Mrs. Shannon, perpetually crouched over the battered stove for warmth, had a grievance.
"If Duval earned half as much as any other fisherman around here," said she, in her harsh, disagreeable voice, "we'd be livin' in a real house on dry land. And what's more, Mollie, you ain't gettin' all he earns. He's savin' on you. He's got money in the bank. I seen a bankbook a-stickin' out of his pocket. You ain't gettin' what you'd ought to have; I _know_ you ain't."
"Leave me be," returned Mollie. "We gets enough to eat and more'n a body wants to cook. Clothes is a bother any way you want to look at 'em."
"He's a-saving fer _Jeanne_," declared the old lady. "'Tain't fair to you. 'Tain't fair to your children."
"Well," said Mollie, waking up for a moment, "I dunno as I blame him. I likes Jeanne better myself. She's got _looks,_ Jeanne has; an' she's always been a _good_ child, with nice ways with her. Neither me nor mine has much more looks nor a lump o' putty."
"Well, I ain't," returned Mollie, truthfully. "You got to lace yourself in, an' keep buttoned up tight an' wear tight shoes an' keep your stockings fastened up an' your head full o' hairpins if you wants to look neat, when you're fat, like I be. I hates all of them things. I'd ruther be comfortable."
Jeanne had often wondered how soft, plump Mollie _could_ be comfortable with strands of red hair straggling about her face, with her fat neck exposed to the weather, her uncorseted figure billowing under her shapeless wrapper, her feet scuffling about in shoes several times too large. Even when dressed for the street, she was not much neater. But that was Mollie. Gentle as she was and thoroughly sweet-tempered, it was as impossible to stir her to action as it was to upset her serenity. As for wrath, Mollie simply hadn't any.
"You could burn the house down," declared Mrs. Shannon, "an' Mollie'd crawl into the Cinder Pond an' set there an' _sleep_. Her paw died just because he was too lazy to stay alive, and she's just like him--red hair and all. If it was _red_ red hair, there'd be some get up and go to them Shannons; but it _ain't_. It's just _carrot_ red, with yaller streaks."
"When Annie's hair has just been washed," championed Jeanne, after one of Mrs. Shannon's outbursts against the family's red-gold locks, "it's lovely. And if Sammy ever had a lazy hair in _his_ head, I guess Michael pulled it out that time they had a _fight_ about the fish-pole."