been livin' all this time that you've been gettin'
on so well in New York?" says I.

"In our old home, Tonawanda," says he, shudderin' some as he lets go of
the name. "It's where she should have stayed, too!"

"So-o-o-o?" says I. I'd been listenin' just out of politeness up to that
point; but from then on I got int'rested, and I don't let up until I've
pumped out of him all the details about just how much of a nuisance an
old, back number mother could be to a couple of ambitious young folks
that had grown up and married into the swell mob.

It was a case that ought to be held up as a warnin' to lots of
superfluous old mothers that ain't got any better taste than to keep on
livin' long after there's any use for 'em. Mother Vincent hadn't made
much trouble at first, for she'd had an old maid sister to take care of;
but when a bad case of the grip got Aunt Sophrony durin' the previous
winter, mother was left sort of floatin' around.

She tried visitin' back and forth between Vincent and Nellie just one
consecutive trip, and the experiment was such a frost that it caused
ructions in both families. In her Tonawanda regalia mother wa'n't an
exhibit that any English butler could be expected to pass the soup to and
still keep a straight face.

So Vincent thinks it's time to anchor her permanent somewhere. Accordin'
to his notion, he did the handsome thing too. He buys her a nice little
farm about a mile outside of Tonawanda, a place with a fine view of the
railroad tracks on the west and a row of brick yards to the east, and he
lands mother there with a toothless old German housekeeper for company.
He tells her he's settled a good comfortable income on her for life, and
leaves her to enjoy herself.

But look at the ingratitude a parent can work up! She ain't been there
more'n a couple of months before she begins complainin' about bein'
lonesome. She don't see much of the Tonawanda folks now, the housekeeper
ain't very sociable, the smoke from the brick yards yellows her Monday
wash, and the people she sees goin' by in the cars is all strangers.
Couldn't Vincent swap the farm for one near New York? She liked the looks
of the place when she was there, and wouldn't mind being closer.

"Of course," says he, "that was out of the question!"

"Oh, sure!" says I. "How absurd! But what's the contents of this late
bulletin about her being a stray?"

It was nothing more or less than that the old girl had sold up the farm a
coup