The Baxter kitchen rose before her. Why! while she was
sitting here now, in this luxurious room, back there they'd be
getting ready for the noonday dinner. The close kitchen would be
reeking with the odor of boiling potatoes and cabbage, from which a
greasy steam would be arising, so that one saw things as through a
hot mist. One of the children would be screaming, somewhere about
the house, and Mrs. Baxter, in an unsavory wrapper, her face
streaming with perspiration, her hair in sticky strands on her hot
forehead, would be shrilly threatening personal chastisement: "You
shut up, out there! Just you wait till I get this batch o' biscuits
off my hands an' I bet I fix _you_! didn't I say shut up?" The
hateful voice seemed so close to Nancy's ear that the girl shrank
back, shivering with distaste.
She fingered the soft, fine stuff of the frock she was wearing. She
stared about the room,--_her_ room, which she didn't have to share
with one of the Baxter children, who squirmed and kicked all night
in summer, and pulled the bed-coverings off her in winter.
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