s. Ericson shrugged her massive shoulders. "Olaf don't seem to have
much luck, when it comes to wives. The first one was meek enough, but
she was always ailing. And this one has her own way. He says if he
quarreled with her she'd go back to her father, and then he'd lose the
Bohemian vote. There are a great many Bohunks in this district. But when
you find a man under his wife's thumb you can always be sure there's a
soft spot in him somewhere."

Nils thought of his own father, and smiled. "She brought him a good deal
of money, didn't she, besides the Bohemian vote?"

Mrs. Ericson sniffed. "Well, she has a fair half section in her own
name, but I can't see as that does Olaf much good. She will have a good
deal of property some day, if old Vavrika don't marry again. But I don't
consider a saloonkeeper's money as good as other people's money."

Nils laughed outright. "Come, Mother, don't let your prejudices carry
you that far. Money's money. Old Vavrika's a mighty decent sort of
saloonkeeper. Nothing rowdy about him."

Mrs. Ericson spoke up angrily. "Oh, I know you always stood up for them!
But hanging around there when you were a boy never did you any good,
Nils, nor any of the other boys who went there. There weren't so many
after her when she married Olaf, let me tell you. She knew enough to
grab her chance."

Nils settled back in his seat. "Of course I liked to go there, Mother,
and you were always cross about it. You never took the trouble to find
out that it was the one jolly house in this country for a boy to go to.
All the rest of you were working yourselves to death, and the houses
were mostly a mess, full of babies and washing and flies. Oh, it was all
right--I understand that; but you are young only once, and I happened
to be young then. Now, Vavrika's was always jolly. He played the violin,
and I used to take my flute, and Clara played the piano, and
Johanna used to sing Bohemian songs. She always had a big supper for
us--herrings and pickles and poppy-seed bread, and lots of cake and
preserves. Old Joe had been in the army in the old country, and he could
tell lots of good stories. I can see him cutting bread, at the head of
the table, now. I don't know what I'd have done when I was a kid if it
hadn't been for the Vavrikas, really."

"And all the time he was taking money that other people had worked hard
in the fields for," Mrs. Ericson observed.

"So do the circuses, Mother, and they're a good thing. P