e he ever come
in contract with, has such a hate on'm. I wouldn't 'a' believed it,
unless I'd 'a' had it from off of your own lips. But there's no use
tryin' to argue such things. Taste is different. What pleases one,
pizens another. In the mean time--an' it _is_ a mean time for you, you
poor, wore-out child--I've some things here, hot an' tasty, that'll
encourage your stummick, no matter how it's turned on some other things.
As I says to Sammy, it's a poor stummick won't warm its own bit, but all
the same, there's times when somethin' steamin' does your heart as much
good as it does your stummick, which, the two o' them bein' such near
neighbors, no wonder we get 'em mixed up sometimes, an' think the one is
starved when it's only the other."

CHAPTER XII

It proved altogether easier for Martha, now Francie was at home again.

"You see, I can tend her an' sandwich in some work besides," Mrs.
Slawson explained cheerfully. "An' Ma's a whizz at settin' by bedsides
helpin' patients get up their appetites. Says she, 'Now drink this nice
glass o' egg-nog, Francie, me child,' she says. 'An' if you'll drink it,
I'll take one just like it meself.' An' true for you, she does. The
goodness o' Ma is astonishin'."

Then one day Sam Slawson came home with a tragic face.

"I've lost my job, Martha!" he stated baldly.

For a moment his wife stood silent under the blow, and all it entailed.
Then, with an almost imperceptible squaring of her broad shoulders, she
braced herself to meet it, as she herself would say, like a soldier.
"Well, it's kinder hard on _you_, lad," she answered. "But there's no
use grievin'. If it had to happen, it couldn't 'a' happened at a better
time, for you bein' home, an' able to look after Francie, will give me a
chance to go out reg'lar to my work again. An' before you know it,
Francie, she'll be running about as good as new, an' you'll have
another job, an' we'll be on the top o' the wave. Here's Miss Claire,
bless her, payin' me seven dollars a week board, which she doesn't eat
no more than a bird, an' Sammy singin' in the surplus choir, an' gettin'
fifty cents a week for it, an' extra for funer'ls (it'd take your time
to hear'm lamentin' because business ain't brisker in the funer'l
line!). Why, _we_ ain't no call to be discouraged. You can take it from
me, Sammy Slawson, when things seem to be kinder shuttin' down on ye,
an' gettin' black-like, same's they lately been doin' on us, that ain't