Lena had the flat chest, straight back and forward falling shoulders
of the patient and enduring working woman, though her body was now
still in its milder girlhood and work had not yet made these lines too
clear.
The rarer feeling that there was with Lena, showed in all the even
quiet of her body movements, but in all it was the strongest in the
patient, old-world ignorance, and earth made pureness of her brown,
flat, soft featured face. Lena had eyebrows that were a wondrous
thickness. They were black, and spread, and very cool, with their dark
color and their beauty, and beneath them were her hazel eyes, simple
and human, with the earth patience of the working, gentle, german
woman.
Yes it was all a peaceful life for Lena. The other girls, of course,
did tease her, but then that only made a gentle stir within her.
"What you got on your finger Lena," Mary, one of the girls she always
sat with, one day asked her. Mary was good natured, quick, intelligent
and Irish.
Lena had just picked up the fancy paper made accordion that the little
girl had dropped beside her, and was making it squeak sadly as she
pulled it with her brown, strong, awkward finger.
"Why, what is it, Mary, paint?" said Lena, putting her finger to her
mouth to taste the dirt spot.
"That's awful poison Lena, don't you know?" said Mary, "that green
paint that you just tasted.
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