joining with the sizzle of the cooking and
the clatter of the pans.

"I should say I had," I said again.

"She must be a splendid singer," John Shadrack's widow exclaimed with
much enthusiasm. "Tip says she has one of the best tenor voices they
is. He says sometimes he can hear her clean from his clearin' down to
your barn."

"Farther," said I. "All the way to the school-house."

"Indeed! Now that's nice. I allow she must be very handsome."

"Handsome?" said I, a bit incredulous.

"Why, Tip says she's the best-lookin' woman in the walley, and that
she's a terrible tasty dresser."

"Terrible," I muttered.

"Indeed! Now that's nice. And is she spare or fleshy?"

"Medium," I said. "Just right."

"That's nice. But what'll she run to? It makes a heap of difference
to a woman what she runs to. Now I naterally take on."

"I should say Nanny Pulsifer would naturally lose weight," I answered.

"That's nice. It's so much better to run to that--it's easier gittin'
around. Tip says she has a be-yutiful figger. There's nothin' like
figger. If there's anythin' I hate to see it's a first-class gingham
fittin' a woman like it was hung there to air. But about Tip's wife
agin--she must have a lovely disposition?"

"Splendid," I said.

"That's what Tip says. He told me that oncet in a while when he was
kind of low-down she'd git het-up and spited like, but ordinarily, he
says, she's jest a-singin' and a-singin' and makin' him comf'table and
helpin' the children. And them children! I'm jest longin' to see 'em.
They must be lovely."

"From what Tip says," I interjected.

"From what Tip says," she went on. "He was tellin' me about Earl and
Alice Eliza, and Pearl and Cevery and the rest of 'em. He says it's
jest a pickter to see 'em all in bed together--a perfect pickter."

"A perfect picture," said I sleepily.

"Tip must have a lovely home. Why, he tells me they have a
sewin'-machine."

"Lovely," said I. "And a spring-bed."

"And a double-heater stove," said she.

"And an accordion," said I.

"And a washin'-machine," said she.

"And two hogs."

"And he tells me he's going to git her a melodium."

"Indeed," said I. "Why, I thought he was never going back."

"To sech a lovely home?" The old woman held up her hands. "He's goin'
jest as soon as he gets that me-yule and you're able." She laid her
hand on my forehead. "There," she cried, "it's painin' you again, poor
thing--that terrib