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How does Mrs. Sommers plan to spend the $15 before she shops?
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Before shopping, Mrs. Sommers plans to spend the $15 on her children, buying them new clothes and shoes. She envisions her children looking fresh and new, which excites her. Her specific plans include purchasing shoes for Janie, percale fabric for shirtwaists, a gown for Mag, and hats for the children. Despite her own needs, she does not consider spending any of the money on herself, focusing solely on her children's needs.
After carefully considering how she ought to "invest" her unexpected funds, Mrs. Sommers decides on a course of spending that is both "proper and judicious": she will devote the entire amount to purchasing new clothes and shoes for her children who have not had nice, new things, evidently, for some time (if at all). The narrator says,
The vision of her little brood looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives excited her and made her restless and wakeful with anticipation.
Indeed, she does not plan to spend a single nickel on herself. In the past, there must have been "'better days,'" of which the neighbors speak, but Mrs. Sommers does not indulge any such thoughts—she devotes herself wholly to the "needs of the present" and her children. Not only does she not plan to spend any of the money on herself, but she has even forgotten...
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to eat what with getting her children fed and her home set to rights. It seems quite important to note how significantly Mrs. Sommers has deprived herself of even a minor indulgence, so much so that, before her shopping trip, it never seems to occur to her to buy something for herself.
Mrs. Sommers is so excited by her unexpected windfall. Fifteen dollars seems like an awful lot of money to her. All sorts of spending possibilities suddenly present themselves; there are so many things one can buy with such an amount. Her thoughts soon turn to buying new clothes for her family. Janie could do with some new shoes, ones made to last a lot longer than those she normally wears. Mrs. Sommers could also buy many yards of percale—a kind of woven cotton fabric—that could be used for shirtwaists for the boys and for Janie and Mag. And Mag could also be treated to a new gown; Mrs. Sommers has seen some really nice patterns at bargain prices in the shop windows. And after all that, she'd still have enough left over to buy some caps for the boys and sailor hats for the girls.