"Left? And he said he would stay till spring! Didn"t he, Jenny?"

"I don"t remember--" the girl weakly gasped, but her mother did not heed her in her mounting wrath.

"A great preacher _he"ll_ make. What"d he say he left for?"

"He didn"t say. Will you let me up-stairs?"

"No, I won"t, till you tell me. You know well enough, between you."

"Yes, I do know," Briggs answered, savagely. "He left because he was tired of eating sole-leather for steak, and fire-salt pork, and tar for mola.s.ses, and b.u.t.ter strong enough to make your nose curl, and drinking burnt-rye slops for coffee and tea-grounds for tea. And so am I, and so are all of us, and--and-- Will you let me go up-stairs now, Mrs. Betterson?"

His voice had risen, not so high but that another voice from the parlor could prevail over it: a false, silly, girl voice, with the twitter of piano-keys as from hands swept over the whole board to help drown the noise of the quarrel in the hall. "Oh yes, I"ll sing it again, Mr. Saunders, if you sa-a-a-y."

Then this voice lifted itself in a silly song, and a silence followed the voices in the hall, except for the landlady"s saying, brokenly: "Well, all right, Mr. Briggs. You can go up to your room for all me.

I"ve tried to be a mother to you boys, but if _this_ is what I get for it!"

The two at the threshold of Briggs"s room retreated within, as he bounded furiously upon them and slammed the door after him. It started open again, from the chronic defect of the catch, but he did not care.

"Well, Briggs, I hope you feel better now," Blakeley began. "You certainly told her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing _but_ the truth. But I wonder you had the heart to do it before that sick girl."

"I _didn"t_ have the heart," Briggs shouted. "But I had the courage, and if you say one word more, Blakeley, I"ll throw you out of the room. I"m going to leave! _My_ board"s paid if yours isn"t."

He went wildly about, catching things down here and there from nails and out of drawers. The tears stood in his eyes. But suddenly he stopped and listened to the sounds from below--the sound of the silly singing in the parlor, and the sound of sobbing in the dining-room, and the sound of vain entreating between the sobs.

"Oh, I don"t suppose I"m fit to keep a boarding-house. I never was a good manager; and everybody imposes on me, and everything is so dear, and I don"t know what"s good from what"s bad. Your poor father used to look after all that."

"Well, don"t you cry, now, mother! It"ll all come right, you"ll see.

I"m getting so I can go and do the marketing now; and if Minervy would only help a little--"

"No, no!" the mother"s voice came anxiously up. "We can get along without her; we always have. I know he likes her, and I want to give her every chance. _We_ can get along. If she was on"y married, once, we could all live--" A note of self-comforting gradually stole into the mother"s voice, and the sound of a nose violently blown seemed to note a period in her suffering.

"Oh, mother, I wish I was well!" The girl"s voice came with a burst of wild lamenting.

""Sh, "sh, deary!" her mother entreated. "He"ll _hear_ you, and then--"

""Hazel Dell"?" the silly voice came from the parlor, with a sound of fright in it. "I can sing it without the music." The piano keys twittered the prelude and the voice sang:

"In the Hazel Dell my Nelly"s sleeping, Nelly loved so long!"

Wallace went forward and shut the door. "It"s a shame to overhear them! What are you going to do, you fellows?"

"I"m going to stay," Briggs said, "if it kills me. At least I will till Minervy"s married. _I_ don"t care what the grub"s like. I can always get a bite at the restaurant."

"If anybody will pay up my back board, I"ll stay, too," Blakeley followed. "I should like to make a virtue of it, and, as things stand, I can"t."

"All right," Wallace said, and he went out and down the stairs. Then from the dining-room below his heavy voice offering encouragement came up, in terms which the others could not make out.

"I"ll bet he"s making her another advance," Blakeley whispered, as if he might be overheard by Wallace.

"I wish _I_ could have made to do it," Briggs whispered back. "I feel as mean as pursley. Would you like to kick me?"

"I don"t see how that would do any good. I may want to borrow money of you, and you can"t ask a loan from a man you"ve kicked. Besides, I think what you said may do her good."

IX

BREAKFAST IS MY BEST MEAL

I

Breakfast is my best meal, and I reckon it"s always been Ever since I was old enough to know what breakfast could mean.

I mind when we lived in the cabin out on the Illinoy, Where father had took up a quarter-section when I was a boy, I used to go for the cows as soon as it was light; And when I started back home, before I come in sight, I come in _smell_ of the cabin, where mother was frying the ham, And boiling the coffee, that reached through the air like a mile o" ba"m, "N" I bet you I didn"t wait to see what it was that the dog Thought he"d got under the stump or inside o" the hollow log!

But I made the old cows canter till their hoof-joints cracked--you know That dry, funny kind of a noise that the cows make when they go-- And I never stopped to wash when I got to the cabin door; I pulled up my chair and e"t like I never had e"t before.

And mother she set there and watched me eat, and eat, and eat, Like as if she couldn"t give her old eyes enough of the treat; And she split the shortened biscuit, and spread the b.u.t.ter between, And let it lay there and melt, and soak and soak itself in; And she piled up my plate with potato and ham and eggs, Till I couldn"t hold any more, or hardly stand on my legs; And she filled me up with coffee that would float an iron wedge, And never give way a mite, or spill a drop at the edge.

II

What? Well, yes, this is good coffee, too. If they don"t know much, They do know how to make coffee, I _will_ say that for these Dutch.

But my--oh, my! It ain"t the kind of coffee my mother made, And the coffee my wife used to make would throw it clear in the shade; And the brand of sugar-cured, canvased ham that she always used-- Well, this Westphalia stuff would simply have made her amused!

That so, heigh? I saw that you was United States as soon As ever I heard you talk; I reckon I know the tune!

Pick it out anywhere; and _you_ understand how I feel About these here foreign breakfasts: breakfast is my best meal.

III

My! but my wife was a cook; and the breakfasts she used to get The first years we was married, I can smell "em and taste "em yet: Corn cake light as a feather, and buckwheat thin as lace And crisp as cracklin"; and steak that you couldn"t have the face To compare any steak over here to; and chicken fried Maryland style--I couldn"t get through the bill if I tried.

And then, her waffles! My! She"d kind of slip in a few Between the ham and the chicken--you know how women"ll do-- For a sort of little surprise, and, if I was running light, To take my fancy and give an edge to my appet.i.te.

Done it all herself as long as we was poor, and I tell _you_ _She_ liked to see me eat as well as mother used to do; I reckon she went ahead of mother some, if the truth was known, And everything she touched she give a taste of her own.

IV

_She_ was a cook, I can tell you! And after we got ahead, And she could "a" had a girl to do the cookin" instead, I had the greatest time to get Momma to leave the work; She said it made her feel like a mis"able sneak and shirk.

She didn"t want daughter, though, when we did begin to keep girls, To come in the kitchen and cook, and smell up her clo"es and curls; But you couldn"t have stopped the child, whatever you tried to do-- I reckon the gift of the cookin" was born in Girly, too.

Cook she would from the first, and we just had to let her alone; And after she got married, and had a house of her own, She tried to make me feel, when I come to live with her, Like it was my house, too; and I tell you she done it, sir!

She remembered that breakfast was my best meal, and she tried To have all I used to have, and a good deal more beside; Grape-fruit to begin with, or melons or peaches, at least-- Husband"s business took him there, and they had went to live East-- Then a Spanish macker"l, or a soft-sh.e.l.l crab on toast, Or a broiled live lobster! Well, sir, I don"t want to seem to boast, But I don"t believe you could have got in the whole of New York Any such an oyster fry or sausage of country pork.

V

Well, I don"t know what-all it means; I always lived just so-- Never drinked or smoked, and yet, here about two years ago, I begun to run down; I ain"t as young as I used to be; And the doctors all said Carlsbad, and I reckon this is me.

But it"s more like some one I"ve dreamt of, with all three of "em gone!

Believe in ghosts? Well, _I_ do. I _know_ there are ghosts. I"m _one_.

Maybe I mayn"t look it--I was always inclined to fat; The doctors say that"s the trouble, and very likely it"s that.

This is my little grandson, and this is the oldest one Of Girly"s girls; and for all that the whole of us said and done, She must come with grandpa when the doctors sent me off here, To see that they didn"t starve him. Ain"t that about so, my dear?