“Well, honey,” said Leota, but in a weary voice, “she come in here not the week before and not the day before she had her baby—she come in here the very selfsame day, I mean to tell you. Child, we was all plumb scared to death. There she was! Come for her shampoo an’ set. Why, Mrs. Fletcher, in an hour an’ twenty minutes she was layin’ up there in the Babtist Hospital with a seb’m-pound son. It was that close a shave. I declare, if I hadn’t been so tired I would of drank up a bottle of gin that night.”

“What gall,” said Mrs. Fletcher. “I never knew her at all well.”

“See, her husband was waitin’ outside in the car, and her bags was all packed an’ in the back seat, an’ she was all ready, ’cept she wanted her shampoo an’ set. An’ havin’ one pain right after another. Her husband kep’ comin’ in here, scared-like, but couldn’t do nothin’ with her a course. She yelled bloody murder, too, but she always yelled her head off when I give her a perm’nent.”

“She must of been crazy,” said Mrs. Fletcher. “How did she look?”

“Shoot!” said Leota.

“Well, I can guess,” said Mrs. Fletcher. “Awful.”

“Just wanted to look pretty while she was havin’ her baby, is all,” said Leota airily. “Course, we was glad to give the lady what she was after—that’s our motto—but I bet a hour later she wasn’t payin’ no mind to them little end curls. I bet she wasn’t thinkin’ about she ought to have on a net. It wouldn’t of done her no good if she had.”

“No, I don’t suppose it would,” said Mrs. Fletcher.

“Yeah man! She was a-yellin’. Just like when I give her perm’nent.”

“Her husband ought to make her behave. Don’t it seem that way to you?” asked Mrs. Fletcher. “He ought to put his foot down.”

“Ha,” said Leota. “A lot he could do. Maybe some women is soft.”

“Oh, you mistake me, I don’t mean for her to get soft—far from it! Women have to stand up for themselves, or there’s just no telling. But now you take me—I ask Mr. Fletcher’s advice now and then, and he appreciates it, especially on something important, like is it time for a permanent—not that I’ve told him about the baby. He says, ‘Why, dear, go ahead!’ Just ask their advice.”

“Huh! If I ever ast Fred’s advice we’d be floatin’ down the Yazoo River on a houseboat or somethin’ by this time,” said Leota. “I’m sick of Fred. I told him to go over to Vicksburg.”

“Is he going?” demanded Mrs. Fletcher.