rry your
pa. She could 'a' had Jim Stokes, the groceryman, or Lodge, the milkman,
or her choice of three railroad men, all of 'em doing well, and ready to
let her walk over 'em; but she would have your pa, the drunken,
good-for-nothing, slippery dude. The only thing I'm surprised at was that
he ever married her. I never expected it. I s'posed they'd run off, and
he'd leave her when he got tired of her; but it seems he stuck to her.
It's the only good thing he ever done, and I'm not sure but she'd 'a' been
better off ef he hadn't 'a' done that."

"Grandmother!" Elizabeth's face blazed.

"Yes, _gran_'mother!" snapped Mrs. Brady. "It's all true, and you might's
well face it. He met her in church. She used to go reg'lar. Some boys used
to come and set in the back seat behind the girls, and then go home with
them. They was all nice enough boys 'cept him. I never had a bit a use fer
him. He belonged to the swells and the stuck-ups; and he knowed it, and
presumed upon it. He jest thought he could wind Bessie round his finger,
and he did. If he said, 'Go,' she went, no matter what I'd do. So, when
his ma found it out, she was hoppin' mad. She jest came driving round here
to me house, and presumed to talk to me. She said Bessie was a designing
snip, and a bad girl, and a whole lot of things. Said she was leading her
son astray, and would come to no good end, and a whole lot of stuff; and
told me to look after her. It wasn't so. Bess got John Bailey to quit
smoking fer a whole week at a time, and he said if she'd marry him he'd
quit drinking too. His ma couldn't 'a' got him to promise that. She
wouldn't even believe he got drunk. I told her a few things about her
precious son, but she curled her fine, aristocratic lip up, and said,
'Gentlemen never get drunk.' Humph! Gentlemen! That's all she knowed about
it. He got drunk all right, and stayed drunk, too. So after that, when I
tried to keep Bess at home, she slipped away one night; said she was going
to church; and she did too; went to the minister's study in a strange
church, and got married, her and John; and then they up and off West.
John, he'd sold his watch and his fine diamond stud his ma had give him;
and he borrowed some money from some friends of his father's, and he off
with three hundred dollars and Bess; and that's all I ever saw more of me
Bessie."

The poor woman sat down in her chair, and wept into her apron regardless
for once of the soap-suds that rolled down