Yellett family had by this time dispersed itself for the afternoon,
and the matriarch and the two girls started in to clear away the meal and
wash the dishes.

"That's the kind of book for me," continued Mrs. Yellett, vigorously
swishing about in the soapy water. "Story-books don't count none with me
these days. It's my opinion that things are snarled up a whole lot too
much in real life without pestering over the anguish of print folks. Flesh
and blood suffering goes without a groan of sympathy from the on-lookers,
while novel characters wade to the neck in compassion. I've pondered on
that a whole lot, seem' a heap of indifference to every-day calamity, and
the way I assay it is like this: print folks has terrible fanciful layouts
given to their griefs and worriments by the authors of their being. The
trimmings to their troubles is mighty attractive. Don't you reckon I'd be
willin' to have a spell of trouble if I had a sweeping black velvet dress
to do it in? Yes, indeed, I'd be willin' to turn a few of them shades of
anguish, 'gray's ashes,' 'pale as death,' and so on, if they'd give me the
dress novel ladies seems to have for them special occasions."

"But you used to like novels, you know you did, Mrs. Yellett," observed
Judith Rodney.

"Yes, I didn't always entertain these views concernin' romance. You
wouldn't believe it, but there was a time when I just nacherally went
careerin' round enveloped in fantasies. I was young then--just about the
time I married paw. Every novel that was read to me, I mean that I
read"--Mrs. Yellett blushed a deep copper color through her many coats of
tan--"convinced me that I was the heroine thereof. And, nacherally, I
turned over to paw the feachers and characteristics of the hero in said
book I happened to be enjoyin' at the time. Paw never knew it, but
sometimes he was a dook, and it was plumb hard work. Just about as hard as
ropin' a mountain-lion an' sayin', 'remember, you are a sheep from this
time henceforth, and trim your action accordin'.' I'd say to paw, 'Let's
walk together in the gloaming, here in this deserted garden'; and paw
would say, 'Name o' Gawd, woman, have you lost your mind? It's plumb three
hundred and fifty miles to the Tivoli beer-garden in Cheyenne, and it
ain't deserted, either!'

"Then I'd wring my hands in anguish, same as the Lady Mary, an' paw would
declare I was locoed. He seemed a heap more nacheral when I pretended he
was 'Black Ranger, the Pirate