Those little rascals of children, on my word! One would think their bodies were covered with soot." Gervaise, having undone her bundle, was spreading out the little ones' shirts, and as Madame Boche advised her to take a pailful of lye, she answered, "Oh, no! warm water will do.

I'm used to it." She had sorted her laundry with several colored pieces to one side.

Then, after filling her tub with four pails of cold water from the tap behind her, she plunged her pile of whites into it.
"You're used to it ?" repeated Madame Boche.

"You were a washerwoman in your native place, weren't you, my dear ?" Gervaise, with her sleeves pushed back, displayed the graceful arms of a young blonde, as yet scarcely reddened at the elbows, and started scrubbing her laundry.

She spread a shirt out on the narrow rubbing board which was water-bleached and eroded by years of use.