is looking now, Mrs. Aldrich. She
looks like as if she don't have no life left in her hardly, Mrs.
Aldrich, she just drags around and looks so dirty and after all the
pains I always took to teach her and to keep her nice in her ways and
looking. It don't do no good to them, for them girls to get married
Mrs. Aldrich, they are much better when they only know it, to stay in
a good place when they got it, and keep on regular with their working.
I don't like it the way Lena looks now Mrs. Aldrich. I wish I knew
some way to help that poor Lena, Mrs. Aldrich, but she she is a bad
old woman, that old Mrs. Kreder, Herman's mother. I speak to Mrs.
Haydon real soon, Mrs. Aldrich, I see what we can do now to help that
poor Lena."

These were really bad days for poor Lena. Herman always was real
good to her and now he even sometimes tried to stop his mother from
scolding Lena. "She ain't well now mama, you let her be now you hear
me. You tell me what it is you want she should be doing, I tell her. I
see she does it right just the way you want it mama. You let be, I say
now mama, with that always scolding Lena. You let be, I say now, you
wait till she is feeling better." Herman was getting really strong
to struggle, for he could see that Lena with that baby working hard
inside her, really could not stand it any longer with his mother and
the awful ways she always scolded.

It was a new feeling Herman now had inside him that made him feel he
was strong to make a struggle. It was new for Herman Kreder really to
be wanting something, but Herman wanted strongly now to be a father,
and he wanted badly that his baby should be a boy and healthy, Herman
never had cared really very much about his father and his mother,
though always, all his life, he had done everything just as they
wanted, and he had never really cared much about his wife, Lena,
though he always had been very good to her, and had always tried to
keep his mother off her, with the awful way she always scolded, but to
be really a father of a little baby, that feeling took hold of Herman
very deeply. He was almost ready, so as to save his baby from all
trouble, to really make a strong struggle with his mother and with his
father, too, if he would not help him to control his mother.

Sometimes Herman even went to Mrs. Haydon to talk all this trouble
over. They decided then together, it was better to wait there all four
together for the baby, and Herman could make Mrs. Kreder