He says it serves Elsie right, that Green
Valley women've got a mania for dyeing things and trying to make 'em
last forever; that he's had two bolts of just the kind of color Elsie
was trying to get but that she wouldn't look at it.
"And Pete Sweeney's not the only one that's down on the women. Andy
Smiley cleaned up so much money on those new bungalows that he went to
the city and came home with twenty-five dollars' worth of ostrich
plumes for Nettie. He said he was bound that Nettie'd have a real hat
once in her life, that he's tired of watching her making her own hats,
even piecing out the shapes with bits of cardboard and trimming and
retrimming. She got in the way of it the first ten years they were
married, when Andy was having such poor luck and now, poor thing, I
guess she can't get out of it, because the day after Andy brought the
plumes Nettie went to the city and bought a thirty-nine-cent shape to
put them on. And she's wearing it like that, looking worse than ever.
They say Andy's swearing awful and that Mary Langely almost cried when
she saw those lovely plumes and begged Nettie to come in and let her
fix up her hat proper and without charge. But Nettie just smiled that
happy little smile of hers and shook her head.
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