Mother hasn't any; Father hasn't any; Laurie hasn't any; Jamie hasn't any. Nobody's got none but you! I had to have 'em!"
Grandma waved a majestic hand.
"You heard her say it yourself. If any one had told me that my granddaughter would come to my house under cover of wishing to see her grandma, for the strange reason of getting three gray hairs from her hairbrush to burn, I wouldn't have believed it. It would have seemed too fantastic and too morbid. Nor is it what you can call a laughing matter," for a smile was beginning to lurk around Alice's mouth.
"Why did you want to do it?" Tom inquired. To which Sara made this cryptic reply.
"How was I to get the Witch of Endor and the three White Sibyls if I didn't get three gray hairs to burn?"
And when Tom asked, "What do you mean?" Sara only answered:
"My face is tired with talking."
"Her face is tired with talking—nothing!" said Robert. "What her face is tired with doing, Mother, is chewing gum."
To this the three adults in various keys responded:
"Chewing gum?"
"Why, chewing gum's forbidden!"
"My little granddaughter wouldn't chew gum, would she?"
"She'd chew anything," said Robert. "She'd chew candle wax; she'd chew gum off trees; she'd chew gum off gum shoes if it chewed right. That's what makes me sick about Sara. I won't take her out any more. I can't take her out any place without her begging gum off boys. Sometimes when Sara begs gum off boys it makes me just want to sink right through the floor."
Sara looked at her brother with an astute eye.
