It was that laugh in the office made me bring it
here, where I could have it always by me."
"It's been knocked out of me, every bit of laugh I ever had in me; lemme
tell you that."
"I can remember the first time I ever heard you, Hanna. You was standin"
at the office window lookin' out in the yards at Jerry Sims unloadin' a
shipment of oats; and little Old Cocker was standin' on top of one of the
sacks barkin' his head off. I--"
"Yeh; I met Clara Sims on the street yesterday, back here for a visit, and
she says to me, she says: 'Hanna Burkhardt, you mean to tell me you never
done nothing with your voice! You oughta be ashamed. If I was your husband,
I'd spend my last cent trainin' that contralto of yours. You oughtn't to
let yourself go like this. Women don't do it no more.' That, from the
tackiest girl that ever walked this town. I wished High Street had opened
up and swallowed me."
"Now, Hanna, you mustn't--"
"In all these years never so much as a dance or a car-ride as far as
Middletown. Church! Church! Church! Till I could scream at the sight of
it. Not a year of my married life that 'ain't been a lodestone on my neck!
Eight of' 'em! Eight!"
"I'm not sayin' I'm not to blame, Hanna.
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