Nancy Ellen had earned the
money for a new dress by raising turkeys, so when the turkeys went
to town to be sold, for the first time in her life Nancy Ellen
went along to select the dress. No one told her what kind of
dress to get, because no one imagined that she would dare buy any
startling variation from what always had been provided for her.
But Nancy Ellen had stood facing a narrow mirror when she reached
the gingham counter and the clerk, taking one look at her fresh,
beautiful face with its sharp contrasts of black eyes and hair,
rose-tinted skin that refused to tan, and red cheeks and lips,
began shaking out delicate blues, pale pinks, golden yellows. He
called them chambray; insisted that they wore for ever, and were
fadeless, which was practically the truth. On the day that dress
was like to burst its waist seams, it was the same warm rosy pink
that transformed Nancy Ellen from the disfiguration of dirt-brown
to apple and peach bloom, wild roses and swamp mallow, a girl
quite as pretty as a girl ever grows, and much prettier than any
girl ever has any business to be.
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