The one thing she hated in her daughter-in-law
above everything else was the way in which Clara could come it over
people. It enraged her that the affairs of her son's big, barnlike
house went on as well as they did, and she used to feel that in this
world we have to wait over-long to see the guilty punished. "Suppose
Johanna Vavrika died or got sick?" the old lady used to say to Olaf.
"Your wife wouldn't know where to look for her own dish-cloth." Olaf
only shrugged his shoulders. The fact remained that Johanna did not
die, and, although Mrs. Ericson often told her she was looking
poorly, she was never ill. She seldom left the house, and she slept
in a little room off the kitchen. No Ericson, by night or day, could
come prying about there to find fault without her knowing it. Her
one weakness was that she was an incurable talker, and she sometimes
made trouble without meaning to.

This morning Clara was tying a wine-colored ribbon about her throat
when Johanna appeared with her coffee. After putting the tray on a
sewing-table, she began to make Clara's bed, chattering the while in
Bohemian.

"Well, Olaf got off early, and the girls are baking. I'm going down
presently to make some poppy-seed bread for Olaf. He asked for prune
preserves at breakfast, and I told him I was out of them, and to
bring some prunes and honey and cloves from town."

Clara poured her coffee. "Ugh! I don't see how men can eat so much
sweet stuff. In the morning, too!"

Her aunt chuckled knowingly. "Bait a bear with honey, as we say in
the old country."

"Was he cross?" her niece asked indifferently.

"Olaf? Oh, no! He was in fine spirits. He's never cross if you know
how to take him. I never knew a man to make so little fuss about
bills. I gave him a list of things to get a yard long, and he didn't
say a word; just folded it up and put it in his pocket."

"I can well believe he didn't say a word," Clara remarked with a
shrug. "Some day he'll forget how to talk."

"Oh, but they say he's a grand speaker in the Legislature. He knows
when to keep quiet. That's why he's got such influence in politics.
The people have confidence in him." Johanna beat up a pillow and
held it under her fat chin while she slipped on the case. Her niece
laughed.

"Maybe we could make people believe we were wise, Aunty, if we held
our tongues. Why did you tell Mrs. Ericson that Norman threw me
again last Saturday and turned my foot? She's been talking to Olaf."