Chapter 25 Part Two Chapter Four Flossie

After seeing her father gone, Francie went to see what Flossie Gaddis was getting ready for the evening dance. Flossie supported her mother and younger brother by working as a turner in a children's glove factory.Workers sometimes nailed the glove backwards, and it was her job to put it back on.She often takes home work to do.Her younger brother is consumptive and can't work, so the more money she makes, the better. Francie had been told that Henny Gaddis was dying, but she would not believe it.He doesn't look like that.On the contrary, he looked very well: smooth skin, rosy cheeks, large, black eyes, blazing with energy, like an oil lamp blocked from the wind.It's just that he has an account in his mind whether it's life or death.He was nineteen, loved life, and couldn't comprehend why he had come to this fate.Mrs. Gaddis was delighted to see Francie.Seeing a guest coming, Henny will not be there to think about it.

"Here comes Francie, Henny," she called happily. "Hi, Francie." "Hello, Henny." "Don't you think Henny looks good, Francie? Tell him he looks good." "Henny, you look good." Henny seemed to be talking to an invisible person: "She told a man half buried in the loess that he looked good." "I really mean it." "No, you don't think so. You just say it." "See how you talk, Henny? Look at me--you see how thin I am, and I don't think about dying." "You're not going to die, Francie. You were born to die, and you can get through these bastard days."

"Yes, but I don't have such a good face as you." "No, you didn't, but you know that's not a good sign either." "Henny, you should sit on the roof more," his mother said. "She told a dying man to sit on the roof," Henny said again to the invisible man. "You need fresh air, you need sunlight." "Leave me alone, Mom." "I'm all for your own good." "Mom, mom, don't bother me! Don't bother me!" He suddenly put his head in his hands and let out a painful cough.Flossie and her mother looked at each other and decided to leave him alone.They made him cough and sob in the kitchen.They went to the front room and showed Francie the clothes.

Flossie does three things a week: fix the wrong gloves, make clothes for herself, and chase Frank.She goes to the masquerade every Saturday night and wears a different costume each time.These costumes were specially adapted to cover her deformed right arm.When she was a child, she accidentally fell into a clothes pot with boiling water on the kitchen floor and severely burned her right arm.When she grew up, the skin on her right arm was dry and purple.She wears long sleeves all the time. The problem is that the key to masquerade clothes is to be exposed, so she had to invent a backless costume, showing her full breasts in the front, and a long sleeve blocking her right arm.The referees always felt that the long sleeves symbolized something.So every time she wins the first prize.

Flossie was dressed for the evening.This costume mimics what everyone fantasizes about the Klondike ballroom girls.Evening gown in purple satin, with light red fine-striped plain muslin petticoat.A metal butterfly brooch is pinned on the left chest.The long sleeve was made of pea-green chiffon.Francie admired the costume.Flossie's mother opened the wardrobe, and Francie saw that it was full of colorful clothes. Flossie had six tight evening gowns in every color, and six muslin petticoats, and at least twenty long sleeves of chiffon in every color imaginable.Every week, Flossie changed into a different combination and wore a new outfit.Next week, a blush petticoat might peek out from under a sky-blue sheath, with long sleeves, maybe black, and so on.In the closet there are about twenty tightly wrapped silk umbrellas that have never been used, and these are all prizes she won.Flossie collects these like athletes collect trophies.Francie looked at the umbrellas and felt happy.The poor are always keen on numbers.

As Francie looked at the costumes, she began to feel uneasy.Looking at these bright colors, light red, orange, big blue, red, yellow, she always felt that there was something hidden behind these clothes.It seemed that inside these long, somber garments, wrapped a grinning skeleton, the remains of some hands.Behind the bright costumes, the thing was hiding, waiting for Henny to arrive.