hot in here. I’m Jake. I do the boots. And the silver. Sometimes I get to help Tradger with the motor. I’m gonna have a fast car one day. I’ll drive right out of here, you see if I don’t. What’s your name?” “Mary,” Mary answered, and immediately her thumb returned to her mouth. “Mary. Cripes. That’s too nice a name for the likes of you. You sure your name isn’t Suckathumb? I’ll call you Pigtail.” There was some justice in the choice, since Mary’s slightly coarse, dark brown hair hung down her back in two pigtails. “You ever been in a motor car? I go out with Tradger sometimes after he changes the plugs and he’s testing out the Arrow. You ever been in an Arrow? Huh. Looks of you, you’ve never even been in a dog cart.” “I came here on the trolley,” Mary said. She began to pull the next sheet from the rinse water. “Trolley. Trolleys are for riffraff like you. How can you stand it in here. Washing all day. Heat. I wouldn’t want to be washing no married lady’s sheets. Not that the mister gets up to any mischief, I wouldn’t imagine. Not much life in the old duffer. Not that you’d know about them upstairs.” “I met Mrs. Harris. She hired me.” “Get away. Mrs. Harris wouldn’t have aught to do with the likes of you. She’d leave hiring trash like you to Miss Tucker.” “I was in the parlor just this morning, and she spoke to me oh so nice. She’s very pretty and had on a dress with a high neck. And pearls.” “You never saw her. You’re making it up. Ain’t you? Say true now.” “And there flowers on the little table. She sat on a curved sofa in front of a little round table. Glass it was. And a bowl of sunflowers on it.” Jake let out a guffaw. “Sunflowers. You’re daft, you are. You must have let all your brains run out into your pigtails. I saw Mr. H. getting the flowers together. He always does it himself. I guess he thinks he knows what the ladies like. Them yellow flowers are daffodils. Not sunflowers.” Then he realized that his correction had certified Mary’s visit upstairs. “So you must not even have been there. If you had been, you’da know’d those wasn’t sunflowers. You’re a liar on top of being stupid. Bye, Pigtail.” Jake trotted out of the laundry. Mary pushed a corner of the sheet between the mangle’s heavy rollers, but stopped for a moment, contemplating. Her thumb found its way back to her mouth, and she pictured the dark, cool luxury of the parlor and the small bright yellow flowers that lay, like wistful, captured sunlight, in the bowl on Mrs. Harris’ table.
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