anny harboring a particle of dust.
It was twilight when she finished, and "time to turn to an' get the
dinner."

Cora and Sammy had long since returned from school. Sammy had gone out
again to play, and had just come back to find his mother taking her
bread-pans from the oven. She regarded them with doleful gaze.

"I fairly broke my own record this time for a bum bread-maker!" she
muttered beneath her breath. "This batch is the worst yet."

"Say--mother!" said Sammy.

"Well?"

"Say, mother, may I have a slice of bread? I'm awfully hungry."

"Shoor you may! This here's just fresh from the oven, an' it has
currants in it."

"Say, mother, a feller I play with, Joe Eagan, _his_ mother's hands
ain't clean. Would you think he'd like to eat the bread she makes?"

"Can she make _good_ bread?"

"I dunno. She give me a piece oncet, but I couldn't eat it, 'count o'
seein' her fingers. I'm glad your hands are so clean, mother. Say, this
bread tastes awful good!"

Martha chuckled. "Well, I'm glad you like it. It might be worse, if I do
say it! Only," she added to herself, "it'd have a tough time managin'
it."

"Say, mother, may I have another slice with butter on, an' sugar
sprinkled on top, like this is, to give it to Joe Eagan? He's
downstairs. I want to show him how _my_ mother can make the boss bread!"

"Certainly," said Martha heartily. "By all means, give Joe Eagan a
slice. I like to see you thoughtful an' generous, my son. Willin' to
share your good things with your friends," and as Sammy bounded out,
clutching his treasures, she winked solemnly across at her husband, who
had just re-entered.

"Now do you know what'll happen?" she inquired. "Sammy'll always have
the notion I make the best bread ever. An' when he grows up an' marries,
if his wife is a chef-cook straight out of the toniest kitchen in town,
at fifty dollars a month, he'll tell her she ain't a patch on me. An'
he'll say to her: 'Susan, or whatever-her-name-is, them biscuits is all
right in their way, but I wisht I had a mouthful o' bread like mother
used to make.' An' the poor creature'll wear the life out o' her, tryin'
to please'm, an' reach my top-notch, an' never succeed, an' all the
time--Say, Sammy, gather up the rest o' the stuff, like a good fella,
an' shove it onto the dumb-waiter, so's it can go down with the
sw--There's the whistle now! That's him callin' for the garbage."

CHAPTER XIII

"Hullo, Martha!" said Radcliffe.

M