d something about the
pencilings and colorings of the Almighty being in the tulips.

"When we returned to the house my back was feeling kind of lame, and
gave me one or two of those twister pains. I said: 'Oh, my back! It has
got one of its spells on.' Mrs. Lenair said it would soon go away, and,
to my surprise, it did. Only had it about half an hour, and generally
those spells last me all day. I said: 'Mrs. Lenair, do you have any
ailments? I never hear you complain, if you do.' She said she had not
an ache nor pain in her body for a number of years. I threw my hands up
in astonishment, and said: 'You don't say so?' 'That is the truth,' she
said. And I believe her, for she looks ten years younger than she really
is. 'Why,' I said, 'how different you are from the girls and women
around here. Most all the girls not married are ailing more or less, and
about every married woman has her aches and pains. I can't make you
out.'

"Mrs. Lenair laughed, and said: 'If I were like other women I should be
ailing as they are.' Well, I got up just as good a dinner as I knew how.
I put on the table fried ham and eggs, baked veal, potatoes, peas,
canned tomatoes, red currant jelly, fig preserve, canned nectarines,
cream puffs, grape pie, lemon pie, plain cake, and frosted cake; and we
had coffee, chocolate, and milk to drink. I did want her to make out a
good meal, because I thought she never cooked much at home. Well, what
do you think? I could not get her to eat any meat. 'Why,' I said, 'I
would starve if I did not have meat two or three times a day with my
meals.' She said she had not eaten meat for seventeen years, and was
much better without it. She just ate a little potatoes, one egg, some
nectarines, bread and butter, and drank a little milk. I told her she
must try my cream puffs if she would not eat any cake or pie. At last I
did get her to eat a cream puff. That woman don't eat much more than
would keep a mouse alive, and yet she is so hearty and well. I told her
as she ate so little, Dan and I would have to make up for her. And we
did, for we ate as if it were a Thanksgiving dinner. Dan and I say it is
our religion not to die in debt to our stomachs. After dinner I felt
more like sleep than anything else, and I said, 'Mrs. Lenair, let you
and me take a nap.' That seemed to please her, so she laid down on the
lounge and I went and laid on my bed. About an hour later I returned to
the room where I had left Mrs. Lenair.

"'