d let my own son be made a fool of. One girl isn't
enough, she's got to have a wash woman. And now a wash woman isn't
enough she's got to have a woman to clean one day a week."

An hour later, from the front bedroom, where Hugo was dressing, would
come the low murmur of conversation. Lil had reached the complaining
point, goaded by much repetition.

The attitude of the two women distressed and bewildered Hugo. He was a
simple soul, and this was a complex situation. His mind leaped from
mother to wife, and back again, joltingly. After all, one woman at a
time is all that any man can handle successfully.

"What's got into you women folks!" he would say. "Always quarrelling.
Why can't you get along."

One night after dinner Lil said, quite innocently, "Mother, we haven't a
decent picture of you. Why don't you have one taken? In your black
lace."

Old lady Mandle broke into sudden fury. "I guess you think I'm going to
die! A picture to put on the piano after I'm gone, huh? 'That's my dear
mother that's gone.' Well, I don't have any picture taken. You can think
of me the way I was when I was alive."

The thing grew and swelled and took on bitterness as it progressed.
Lil's face grew strangely flushed and little veins stood out on her
temples. All the pent-up bitterness that had been seething in Ma
Mandle's mind broke bounds now, and welled to her lips. Accusation,
denial; vituperation, retort.

"You'll be happy when I'm gone."

"If I am it's your fault."

"It's the ones that are used to nothing that always want the most. They
don't know where to stop. When you were working in Omaha--"

"The salary I gave up to marry your son was more money than you ever
saw."

And through it all, like a leit-motiv, ran Hugo's attempt at
pacification: "Now, Ma! Don't, Lil. You'll only excite yourself. What's
got into you two women?"

It was after dinner. In the end Ma Mandle slammed out of the house,
hatless. Her old legs were trembling. Her hands shook. It was a hot June
night. She felt as if she were burning up. In her frantic mind there was
even thought of self-destruction. There were thousands of motor cars
streaming by. The glare of their lamps and the smell of the gasoline
blinded and stifled her. Once, at a crossing, she almost stumbled in
front of an on-rushing car. The curses of the startled driver sounded
in her terrified ears after she had made the opposite curb in a frantic
bound. She walked on and on for what seem