'll wring his little gallivantin'
neck if he don't stop roosting in that bush!"

"Good night, children; take good care of the cars."

"Good night, mamma...papa."

The gate clicked shut, and the two figures moved into the mist of
growing gloom; over their heads the trees met and formed across the
brick sidewalk a roof as softly dark as the ceiling of a church. Birds
chirped.

Mrs. Binswanger leaned her wide, uncorseted figure against a pillar and
watched them until a curve in the avenue cut her view, then she dragged
a low wicker rocker across the veranda.

"We can sit out on the porch a while yet, Julius. Not like midsummer it
is for your rheumatism."

"Ya, ya. My slippers, Becky."

"Here."

"Ya, ya."

"Look across the yard, will you, Julius. The Schlossmans are still at
the supper-table. Fruit gelatin they got. I seen it cooling on the
fence. We got new apples on the side-yard tree, you wouldn't believe,
Julius. To-morrow I make pies."

"Ya, ya."

The light tulle of early evening hung like a veil, and through it the
sad fragrance of burning leaves, which is autumn's incense, drifted from
an adjoining lawn.

"'Sh-h-h-h, chickey--sh-h-h-h! Back in the yard I can't keep that
rooster, Julius. And to-day for thirty cents I had that paling in the
garden fence fixed, too. Honest, to keep a yard like ours going is an
expense all the time. People in the city without yards is lucky."

"In all Newton there ain't one like ours. Look, Becky, at that
white-rose bush flowering so late just like she was a bride."

"When Izzy was home always, we didn't have the expense of weeding."

"Now when he comes home all he does is change neckties and make
trouble."

"_Ach_, my moon vines! Don't get your chair so close, Julius. Look how
those white flowers open right in your face. One by one like big stars
coming out."

"M-m-m-m and smell, Becky, how good!"

"Here, lemme pull them heavy shoes off for you, papa. Listen, there goes
that oriole up in the cherry-tree again. Listen to the thrills he's got
in him. Pull, Julius; I ain't no derrick!"

"Ah-h-h, how good it feels to get 'em off! Now light my pipe, Becky.
Always when you light it, better it tastes. Hold--there--make out of
your hand a cup--there--pu-pu-pu--there! Now sit down by me, Becky!"

"Move over."

"_Ach_, Becky, when we got our little home like this, with a yard so
smooth as my hand, where we don't need shoes or collars, and with our
own fruit right und