Short Stories
"I don't see what that's got to do with it," she sniffled.
Johnny smiled patiently, and his mother was aware of a dis-
tinct shock at the persistent absence of his peevishness and irri-
tability.
"I'll show you," he said. "I'm plum' tired out. What makes me
tired? Moves. I've ben movin' ever since I was born. I'm tired of
movin', an' I ain't goin' to move any more. Remember when I
worked in the glass-house? I used to do three hundred dozen a
day. Now I reckon I made about ten different moves to each
bottle. That's thirty-six thousan' moves a day. Ten days, three
hundred an' sixty thousan' moves a day. One month, one million
an' eighty thousan' moves. Chuck out the eighty thousan'—" he
spoke with the complacent beneficence of a philanthropist—
"chuck out the eighty thousan', that leaves a million moves a
month—twelve million moves a year.
"At the looms I'm movin' twic'st as much. That makes twenty
-five million moves a year, an' it seems to me I've ben a movin'
that way 'most a million years.
"Now this week I ain't moved at all. I ain't made one move in
hours an' hours. I tell you it was swell, jes' settin' there, hours an'
hours, an' doin' nothin'. I ain't never ben happy before. I never
had any time. I've ben movin' all the time. That ain't no way to
be happy. An' I ain't goin' to do it any more. I'm jes' goin' to set,
an' set, an' rest, an' rest, and then rest some more."
"But what's goin' to come of Will an' the children?" she asked
despairingly.
"That's it, `Will an' the children,'" he repeated.
But there was no bitterness in his voice. He had long known
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