It was late that night, and Martha and her husband were still engaged in whispered conference.
"Ma's mind's like a train," Mrs. Slawson observed at length, "when it's oncet _made up_, you can take it or leave it, but _it's_ goin' its way, weather or no. There's no use strivin' with her, Sam. We're bound to give in, in the end, an' we may as well do it firstoff, an' save our faces. What's the good kickin' against the bricks?"
"But for her to use your hard-earned money just to gratify a whim!" Sam fairly groaned.
"Well, wasn't that what _I_ was goin' to use it for? An' after all, she's old. Let her have her bit o' fun. God knows I don't begrutch it to her. She don't get much joy outa her life."
A wonderful look irradiated Martha's face. "I have you, Sam," she said in a voice that matched the look. An instant, and both were gone. Martha was her old self again. "An' I've the childern--an' the hens--an' the--_cow_!"
"Ma acts like a child sometimes, and a bad child at that."
"Certaintly she does. I sometimes think it's a kinda pity a body can't lick her good, an' put her to bed 'to await the results of her injuries,' as the papers says. But what's the use o' growin' old, if your white hairs don't bring you the respec' your black ones didn't? No, we gotta bear with Ma, Sam, an' it's better grin than groan, while we're doin' it."
So, when the appointed day arrived, it was Ma, not Martha, who accompanied Sam to New York on his "wedding-tour."
"My! I bet it's hot on the train!" exclaimed Cora, appearing after a prolonged absence, seating herself on the doorstep, from which the late afternoon sun had just departed, fanning her flushed face with her hat.
For the first time during the busy day, Martha paused long enough to listen.
"I guess it's a hunderd in the shade," she observed. "But then, o' course, you don't have to stay in the shade, less you wanta."
Literal Cora, taking her seriously, came in out of the shade. "Mother, do you know something?"
Martha considered. "Well, when I was your age, I thought I did. But now, the only thing I know, is, I _don't_."
Cora pursed her lips. "Do you know, I think Dr. Ballard likes Miss Crewe a lot."
"Well, the other day, I saw'm walkin' together down Cherry Lane. An' to-day I saw'm again. An' I think it looks awful loverish to be walkin' in Cherry Lane, where the trees branch over so, an' it's all quiet, an' green, an' lonesome, an' nobody hardly ever comes, exceptin'----"